more VIETNAM

Since this update is so overdue, I will really condense the month I spent in Vietnam.

[Central Vietnam from the skies.]

[Aerial view of Ho Chi Minh City.]

If you are thinking of traveling to Vietnam, avoid the Lunar New Year. Everything shuts down then. It's a three-day holiday, but a lot of people take a week or even a month off for the festivities. It's like Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, and birthday all rolled into one. So if you have a lot of family in Vietnam, then it's a great time to visit, but if you don't, then expect all your travel plans to be delayed. We didn't think to take this into consideration, so a lot of our travels had to be altered or abandoned. Nevertheless, the trip was still really enjoyable.

[This is the view from my aunt's house. All the houses are skinny but tall.]

Here are some of my favorite memories:

1. Spending time with my extended family
I don't see them very often (four times since I left Vietnam in 1992 to be exact), so it's really nice to see how they've changed and grown over time. We came at a really great time for them because they were allowed to take a break from the seven-day work-week or the six-day school-week.

[My family goofing off at the family beach day.]

[Most of the family was there on the first day of the new year to wish good health to each other.]

[People line up in the neighborhood streets to watch the dragon dance.]

[Days leading up to the new year are very festive. Days during and after, not so much.]

[It's a really, really big holiday for the Vietnamese.]

[Posing with traditional new year foods.]

[My aunt got super happy because she got a red envelope (means money).]


[We spent a lot of time during the new year playing cards and the "numbers game".]

2. The history lessons
I realized before the trip that I really don't know too much about Vietnam. So this time around, I was going to change that. I visited a few museums, went to the Cu Chi Tunnels, and conversed with my family about the country (and especially about the war). I got a lot of different sides to stories, but it was interesting to hear them all nevertheless.

[Cool perspective shot on the way to the Cu Chi tunnels.]

[That's how tiny the Cu Chi tunnels are. Those VC are pretty talented.]

[Standing in the bomb shelter of the Independence Palace.]

3. Seeing an ox up close
I was born in the year of the ox, and 24 years later, it's the year of the ox again, and I was there for the new year celebrations! So it was really cool that I got to see one up really close. And sometime during my amazement with the gentle and hardworking creature, I probably irritated it, so it almost charged at me. I guess it didn't help taking countless pictures with the water buffalo from all different directions.

[We're like sisters!]

4. Shampooed
You've never had your hair washed until you've gotten it washed in Vietnam. It's not your normal lather and rinse sessions. Here, the wonderful fingers of your hairdressers massage your scalp and your face! Then, you get your face covered in thin slices of cucumber, but I only had that done once because I learned that I was allergic to cucumbers. I can still eat them just fine.

[I am pretty much an addict.]

5. The market
I really enjoy living in the heart of the Phu Nhuan Market. Everything was available within a few steps out the door. Vietnam is a very early-rising country. At 3am or 4am, some people are already getting up to set up shop for the day. By 6am, most of the community is already up and ready. Britt and I woke up really early one morning to help my aunts with the pho shop. Then we saw the making of chinese doughnuts and vermicelli. The latter was really cool because I generally don't think of my noodles coming from somewhere else other than a box or package from the supermarket.

[We weren't much help to my aunt with setting up her shop.]

[The meat market right outside our door.]

[You can pretty much get anything you need in the market.]

[My uncle's family's vermicelli noodle shop.]

[Very tiny pieces of dough transformed to beautiful Chinese doughnuts.]

At night, the main market closes, but many food stalls line the sides of the streets. My favorite Vietnamese dish, bot chien, quickly became Brittany's too. It's taro flour fried with eggs until golden and crispy on both sides, then topped with shaved papayas, fried shallots, and delicious sauce. Yeah, my mouth is drooling for it now, too.

[Droooooooooolzzzz.]

6. The Hue airport fiasco
My two cousins, Brittany and I decided to take a trip to Central Vietnam. Me, bring the frugal shopper that I am, decided to buy our tickets online because the travel agencies were all closed down over the New Year holiday. My family has never heard of such a thing, but I assured them that back in the States, I use the internet to buy everything for much, much cheaper, including my plane tickets. After spending quite a bit of time researching flights, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that the price for our return tickets were worth about a quarter of normal ticket prices. I tried searching again in a new browser to confirm the ridiculous price, but then decided it was just a glitch in the system, and bought four tickets.

On the early morning of 11 February, after enjoying ourselves in Hue and Da Nang, we packed up all our belongings and got to the airport way before our boarding time. The lines were long, the service was longer, and people were pushy. But we held our calm and waited our turn, confident that despite the slow queue, we were sure to not miss our plane. Until...they couldn't find any of our names in the system. Turns out, I had stupidly bought the tickets for 11 MARCH. No wonder the tickets were so cheap. We ended up spending the day in the Hue airport, bought new tickets, and made it home before Brittany and I had to leave Vietnam on the 13th for Thailand.

7. Da Nang
Da Nang's a really beautiful city in Central Vietnam. Sadly, it's on the verge of development, but thankfully, it's modeled after the likes of San Francisco and Wellington. We were there just in the nick of time, though, before beautiful coastlines get transformed into never-ending skyscrapers. It's the fourth largest city in Vietnam, but hopefully, it doesn't take after its sister cities in terms of the pollution and overcrowdedness.

[Da Nang has really beautiful coastlines.]

[What better way to tour the city?]

[Since we didn't get to ride a basket boat on water, we rode one on sand.]

8. The food. Oh, the food!

I know I've probably talked about this a lot, but there's nothing like getting Vietnamese food in Vietnam. Thankfully, not many people have discovered frozen foods, so most of the dishes you get are all fresh ingredients. A friend who is currently in Vietnam started a food and drink photo album, and I was inspired to do the same. However, a lot of the time, I find myself gorging down the food before remembering to take out the camera.

[Vietnam is seafood heaven. Those shrimps were the size of my hand.]


[Escargots. Not exactly a meal for the light-hearted.]


[Fermented pork (nem nuong) goes great in a rice paper wrap.]

And then there are other quirky things--good or bad--about Vietnam:

[A guy on a motorbike transporting a whole flock of dinner.]

[I thought square melons were made up in "The Simpsons".]

[Creative way of transporting your friends.]

[Bike baskets are sooooo in.]

[A resort town. But who benefits?]

[Riverside buildings. Any water activity, and they'll drown.]

[Ho Chi Minh is not the best place if you want to escape traffic and pollution.]

Sorry, ladies and chairmen, for only covering the first month of the trip. Updates and Thailand and New Zealand will come eventually.