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.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Day 4 - again, and shortened
F-U blogger for being the worst blog host ever in the history of the world.
Ahem. continued from day 3...
....but by the time we're sleeping it dies down a bit and it's just Mother Natures Rocking Chair. At this point I'm pinching myself to remember I'm here, now. The Southeast Asian breeze and sounds of other boats' pulleys clanging against eachother wakes us up, and it's total peace. The boat gets going, and I have to switch boats to head over to Cat Ba Island for the real start of the adventures.
Cat Ba Island. This is Southeast Asia Idyll Land. It's paradise and flowers and monkeys and palm trees and hummingbirds and mountains and beaches but also very, very rugged. So we take a bus to the start of this National Park to climb up to a tower.
The "trek" was the most insane, dangerous scramble I've ever done or was expecting. Check the pictures, it's almost like being there, haha. Really it's over the ridges up the side to get around to the top and Did You Have a Tetanus Shot? Hope so. Rusted out ladders help you up, sort of. It really is nuts but amazing and the whole DIY spirit of this little hike is special. I hope they never have an accident here because it would be a) a disasterous holy-hell-broke-loose kind of accident and b) would change that DIY spirit factor for sure. But they do need to do something with so many people going up and down these rusted out ladders at the same time...maybe just limit the number of buses in the parking lot? Something. I'm sure they'll figure it out. I learn how to say "I'm looking for monkeys and pythons" though. "Doi din gon khi gon konh" . I didn't see either. Well I did see a few smaller snakes.
Then we board the buses again and traipse up and down the switchbacks over to the harbor, which is where the hotels are. It's a wild ride. I'm at the Holiday View Hotel which is really nice. After a lunch and water (finally) I head for the beach, which is not an easy find, but worth it! I head over with the girls from Singapore and we hang and chat and swim and it's fun. The water is not as blue or clear as the caribbean but it's warm and still totally paradise. Oh and it's raining. Who doesn't love to swim in the rain? Not us. After awhile we're cold so we head back to town and I want banh mi (bang me teehee) and find it and devour it and take a nap. For only an hour! Improvement!
Then it's dinner time which is unfortunately forgettable except for the coffee that puts all coffee to shame except for Alterra's french roast. This is factual. Then our little group of Aussies, Danish, Dutch, Malaysians, Vietnamese, Chinese and me decide we want to go out. So we head to Tiger, a bar for $1 liters of Tiger. yayayayayay. It's all house music and hot people and hot weather and if I had actually died and this was Heaven, so be it.
Ahem. continued from day 3...
....but by the time we're sleeping it dies down a bit and it's just Mother Natures Rocking Chair. At this point I'm pinching myself to remember I'm here, now. The Southeast Asian breeze and sounds of other boats' pulleys clanging against eachother wakes us up, and it's total peace. The boat gets going, and I have to switch boats to head over to Cat Ba Island for the real start of the adventures.
Cat Ba Island. This is Southeast Asia Idyll Land. It's paradise and flowers and monkeys and palm trees and hummingbirds and mountains and beaches but also very, very rugged. So we take a bus to the start of this National Park to climb up to a tower.
The "trek" was the most insane, dangerous scramble I've ever done or was expecting. Check the pictures, it's almost like being there, haha. Really it's over the ridges up the side to get around to the top and Did You Have a Tetanus Shot? Hope so. Rusted out ladders help you up, sort of. It really is nuts but amazing and the whole DIY spirit of this little hike is special. I hope they never have an accident here because it would be a) a disasterous holy-hell-broke-loose kind of accident and b) would change that DIY spirit factor for sure. But they do need to do something with so many people going up and down these rusted out ladders at the same time...maybe just limit the number of buses in the parking lot? Something. I'm sure they'll figure it out. I learn how to say "I'm looking for monkeys and pythons" though. "Doi din gon khi gon konh" . I didn't see either. Well I did see a few smaller snakes.
Then we board the buses again and traipse up and down the switchbacks over to the harbor, which is where the hotels are. It's a wild ride. I'm at the Holiday View Hotel which is really nice. After a lunch and water (finally) I head for the beach, which is not an easy find, but worth it! I head over with the girls from Singapore and we hang and chat and swim and it's fun. The water is not as blue or clear as the caribbean but it's warm and still totally paradise. Oh and it's raining. Who doesn't love to swim in the rain? Not us. After awhile we're cold so we head back to town and I want banh mi (bang me teehee) and find it and devour it and take a nap. For only an hour! Improvement!
Then it's dinner time which is unfortunately forgettable except for the coffee that puts all coffee to shame except for Alterra's french roast. This is factual. Then our little group of Aussies, Danish, Dutch, Malaysians, Vietnamese, Chinese and me decide we want to go out. So we head to Tiger, a bar for $1 liters of Tiger. yayayayayay. It's all house music and hot people and hot weather and if I had actually died and this was Heaven, so be it.
interruption
I JUST SPENT AN HOUR WRITING MY LAST POST AND MOTHERFUCKING BLOGGER LOST IT. GOD I HATE THIS POS SITE.
WHAT I'M GOING TO RETYPE IS GOING TO BE 1/10 THE STORY. SORRY.
WHAT I'M GOING TO RETYPE IS GOING TO BE 1/10 THE STORY. SORRY.
Day 3
I am so hungry. It's 5am and I'm still only thinking about JoJo donuts on Tam Thuong and Hang Gai. They have flavors like shrimp, and beef noodle. But they also have flavors like kiwi, banana, creme and almond, coconut, sesame, chocolate. It's all I want plus a ca phe sua da. Try to sleep.
Ok now it's 7am. Get up, get ready and bound down the steps for a hot bowl of pho for bref....
"why you up so early???" "well I'm going to Ha Long Bay" "yes but bus not come till 8:30" "waaaaait a minute...what time is it?" "oh" "there is no daylight savings in Vietnam" "it is only 6:41 am" "i am still really hungry" So back to the room where I obsess over How Much I Want Food. And to be honest, in the last 96 hours I haven't eaten much at all. So I watch music videos and play count to 100 until it's 7:45 and go down and get bref. But I make a deal that the next place I see selling candy or skrimp chips, I'm buying it, no matter how much bad vietnamese I have to speak. bleh.
So the "taxi" comes to take us to the bus, which we could have walked to but vietnam is all about the hospitality industry that they are just learning. In a polluted smog filled tiny little area, any visitor to this country, at THIS point in time, WANTS to walk. But we graciously take the ride. And then get in the bus to Haiphong. The bus is pink. :) and old. But all the tour buses are there. It's a bumpy loud 3 hour ride but super duper interesting and the small towns are each very similar with increasingly beautiful landscape. We get to the ports of Ha Long Bay which are super crowded and crazy and full of people trying to sell you everything you can imagine and Hung, the sweetest ever, gets us onto to our boat that takes us to our boat. Do you see a theme here? You're never quite "there". Ok so it's pretty and interesting and nice to be on the water. We switch boats in a manner that would make OSHA inspectors all simultaneously die of coronaries (fingers crossed) and off we go into the mist-filled, tropical waters of the Gulf of Tonkin.
I get settled with Chia, my roomie and we lie down for a sec and veg with our feet up and girltalk. Unprintable :)
The first meal is amazing. It might be one of the best meals I ever have. Pumpkin soup, Spring rolls, beef, seafood veggie stuff, rice, something I'm forgetting, tons of fruit and drinks. But it's the oh so deliciousness of the food and light cooking and flavors that all stand out of vietnamese cooking thats so tasty. yummers.
Then we hit Surprising Cave. If you look at my pics, the red backlighting is kinda fun, but the whole place is truly amazing. And looks like Mars, and since I'm such an expert at Mars I can say that. But it's very peaceful and cool and dark and I just love it in there/up there. As I'm walking back to the boat along this REALLY cool boardwalk thing that just hovers over the ocean, jetlag hits. HARD. like nothing else. I crash into bed. It's a freight train delivering an anvil to the face and I'm down for the count. I miss walking the plank!!! (and into the sea) and kayaking!!! and swimming in the fucking South China Sea and I'm so pissed but I sort of don't care because, well, when you're this tired you just don't care.
I finally get up when everyone is already sitting for dinner and feel bad but NO ONE has come as far as I have and everyone else had also been in Vietnam longer than I and they understood. I should mention that everyone = 12 of us. Dinner isn't as ab fab as lunch but it's really good nonetheless. Same type of stuff minus spring rolls plus fish. More drinks. Then starts kareoke. What good is a trip to paradise on an old pirate boat if you can't have kareoke? It's completely stereotypical but totally fun and proves the theorum: Vietnam = Making Friends. We sing, we laugh (at others) and talk in every language everyone can and call it heaven. It was truly unforgettable. Oh! and we fished off the back of the boat and it was REALLY windy all night...
Ok now it's 7am. Get up, get ready and bound down the steps for a hot bowl of pho for bref....
"why you up so early???" "well I'm going to Ha Long Bay" "yes but bus not come till 8:30" "waaaaait a minute...what time is it?" "oh" "there is no daylight savings in Vietnam" "it is only 6:41 am" "i am still really hungry" So back to the room where I obsess over How Much I Want Food. And to be honest, in the last 96 hours I haven't eaten much at all. So I watch music videos and play count to 100 until it's 7:45 and go down and get bref. But I make a deal that the next place I see selling candy or skrimp chips, I'm buying it, no matter how much bad vietnamese I have to speak. bleh.
So the "taxi" comes to take us to the bus, which we could have walked to but vietnam is all about the hospitality industry that they are just learning. In a polluted smog filled tiny little area, any visitor to this country, at THIS point in time, WANTS to walk. But we graciously take the ride. And then get in the bus to Haiphong. The bus is pink. :) and old. But all the tour buses are there. It's a bumpy loud 3 hour ride but super duper interesting and the small towns are each very similar with increasingly beautiful landscape. We get to the ports of Ha Long Bay which are super crowded and crazy and full of people trying to sell you everything you can imagine and Hung, the sweetest ever, gets us onto to our boat that takes us to our boat. Do you see a theme here? You're never quite "there". Ok so it's pretty and interesting and nice to be on the water. We switch boats in a manner that would make OSHA inspectors all simultaneously die of coronaries (fingers crossed) and off we go into the mist-filled, tropical waters of the Gulf of Tonkin.
I get settled with Chia, my roomie and we lie down for a sec and veg with our feet up and girltalk. Unprintable :)
The first meal is amazing. It might be one of the best meals I ever have. Pumpkin soup, Spring rolls, beef, seafood veggie stuff, rice, something I'm forgetting, tons of fruit and drinks. But it's the oh so deliciousness of the food and light cooking and flavors that all stand out of vietnamese cooking thats so tasty. yummers.
Then we hit Surprising Cave. If you look at my pics, the red backlighting is kinda fun, but the whole place is truly amazing. And looks like Mars, and since I'm such an expert at Mars I can say that. But it's very peaceful and cool and dark and I just love it in there/up there. As I'm walking back to the boat along this REALLY cool boardwalk thing that just hovers over the ocean, jetlag hits. HARD. like nothing else. I crash into bed. It's a freight train delivering an anvil to the face and I'm down for the count. I miss walking the plank!!! (and into the sea) and kayaking!!! and swimming in the fucking South China Sea and I'm so pissed but I sort of don't care because, well, when you're this tired you just don't care.
I finally get up when everyone is already sitting for dinner and feel bad but NO ONE has come as far as I have and everyone else had also been in Vietnam longer than I and they understood. I should mention that everyone = 12 of us. Dinner isn't as ab fab as lunch but it's really good nonetheless. Same type of stuff minus spring rolls plus fish. More drinks. Then starts kareoke. What good is a trip to paradise on an old pirate boat if you can't have kareoke? It's completely stereotypical but totally fun and proves the theorum: Vietnam = Making Friends. We sing, we laugh (at others) and talk in every language everyone can and call it heaven. It was truly unforgettable. Oh! and we fished off the back of the boat and it was REALLY windy all night...
Friday, October 15, 2010
Day 2
Up at 6am. My room has no windows (well it does but it's against another building) but hell it's Asia and it's Hanoi and it's a sweet little cozy room in a pretty cool hotel so there. I do have a flat screen tv but the media filters make it interesting. Pho for breakfast (everyday). It's really good at the hotel I think because it's all they make...
First things first, I head to the Temple. I had a specific offering to make and didn't want to forget it.
(there is both temple and pagoda here)
Head out to my first foray into the Old Quarter and without a map, I spend most of it lost but it's the Old Quarter, a monkey could draw a map of it. Not big, just lots of little crossing alleys. I like it though. Kinda like Paris, kinda like nothing I've ever seen. I smell a LOT of Nouc Mom. and bread and pho and chocolate and coffee. yum. I played it safe for the first purchased meal and went to Highland's Coffee, partially to get my bearings and particaly bc everyone said I'd get sick from the food at some point. That didn't happen. Not even close. Just because it's not American Sterile doesn't mean its dirty enough to outsmart the billions of good bacteria in the human intestines. Note to all, eat the food, eat it up. It's good, and if you get sick it's because you're a filthy animal, not anything to do with the delicious food cooked on a sidewalk. 
I get back to my room and wash my feet, then wash the shower. dirt.tay. The little tiny kittens are so cute but I don't think they are very good hunters. Leave it at that. I am beat and take a 3 hour nap. When I wake up I head back to the Old Quarter area for the Water Puppet Theatre which comes highly recommended, and which I missed. So I go to the Tamarind Cafe instead for a beer and some food and literature. Because it caters to westerners, the prices are higher, like instead of $1 for a meal, it's $2. Assholes. Wander around and eventually head back to the hotel (it's a bit of a hike to my hotel). Decided that I wanted to get to Ha Long Bay sooner than later and book through the hotel, which uses Sinh Cafe..it's decent. The cooks on the boats are AMAZING, but overall it's not for jetsetters and people without backpacks. I get hooked up with Chia at the hotel and we decide we'll room together to save a bit of money but really it's more fun together. I head back up to my room to crash again, as the wake up call will be EARLY the next day. It doesn't matter though, I'm up at 4 starving to death. Ok no obviously not to death...to know me is to know that I'm not in danger of wasting away and time soon. Tick tock, 4:01AM, still hungry.
Day 1 - Like a book report
if the book was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Just kidding. Hunter S just reburst into a furious little cosmic dust tornado. annnyhoo, here it be, Day 1
Theme: To find shelter from the storm, head directly to the (former) eye.
So I needed to get away, that was obvious. When I first proclaimed that I thought I wanted to go to Vietnam in August, I hadn't planned a speck of the trip. By the time I boarded the long range bastard to Seoul, the only thing I had planned was a ride from the airport to my hotel. Like all things in life, you figure it out. ..no matter what. So on Oct 2nd at 12:35 I departed ORD and at 2:20pm October 3rd I arrived in Seoul. Flying over Korea and the Yellow Sea was really beautiful. Super low, misty, serene. 72F not warm enough yet. My head is super foggy and messy and I think it's neato that I can see North Korea. Hi Krazy Kim. Surprise, my cell phone, that was signed up to work in Korea, does not work in Korea. I got a really good latte for 8200 whatever-currency-korea-uses. turns out thats a good deal. The Incheon airport is MADE for sleeping. I highly suggest transfers in Asia THERE. it's super quiet, and the rows of chairs become little apartments between 10pm and 7am. I got damn good sleep in that airport.
Anyway, the flight to Hanoi was uneventful except for my vietnamese super duper wealthy and loud seatmates. Fun. they taught me some vietnamese and gave me business cards. I would say exchanged bus. cards, but I work for FedEx and they are ridiculous/stingy/terrible with general business practices. Maybe I'll make my own like the motobike drivers do. Anyway, we land, and the airport is 100F and crowded and nuts and I find my driver in less than 4 seconds and we are off. 40 minutes of bad vietglish later I'm at Charming Hotel, totally charmed and tired and I crash. For 6 long hours.
Theme: To find shelter from the storm, head directly to the (former) eye.
So I needed to get away, that was obvious. When I first proclaimed that I thought I wanted to go to Vietnam in August, I hadn't planned a speck of the trip. By the time I boarded the long range bastard to Seoul, the only thing I had planned was a ride from the airport to my hotel. Like all things in life, you figure it out. ..no matter what. So on Oct 2nd at 12:35 I departed ORD and at 2:20pm October 3rd I arrived in Seoul. Flying over Korea and the Yellow Sea was really beautiful. Super low, misty, serene. 72F not warm enough yet. My head is super foggy and messy and I think it's neato that I can see North Korea. Hi Krazy Kim. Surprise, my cell phone, that was signed up to work in Korea, does not work in Korea. I got a really good latte for 8200 whatever-currency-korea-uses. turns out thats a good deal. The Incheon airport is MADE for sleeping. I highly suggest transfers in Asia THERE. it's super quiet, and the rows of chairs become little apartments between 10pm and 7am. I got damn good sleep in that airport.
Anyway, the flight to Hanoi was uneventful except for my vietnamese super duper wealthy and loud seatmates. Fun. they taught me some vietnamese and gave me business cards. I would say exchanged bus. cards, but I work for FedEx and they are ridiculous/stingy/terrible with general business practices. Maybe I'll make my own like the motobike drivers do. Anyway, we land, and the airport is 100F and crowded and nuts and I find my driver in less than 4 seconds and we are off. 40 minutes of bad vietglish later I'm at Charming Hotel, totally charmed and tired and I crash. For 6 long hours.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
10/03/10 Hanoi
I went to Hanoi, Vietnam from 10/02/10 to 10/12/10, but I spent about 400 hours flying. This is one of my favorite pictures. Here is a link to all my pictures:http://picasaweb.google.com/eewichtoski/Vietnam?authkey=Gv1sRgCOfDibybgrfuvAE&feat=directlink
I kept a nice little diary of what I did there...I hope you enjoy my diatribes, digressions and descriptions of the most beautiful, complex and complicated place I've ever been. I hope I get to go back before it all changes. I also hope you don't think I'm a self-indulgent 20 year old travelling on daddy's wallet thinking the whole world cares about me me me. In actuality, I did this so that my nearest and dearest could know what I did, where I was, etc. at their request. So there. Here goes.
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