my personal timeline

Breakfast:
Decided to sleepin (sort of, till 7:30) and went for the hotel breakfast with parents. It deserves a special mention because it was ridiculously good. A buffet with pastries, fruits, spreads, cereals, ham and cheeses and salami, juices, milks,a hot buffet (bacon, sausage, hash risks). And on too of that you could order a few specialties – Korean Kim chi, eggs, or Vietnamese soup which we know is pho but was called just soup.
The soup was a. M. A. Z I. N. g. Really. It was the quintessential example of what pho is. But more importantly it came with this paste that before I only tried as part of “crack noodles” that we used to have all the time as students. (after asking them to write it down – it’s ground up soya beans. Not soya sauce tough. Weird. )

Tour guide:
For day 2 we had hired a tour guide – my parents already had him during their Mekong delta part of the trip. A young student, 24 years old, looks 35. Apparently he asked dad my age and even he commented in the visual age difference. It’s insane. I guess that’s what beeping raised in a developing country does….

Ricksha:
The tour started off awesome! we all got got a ricksha (bike with a thing in front – why does it bother me in Toronto but looks and feels so natural here?) – and had a small tour of nearby big streets and important areas, including the intersection where the monk burned himself in order to get attention from the international press for the Vietnamese struggled. The monument is superbly elegant and appropriate (no eternal flame), and while looking st it a huge butterfly landed right in front of us. It felt very symbolic.
It was interesting to be driven around in a method of transport so fragile in an place where the traffic is so crazy. At least twice I think we took a street and a roundabout just so that we get the kick of being in crazy rush hour traffic in a ricksha.

Markets:
They dropped us off at the flower market which was fun (mostly because everything is pretty but you can’t buy anything because what are you going to do with flowers? so no one pushes at you), and then the wholesale market, which was fascinating – 100s of all the things. We bought a few souvenirs. (not of the “here are 200 toothbrushes, you never have to buy one again” type although the idea crossed my mind and that would be the place to do it). after that we were pretty tired (and it was after 1) so we went to lunch.

Lunch:
In a word: epic. A restaurant where all Vietnamese cuisines are represented by s little stall that’s cooking fresh food, but not buffet style – you can walk around and look at how they are cooking – but you order from a menu. Each stall seemed to collect notes – maye they compete for who has most?
He ordered for us, everything in the stalls looked crazy delicious and everything tht we got was crazy delicious. Many kinds of rolls, many kinds of do it yourself rolls, soups, amazingness.

In case it’s not clear I am I love with Vietnamese food. Seriously.
And i still haven’t got to try fried banana which I KNOW will be amazing and I will just never leave.

Shopping:
So options were shopping or museums and mom and I just couldn’t work up appetite for war museums. And we had big hopes of shopping based on parents experience with kuala lumpur, and mine in HK. Unfortunately it was all a big disappointment – we went to two places (aided by our helpful hired van that picked us up in a prearranged time and dropped us off in a prearranged area – things like “2km down this street past those two roundabouts” are impossible to explain using gestures and broken English, so that worked out very well). I got a blouse and a jacket, neither amazing(good and necessary but … Not amazing) and really a lot of effort to find even those two.
Highlights:
– Zara basic jacket for $400? Like what. It’s $50 in store
– laboutin knock offs for $400. Real ones are $600. Again what? (knock off should be $50-150… Not more!)
– lots of brand label knock offs but labels like mango, h&m, forever 21, banana republic – random and weird
– not many local boutique stores (let it be said my things are from local stores)

Coffee shop:
Exhausted and with my jet lag kicking in we went to s dry clean and posh coffee store where they even had wifi (I checked in!). After a coffee and a break for chat we felt MUCH better and went home earlier of our 5pm deadline (dadline) and decided to go for a massage instead of waiting.

Massage:
The evening wrapped up well. Massage fr an hour (delightful for me, too weak for mom, but I realllllly enjoyed it), mani for me and pedicure for mom.. Total is $30 pp. ugh. This developing country cost is really easy to get acclimatized to for things that I cinder major spoilers in Canada.
We got home kind of late – 7pm and dad was worried. After a bottle of wine I started passing out and parents decided to go to dinner.

So the day wrapped up with me having a peaceful read with my last sips of wine before totally falling sleep by 10.

Arrival to Vietnam was a two step process – first I landed in Hanoi, but had to catch a flight to Ho chi Minh right away. I slept most of the way to Hanoi with no issues – despite a happy/crying/sleeping/tossing things at me/stealing my cutlery/grinning at me 9 month old baby who was in the little bassinet right in front if me (exit row). I knowingly signed up for that because I wanted a window seat and that was the last one left. Thankfully noise canceling headphones plus the ability to sleep on planes (nt gonna say like a baby, haha) meant that I slept for 7-8 hours out of the 11.5 hour flight. So upon landing I was very lucid and figured out all the checkin steps ( and passed immigration with zero words spoken).

A nice girl from “the agency” (the travel agency dad booked, but I like ,y way more – way more ominous!) met me at landing with a sign of my name, a first for me.
A shirt bus (large van/bud which was all mine) ride later I met parents in the hotel. After figuring out that our day is essentially free, we came up with a nice plan. I went to the gym (I swear I’m not crazy, movement sounded REALLY good after all those planes!) and swimming pool, and then we all headed for lunch and shopping in city center. Lunch was simple but good in an eatery that was fast food style but still tasty. Shopping was disappointing – central places are too commercialized (big brands tht are the same), and the market was too cheap (shitty quality tourist tshirts). Around 5pm (after 3 hours of walking!) I started fading so I headed to hotel (taxi ride: $1.50 USD) for a nap.

After reading/falling asleep I woke up at 7, ready for more exploring. This being Christmas eve the city was ready for celebrations, which is crazy – they don’t get 25th off.
Sidebar: everyone in Vietnam are super friendly and smiley. Random people wave at me when I smile out of a taxi window. And generally the atmosphere is really safe and calm, despite huge amounts of poverty and dirt – normal levels for Asia- cant say I had culture shock…

However, the massive amounts of scooters are a mandatory mention. And crazy traffic! Omg the traffic is ridiculous. Like its totally normal to head in exactly opposite direction when you want to make a right turn out of a left hand lane, crossing all the lanes of traffic and ending up facing into cars. Somehow everyone works it out, although there is a LOT of honking it’s considered normal. Crossing the street with this in mind is fun. There is never a full stop. You just dive in and weave around scooters while going forward and making sure to have reasonable eye contact with people who are driving AT you but are swerving around you in last moment because it’s normal. It’s like a roller coaster ride and I think I could do that for fun for st least a day. Not sure how much death risk there really is but feels significant.

Anyway but that’s not fear of being kidnapped or robbed. We went straight into the ridiculously busy city center which became pedestrian for Xmas eve. It was insanely busy, shoulders to shoulder people for at least an hour. I got photos and enjoyed it all immensely. After walking for about an hour we headed back while pricing out spa services (cheap! $25 for an hour Swedish massage). With an early day next day we got some snacks, wine and went home to drink, talk and relax. I manged to stay awake until 12 with my book.