Day 5

Wow, even after all that bia, up at 4am. I finally see some people up exercising and decide to join them. Laced up and headed out with camera and glad I did, I got to hear the old communist wake up call and daily exercise "song" pumped out on the town PA system. weird doesn't begin to describe it. It's already super hot and I love it. Good run. It's hot and really calm and I learn later that massive storms had hit the central parts of the country (where I wanted to go, but ultimately couldn't) and thusly, the weather in the north and south is sunny and lovely. Breakfast and we get packed up and head back to the buses, which take us to the boat, which takes us to the fishing villages, which is where I find Yellow Shirt whom I consider spending my life with. Sigh. He was so tall and dark and beautiful. Snap out of it. Back on the boat and off into pirate territory, and back, slowly into the port. Lunch in a local restaurant is yum yum delicious and it starts to POUR RAIN while we're in there. Like monsoon, but it's short lived and when the sun comes out again, it does for good.

Back in Hanoi to CHAOS. The military is blocking off all major streets and there are 2-3 million EXTRA PEOPLE in town for the 1000 year anniversary. It's intense. The lads in khaki are there to protect, not scare, and its obvious. Perceptions over 6000 miles are a funny thing, it's a nice country, full of nice people. Really. I digress.

I get my first bowl of pho bo viet on the street, for 25000 dong, which is like $1.10. It's GOOD. You have to just suck it up and deal with the nuances of eating 5 inches off the ground. I was super happy to realize that it tastes JUST like pho here in MKE, which makes me happy. Then I had a ca phe sua da (just another in a line of 35 of these) and some carrot apple juice (not many veggies eaten here, just tons of perfect, ripe, delicious, tropical fruit) in a really cool cafe on the second floor off the street on the corner of Hang Gai and Luong Van Can. Neat window seats and some horrid US horror flick on the screen which I can't stop laughing at and a few people laugh at me laughing and ask what they're saying and I tell them and they laugh more and we all laugh and laugh and laugh. It's only 10pm but I'm exhausted, been up since 4am and even with the chaos and excitement on the streets, sleep is serenading me...and it's comes easily to me.