11/07/13

Sat in the airport, having just had a beer, I'm not sure if it's a quiet time for the airport or what, but getting through security and immigration was easy as pie! Considering it is the country's main airport and it's a very poor country, things went ridiculously smoothly, minimal queues and there is free wifi. Now, about my journey, I fly from Phnom Penh to Hanoi in about an hour, and arrive at about 18:30. It is then up to me to get to Sarit's place. Sarit is a girl who grew up in Israel and is my couch surfing host for 2 nights. She lives in north Hanoi, by taxi it would cost 400,000 Dong (lol) which is about $20. I am taking the cheaper route, getting bus #7 into the city and then getting a taxi, or moto, or tuktuk (if they have them there) to her place. A couple of things I'm hoping for in the next 6 hours; I hope there is food on the plane. I hope the busses are running. And most of all, I hope I get there without as much hassle as I had with my couchsurfing experience in Phnom Penh. Hell, who knows, what's an adventure without a bit of risk, eh?

The in-flight food was extremely basic, just a salad bap with some kind of meat or meat substitute inside.

And I got to Sarit's place without any issues. However, I have discovered a flaw when couchsurfing to save money. There is an initial cost of getting to the place. It cost me 40,000D to get from the airport to the centre, and then 200,000D for the short distance to get from the centre to the right place. Thankfully though, this wasn't as much of an issue as the moto fiasco of Phnom Penh! But, let's not focus on money (or lack thereof), first impression of Hanoi is that it's a whole world away from Phnom Penh and Cambodia. It's clear just quite how much Cambodia was set back by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Being bordered with Thailand and Vietnam, both of which have a certain level of modern, or western touch. But Cambodia is still in the dark ages when it comes to that. There was a French guy who looked around 70 on my bus from the airport who took me to the centre of Hanoi, the centre which was before I got the 200,000D ride to the right part of town, but he was a decent guy, despite his name "Michelle" suggests!

I just met Sarit! Israeli born, she is incredibly friendly and made me feel very much at home. It's crazy how people like this exist in the world; she has only lived here for 1 week and didn't second guess hosting me. Not only host me, but feed me when she got back from Kung Fu. As always, a new person means learning a new perspective on situations and current affairs. A new person means new knowledge. I mean come on, Israel? How much did I know about Israel?! Nothing before tonight.

12/07/13

Well well well, where the fudging hell do I start? Today has just been incredible, but I can almost guarantee it won't sound it. It started out like any other day, waking up on a strangers floor and being fed French toast, French toast with a bit of fried banana? What? But you don't like banana?! Well, apparently I might! After this, me and Sarit went out to get me a sim card. I can now text Nhung. After texting Nhung and having her sort out my credit, she asked if she was still picking me up at 6pm. Today?! Wait, today is... Friday! Oh god, why did I think it was Thursday?! So yes, yes she was picking me up tonight and I had to tell Sarit that I'm not staying tonight. She was cool with it though and just the best host I have had the pleasure to stay with so far on the couchsurfing adventure. I spent the rest of the morning walking around North Hanoi, getting lost, trying to get some anti-histamine tablets for the rash I seem to have developed (later coming to the conclusion that it's shingles), and finally settling by west lake, chilling on the grass and singing loudly to myself not giving a single f*** about passersby. It was lovely. The noodle soup on the other hand, was not. But for $1.25, who's to argue! My Vietnamese food adventure was only going to get better! I got back to Sarit's at about 1ish and spent the afternoon in her room in the air conditioning trying to sort out my blackberry, repacking my bag and doing some washing. It's so much easier to repack when you have a bit of space in someone's house than when you're in a hostel and only have a bed. At 17:30 it started to piss it down. With 6pm fast approaching, this worried me. Nhung was coming on her moped to pick me up. Luckily it stopped just before and I met her outside bang on 6. This is where Vietnam begins. With her was 'Jack' (definitely not his real name), with whom I will be staying with for the weekend. I introduced myself, to which he embarrassed me straight away with the comment "You don't remember me?" Ouch. Apparently he frequently visited Nhung at Kings Road in Bournemouth during my Uni days. This jogged my memory to what I'm assuming looked like a fake realisation. But I do remember him. To be honest though, all I remember was an Asian guy come up to the door that I didn't know, and I just shouted for Nhung before going back into the living room to play xbox or carry on drinking. They asked if I had eaten, which I hadn't, and we went to a very decent restaurant some distance away from where we were. I was worried, as I have mentioned, money isn't exactly jumping out of my wallet at the moment, but I was both shocked and thankful when Nhung said that it's her treat as she just got a pay rise. And I tell you, it must have been some pay rise! We dined like kings. I can't remember everything that was put on the table, but it heavily revolved around pork, prawns, rice or wonton wrapping and very unusual vegetables which have no similar taste to anything I've had before! They did a good job of giving me traditional Vietnamese food! Dessert was again very strange; Coconut milk with jelly (Jeliton), Water chestnut and ice. It was like a milkshake, but you used a spoon to fish out the floaty bits. Nhung made a plan for us tomorrow which I'll leave for tomorrow's entry and Jack took me to his place. Vietnamese parent's look after their children until they are married. If this means living with them, then that's what happens. I met Jack's Mum. A very nice lady who gave me beer, fed me Antona, Longans and Hershey's chocolate, but doesn't speak a word of English. I showered and chatted a lot to Jack about Vietnam history and I'm sure I came across as stupid due to my massive knowledge gap around Vietnamese history. Hell, there's so much I learnt today which I cannot remember off hand but also, I don't want to bore you with a history lesson. Let's just say I had no idea how long they struggled through Chinese ruling, French occupation and although I knew about the war with the USA I didn't know a lot of it.

13/07/13

I woke up at 7am to the sun burning my face, it was a horrible sweaty feeling, so I turned around and went back to sleep. An hour later I awoke to "Get up, get up". Quite an unusual awakening and it confused the f*** out of me. For a brief moment not knowing where I was or who was waking me up. Oh the life of a traveller! We met Nhung at a café for breakfast. When I say café, I mean a shack, if your Kopftkino is picturing a western café, get rid of that now. It's just a dirty room with plastic tables and chairs and a corner with a stove where the snails and noodles are cooked. Oh, did I mention I had snails for breakfast? (Don't worry, the food thing will only get weirder). Snails aren't as slimy as I was expecting, a weird gristly texture wasn't what I was expecting or hoping for, but it was okay. The rest of the noodle soup breakfast was okay. After this we were going to go into the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, but after seeing the queue decided it wouldn't be worth the hassle. Instead, we headed to the centre and the old quarter, where the main lake is. On the lake are a couple of tiny islands. The first island is inaccessible and has a mini temple style building on it, the second has an actual temple. We went over the bridge which is a famous land mark of Hanoi (along with the tiny island), and into the temple. It is an active temple and so more like the ones I saw in Thailand than Ankor Wat and the such. I still don't know why, but we got a free tour guide to take us in and show us around which was a very nice surprise. We walked around a bit after this and we found some of the duck foetus' still in the egg, I've seen these on An Idiot Abroad and... no. No I didn't try one. There is a line, and I found it. Apparently an amazing source of protein and at 5 for $1 I can see why it would be a reasonable choice for locals, but no. There's something about that which turns my stomach. We split up shortly after that, allowing me to explore the old quarter myself and do my usual thing of getting lost, planning and organising future travel and relaxing in scenic spots. I walked around the lake, getting stopped by a couple who may have been Vietnamese or Chinese, I'm not sure. She stood under an archway as he approached me with an iPad. I assumed he wanted me to take a picture of them both under the arch. WRONG! He wanted to take a picture of her under the arch, with me. What?! Anyway, I carried on my exploring and relaxing feeling like a minor celebrity. But the biggest achievement was shopping around for an open bus ticket to take me from here to HCMC. The 4 stops between here and HCMC are; Hué, Hoi An, Nha Trang, and Dalat. I have heard very little about each of these places but in order here's 1 thing I know from each; Restaurant with free (unlimited) beer, cheap suits, stunning beach, and cool climate. After a sweaty day in Hanoi, I'm looking forward to the latter the most.

The finalé in the weird food day was struck at about 7pm today when we took a short ride outside of the city to a small settlement known as 'Le Mat', it was there that we went into a restaurant, sat down and had a snake brought out to us. This snake was still alive and was thus killed in front of us. The blood from the snakes neck was drained into a glass, and likewise it's bile from its gallbladder into a separate glass. Both of which already had a clear liquid in. Finally; it's heart was removed. This was all done in a very impressive and clinical manner. The snake was taken away to be prepared in about 7 different ways, as the glasses were brought towards us, one bright red, the other an interesting dark green. They were placed on our table, the heart presented on a plate, still beating, was placed in front of me. I stood up, naturally, put the heart into the shot glass with blood and shotted it. It became apparent at this moment that the clear liquid from before was in fact; Vodka. I chased it with the bile-vodka shot and sat down in a very anticlimactically ending. I didn't even do a witty speech or snake pun, something along the lines of "That's 1-0 to me, Tin man" or "I'll need more vodka than that to be legless". I won't beat on about it though... Yeh? No. The dishes varied in an extraordinary way, from salt fried snake skin to stir fried snake with chilli and ginger. There were snake spring rolls, snake-skin soup and of course the main snake soup. The majority of it was very tasty and not off putting in the slightest, until Jack had a piece of snake which made me hate my love for Animal planet. Just so you're aware; a male snake has 2 penis' (even though the female only has 1 vagina), both penis' have backward facing barbs like a lot of animals. It was then, when Jack picked the piece of snake with 2 wobbly bits with backward facing barbs, that I lost my appetite, for a minute. Rather him than me! We finished the whole snake between 3 of us. The cost for such a privilege? 1.2 MILLION DONG. Ha, the currency here is so fun. This is 1 of 2 expenditures which I am willing to spend a lot on whilst in Vietnam. You'll have to wait for the other one, if it happens; it'll be quite hilarious and/or amazing.

14/07/13

I have just got back from Nhung's families' house where I was invited for dinner. What a feast that was! But let's start from this morning, I awoke very confused again. Jack saying 'Wake up Steve'. We went and had Phó (noodle soup) before heading to a local coffee place and meeting up with a couple of Jack's friends. We were originally meant to be having dinner at Nhung's in the evening, but changed it because there is more to do at night, like going for a few drinks with Jack's friends! After coffee, at about 11am, we went to Nhung's for lunch. I arrived with Jack on his bike as I have done everywhere in Hanoi, down grubby streets and grimy alleyways, I had no idea what to expect of Nhung's house. Wow is what I would say. Stepping off of dirty Hanoi and into polished wooden floors, leather sofas and just an amazingly thin, 48" Samsung TV. Oh, and about 10 Vietnamese dotted around. There was a mat on the floor with an abundance of food laid out, stuff in rolls, stuff in bowls, and some things you eat whole. Seriously, like bugs. But all their food was so well seasoned and all tasted delicious! Even the bugs! They were a type of maggot, but cooked with lemongrass! There was dried squid which tasted more like seaweed than any fish, apparently to be eaten with beer! Nhung's Father made sure I always had beer in my glass and even though he didn't speak any English, he did a good job of pointing out which dipping sauce I should use for each food item. I don't need language to communicate effectively with a group of people though, I demonstrated how we westerners cannot crouch the same way that Asians can: Both feet flat on the flood, knees totally bent and bum touching the back of the ankles. I suggest you try it. I made them all laugh when I was showing how difficult it is for us, and subsequently falling over. I can't stress enough about how amazing the whole experience was, a real Vietnamese experience. Although it was extremely upsetting when I couldn't eat any more, to see all this delicious food taken away. But I hope, I really hope that it was kept for dinner. Speaking of which! Dinner could have been a small plate of fried rice and I would have been satisfied! Nhung and Jack had other plans. We went to a cafeteria style restaurant in the city somewhere, apparently a place which is used very often for Friday after work drinks! I love the way that somewhere so culturally different still sees the need in drinks after work on a Friday! Nhung ordered some food and I had no idea what was going to come. So when 4 plates arrived of Veal, Pork belly, Morning Glory and Fried corn arrived, I was pretty happy with her choices. We shared the 4 dishes between us and I have sworn I will make the corn, it tasted like the cereal Golden Balls, but with the corn inside. Delicious! I was starting to fill up when a camp stove was put at the end of the table and a massive pot placed on top. Holy s***, I will burst if I eat a third of that! After it was cooked, it was placed in front of us and the lid lifted. Fish. Maybe I won't be eating any of it after all. "I'm not a massive fan of fish" I diplomatically said, followed up with "...but I will try some". Guess who likes fish?! Or at least this fish! I ate as much as I could and threw in the towel. If I stayed in Hanoi, or at least hung out with Nhung and Jack for much longer, I might put on a bit of weight!

15/07/13

I travel down to Hué tonight on the night bus. Jack dropped me off in town and we're meeting back up on his lunch break, but for the day I have no plans other than get my hair cut and wait until 17:30 for my bus. This weekend with Jack & Nhung has been incredible, their hospitality and kindness unmatched since leaving Oman.

And just when I thought that was going to be it for unique and interesting experiences in Hanoi; I was planning to spend the day doing nothing in cafés, using the wifi and finding places to charge my laptop/phone for the 14hour journey down to Hué. After spending the morning in a café, I asked for directions from one of the staff, who gave me a lift on his moped whilst the other staff members filmed. When I asked him how much, he insisted it was for free. I had lunch and a coffee with Jack, after which I stopped at a place to get my hair cut. A man on the street, a mirror placed up against the fence. I really need a haircut and I'm travelling. He's on the street, it can't be that good, right? Wrong! This is one of the best haircuts I've ever spent. Sure, it was the most expensive one I've had in Asia; a whole $2.50! But he cut it well. Not only cutting my hair but giving me a full single bladed razor shave, and yes, I kept my tuft. I am now sat in an air conditioned bar, waiting the 3 hours until my bus. It's been pretty amazing Hanoi, I didn't have high hopes on a shoestring budget and hearing that Vietnamese People in the north are not friendly to Westerners. You surprised me. A feeling I was welcome to. Thank you.