Day 0 (12/24/17)
Our first ever 12+ hour flight went pretty well! Even in steerage! MSP --> Tokyo. We left at 10am so didn't really sleep much. We probably crossed paths with Santa at some point while flying over the North Pole. Upon arrival at Haneda we did the obvious thing and got sushi, because if there's one place in the world to eat airport sushi...it's Japan! To note: compression socks are key even if they look pretty geriatric (thanks Mom). Otherwise it's cankle city! Our second flight was 6 hours and we mostly slept. After clearing customs with no problems (yay our eVisas worked!) we had some trouble finding transportation to the city...there are a lot of shady taxis in Hanoi so we were advised to take a minibus but it was really hard to find. Made it to the hotel (at this point it's after 10pm the next day) and were greeted with a refreshing coconut to drink. Sooooo good after 20+ hours of travel. Merry Christmas!!
Day 1: None of us slept super well with the jet lag so we got up bright and early and walked to find some coffee. We were a bit skeptical as Ryan chose a hole in the wall coffee shop, but the lady, who has pictures of her younger self hung in the cafe, gave us our coffees and they we're delicious! When you order coffee...you get green tea as a side. Obviously. And of course Allison got green tea spilled on her. We heard Vietnamese coffee was good, which has the famous weasel coffee. If you haven't heard, weasels eat coffee beans, and poop them out to add extra flavor. Not joking. Not sure if this was the coffee we had but it was delicious. It is naturally sweeter and richer...then if you're going to drink it like a local you add a ton of sweetened condensed milk (healthy!) We also got our first language lesson and learned how to say thank you in vietnamese. Read below for more stories about that.
Our first stop after coffee was the Hanoi Hilton which we learned that American POWs during the Vietnam war had so much fun in prison. They played volleyball and cooked food and celebrated holidays..... Will investigate further upon return to US. The conditions for the Vietnamese normal prisoners were pretty horrific. We trekked further and played frogger at every intersection to go to the Women's Museum. There we learned about different tribes, one of which laquers their teeth to make them look black. We also tried carrying vegetables on our backs which is something we saw a lot of women doing while walking around. We can't imagine doing that well into our sixties or seventies.
LUNCH OMG OMG OMG we went to the restaurant that my hero Anthony Bourdain took my other hero President Obama to. There were only 4 real items on the menu, or you could have the Obama combo which includes Bun Cha which is a broth soup with pork pieces and pork sausage patties that you dip rice noodles in. It was essentially a broth of pork fat which the noodles cut and it was bomb.com. This was also served with monster seafood egg rolls (also dip in soup) and a Ha Noi beer as part of the combo. It was sooooo good, sadly to avoid diseases we avoided the fresh lettuce, mint, garlic, and hot chiles which we all agreed would have taken it to the next level. Food heaven.
After lunch we continued our route around the city to the Temple of Literature. Along the way we stopped to look at some $12 authentic Ray bans, got a craft beer at a bar/brewery that would have fit right in in the US, and continued to take our lives in our hands at every intersection. Traffic in Hanoi is utter chaos. And we hadn't even hit rush hour yet...more to come on that.
The Temple of Literature was a park area with some temples and statues and fountains which recognized Confucious and the importance of education. Scholars studied here. Ryan took art pics. Sorry "artistic works of art" and that's an exact quote. After the TOL we got to experience rush hour! At one crossing we stood there through at least 3 or 4 cycles of the lights turning (mind you lights don't really mean anything) before we went for it. The Vietnamese don't follow the laws of the road whatsoever. Plus there are more scooters than you could think existed. Somehow lived and didn't lose anyone! The traffic and scooters are really a sight to see.
After returning to the hotel we headed back out to a water puppet show. We figured we'd go early to get a beer on the way but failed, we were definitely in the clothing district with stalls selling North Face, Nike, etc. Unsure if it's real or fake. No beer. The show was cool for about 3 minutes - there were live musicians and then the pupeteers were waist deep in the water behind a partition controlling the puppets. Dragons were the best puppets. The theater was pretty warm and dark and jet lag caught up with all of us...we thought the security guard was going to slap us on the back of the head for falling asleep.
After the show we tried to not go to bed to kick the jet lag and went out for a drink. The bar we ended up at was not at all what you would have expected in Hanoi which was otherwise very poor...it had fancy cocktails and an Alchemist theme and felt like it belonged in NYC. On the way we passed some women cleaning fish in the sidewalk and one had gotten away and was squirming around and Ryan almost stepped on it! Other notes: Asked 47 different people how to say thank you and pretty sure got 47 answers. But did learn that if you say the word for thank you with a slightly different look in your eyes, it means shut up. Avoiding thank you from now on. Day 2-3: Ha Long Bay!! Getting to Ha Long Bay was the worst driving experience of our lives to date. Drivers in Vietnam do not follow any traffic laws, often driving on the wrong side of the road, extremely fast, even when there are oncoming semi trucks. Allegedly they are often drunk as well. Our driver took this to the next level, having to pass all of the other vans who are driving to Ha Long Bay from Hanoi (roughly 4 hours, also these other drivers follow no rules either but ours was just that much worse.) Of course we arrived super early and had to sit around waiting to embark. I have never been happier to get out of a vehicle. Ever. We arrived to the ship early (......) We pulled into the pier/resort area where all of the ships depart and it's crazy, there were probably 50 other similar ships departing for similar cruises to ours (shout out to the Hanoi Marvellous Hotel for helping us pick and book a good one!) All of the ships are "Chinese Junk" style ships. Was happy to find out that junk doesn't mean the same as in English. Our ship was definitely not junk. We settled into our cabins and then to lunch as we embarked on our voyage around the islands of Ha Long Bay. Throughout the next 24 hours we witnessed the most stunning scenery imaginable. It wasn't sunny but something about the clouds and fog made the "bay of the descending dragon" even more mystical. The cruise had lots of activities planned, we had 3 excursions to a cave, a pearl farm and kayaking, and a hike up one of the islands to a fantastic view. There was a swimming option too but since it was low 60s...nah. There was also a cooking demonstration Andie multiple happy hours on board. Jet lag got the best of us again and we missed the late night squid fishing. Next time!
Day 3.5: Bia Hoi
Back to Hanoi (the driver was slightly better this time, didn't go head on towards quite as many semi trucks) we were on a mission for Bia Hoi. Bia Hoi is "fresh beer". This beer is delivered in a keg daily to bars/restaurants (side note that term is used loosely as a restaurant can consist of a spot on the sidewalk where a woman is cooking some broth and noodles in a pot with patrons sitting at 3 kids sized blue plastic stools). It is sold by the glass at a dirt cheap 5,000 dong which is roughly $0.23. The beer goes bad after a day and once the keg is tapped it's done for the day. On day 1 we had passed a few of these places filled with locals drinking after work. But we had read about Bia Hoi corner with a bunch of these joints so headed there. What it turned out to be was sort of a tourist trap...but an enjoyable one. There were plenty of Bia Hoi places, all empty and manned by YOUNG teenage boys heckling to get people in. Max age 13? Since they were all empty we put the task to pick the best option on Mike...he may have just picked the first one he saw. Regardless, Bia Hoi was pretty good! Like a refined yellow belly...or maybe key light. After a while the street started getting a lot more crowded, we started a trend. Watching the Vietnamese Jonas brothers trying to bring in customers was entertaining in itself. After we tapped the keg (duh) we got some dinner and went to bed....because jet lag, still. Day 4: Last day in Hanoi, had delicious breakfast at the hotel where we all grew hair on our chests by putting hot chilies in our Pho! They were HOT. After breakfast we checked out communism. The Ho Chi Minh masoleum was bigger than we thought and interesting to see in the middle of a city with so much French and Vietnamese architecture. We strolled around the city back towards our hotel, making a stop at Hoan Kiem lake but did not see the famed turtle. We also bought some Vietnamese traditional hats, they're so cute. Overall Hanoi is a crazy bustling city with the most traffic and motorbikes all of us have ever seen. Every 10 feet there's some delicious looking food being cooked on the sidewalk (delicious looking but we didn't taste any street food because of our American stomachs). And Ha Long Bay should be on everyone's bucket list. It is beyond words. Next stop: Siem Reap and the Temples of Angkor!!!!
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