Salut mes amis! For the past few days I’ve been in heaven. Well, a strange hybrid heaven. I have been enjoying cold pain avec beurre, reading about Vietnamese events in French and eavesdropping on countless conversations between Quebecois. Finally, years after studying the subject, my knowledge of French had been put to good use. In Asia of all places.
However, it hasn’t all been amusante…
After an interesting sleeper bus trip from Kunming to Hekou on the Chinese border, Riina and I arrived around sixish. We walked around the town until we could find a place serving food. Riina was able to find food; I just found myself getting lectured on how stupid it was that I didn’t eat meat. A word of advice to those who might want to continue trying to convince me to consume clucky, taking a whole, boiled chicken (head intact) out of a pot does not help matters.
A few hours later, we exited the country, walked across no-man’s bridge and entered Nam. Twenty minutes later after the immigration guard had looked at all our passport stamps, we arrived in the Vietnamese border city of Lao Cai.
The border city was nothing special, so we hopped in a car and headed to Bac Ha, a small ethnic minority village with an awesome Sunday market. It was pretty amazing seeing all the women wear their colorful minority outsides, but, unfortunately, the place was littered with tourists who ruined the feeling of authenticity a bit. Or, well, a lot.
The rain also didn’t help matters. I was a dumbass in flip flips, which splashed mud all up and down my pants. After the market, the group we were with stopped to tour some “authentic” ethnic village. Riina and I lasted roughly ten meters before we realized the full effect of how stupid trekking through mud with forty others was and headed back to the car.
We took a night train to Hanoi, reaching the city around 6 or so. For the two of you who haven’t figured it out by now, Vietnam was previously occupied by the French. Thus, Hanoi is very much infused with bits of French. From the large proportion of French-speaking tourists to the bread served everywhere to the architecture, it’s all elegant and beautiful.
Riina and I spent two days wandering Hanoi’s old quarter, strolling through the embassy area, and amusing ourselves in various Pagodas and Temples. Unfortunately some stupid foreign country bombed most of the authenticity out of the various touristy sites, but it was still nice to see the rebuilt One Pillar Pagoda and the Supreme Court.
The weather was chillier than we had expected (50*F/10*C), so we stayed warm by eating and drinking our way through the city. The food was much cheaper than we had been expecting. It was about two dollars for seafood dishes and less than a dollar for street food (after immense haggling because the laowai tax is steep). My favorite food was probably the Vietnamese sandwich which mommy had been urging me to try. I also enjoyed this banana dipped and then fried in some batter. While granted it wasn’t the healthiest and quite a pain to haggle down to its normal price, it was a delicious mix of crispy and creamy.
Last night we hopped on a train to Hué where we plan to spend a day or so before heading to Hoi An and eventually down to Ho Chi Mihn City. I’m excited for it to get warmer and hit the beach. The cultural experience might be nice as well.
Glad you are having a great time. I hope you are taking lots of pictures with your amazing camera. I told you those sandwiches are amazing!!! But Lys, I know you don’t eat meat but a little chicken soup?
JK…Have a great time. Love you.
Thanks for teaching me so many new things about places where I’ve never been. Keep it up. Love, Granny
Wow, this is quite an experience. Thanks for sharing. As always, I’m looking forward to the wonderful goodies you will be bringing home for all of us. Btw, we are covered in over a foot of snow. While it’s very pretty, it’s enough already.