rambling thoughts on vietnam

Apologies in advance for the rambling disjointed nature of this post, it's a collection of thoughts I've had at various times and have put together in a piecemeal fashion, whenever I've had a minute to sit down.

some culturally insensitive thoughts:
sometimes, when faced with a different culture, you realize unexpectedly how many things about your own you appreciate that you had never thought about before. Sometimes, we miss America and how courteous everyone is with comparison to here. On our plane flight from HCMC to HaNoi there was a girl in the opposite row playing Vietnamese music (which to my ear, all sounds sort of like a whiny ballad of sorts) LOUDLY from her phone. Had she never heard of headphones?
on personal space: it doesn't exist here. Or doesn't seem to anyway. Often when walking through markets girls will grab your hand and try to pull you into their stall. I'm not sure where they got this sales tactic from because nothing makes me run faster in the opposite direction.

English translations here are often hilarious, a few from 'nam:
"welcome to the blosphere"
"coffee with milf"
"fried rice with chicken ass"
also hilarious was this vietnamese american woman on our Halong bay tour. At one point I asked her to take a picture of Laura and I and she said, "ok anybody dead? say CPR!" I'm not kidding.


on organized tours:
wow. I was skeptical going into it, and now I remember why. I'm a snob, and I think I'm ok with that. Having your entire schedule planned, including all your meals, is not my cup of tea, especially when the food is bad and some of the activities consist of "trekking" 2.5 km through a little forest trail with all of the other tourists on the island that day. Laura and I comforted ourselves with exchanging knowing glances and saying "zen" to remind ourselves to just relax and let it be. Luckily there were some hilarious people in our group, so that made up for other things.

more on Halong bay:
The bay was beautiful, but also unfortunately cold and rainy. Because the weather was definitely LTI (less than ideal), I was glad that we had booked the tour in the end (even if the food was bad) because we wouldn't have had much to do on Cat Ba by ourselves as all the activities are outdoors based, and the tour gave us at least a solid basis of people to hang out with. We spent the first night on the boat which was fun, and involved a prolonged bout of Karaoke. We also did various and sundry activities despite the weather, that would have been much more fun on a nice sunny day when one could enjoy the lovely beaches and see the karsts better. Some highlights included going kayaking and finding these guys that had somehow, on their 30 minute kayak, managed to SINK their boat in the bay and were swimming back. We attempted to tow one of them back, but he was heavier than expected.

We are currently in Sapa, a town in the Northwest of Vietnam, almost in China. In order to get here we took a sleeper train monday night (my first ever), which got into a nearby town at 6, after which we had an hour busride up a winding mountain. Sapa is absolutely beautiful, nestled in the mountains and surrounded by terraced rice paddies and minority villages, unfortunately it was pouring when we got here, and although the rain soon cleared up, the temperatures are quite chilly. Also unfortunate is the fact that nothing is heated. Poor Laura nearly became hypotherimic yesterday afternoon after sitting at a freezing cold lunch and then walking around window-shopping for a bit. we're about to head out on a 2 day trek with a homestay in a village which is why I'm rushing to post this cluttered and unintelligible collection of thoughts

More on toilets:
on our sleeper train, we had the luck (or the money) to be in the soft-sleeper 2nd class berths (or something like that) which had the added benefit of "wester toilets." The hilarious thing about this was that "wester toilet" actually meant a porcelin western toilet stuck in the bathroom of our bouncy train. I don't know if you've ever thought about why the toilets on airplanes and buses etc. are not normally this kind, but apparently the person who designed this train hadn't. Unfortunately, there is a very good reason. Soon after the train left the bathroom was COVERED in abnout 2 inches of water that had sloshed out of the toilet bowl and tank.

Alright, we're about to head out, let's hope we don't freeze to death (what a quick change of weather events, huh?!!)