Gooooooooooooooooooooooooood Morning Vietnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam and Happy Belated Birthday C and Happy Birthday Jeremy!!!

A fun fact for our readers: There actually is a place that is hotter than Bangkok in May….that would be Hanoi in June. Coincidentally, that is where we are now.

We arrived in Vietnam on Tuesday afternoon and despite desperately missing Kumiko, we are settling in nicely. The past few days have been a whirlwind – Hanoi is Bangkok on steroids or Bangkok is Hanoi on Quaaludes or something. It is teeming with action: commerce, motorbikes, scammers, crazy smells (good and bad), things being bought, things being sold, scammers, cops hassling people, touts, scammers, honest workers, street vendors of all kinds, scammers, and on and on. It is staggeringly hot and humid here but we have a nice A/C room in the Old Quarter with a charming balcony that is pretty much too hot to use. Earl says we shouldn’t be such pussies about the heat, but Earl is probably surfing right now in nice cool water so what does he know?

We had a nice first evening wandering the streets of the Old Quarter and marveling at the motorbike situation – more on that in a moment – and trying to find a place to have our first Vietnamese culinary experience. As we were too hot and scared and culture shocked to go straight to the street food, we ended up at a place that was recommended to a friend of a friend called Green Tangerine – an upscale, elegant restaurant (think Le Colonial in S.F.) in the Old Quarter. That being said, I still had to flick a 3 inch long cockroach off our table. Dinner was amazing though. And we have had some great street and regular kind of place meals too.

a couple things not apparent at first glance: 1)the stools are so short, it's almost not worth it, 2) the floor is so nasty you are very happy to have a stool

We have also checked out The Temple of Literature (gabe says boring, haley says pretty), and another temple on an island in the middle of a lake with a giant embalmed tortoise (both say boring), and have done a lot of wandering the vibrant and charming streets of the Old Quarter (highly recommended). We also spent the better part of a day involved in what has inexplicably become our favorite pastime when in huge, chaotic, overwhelming, and staggeringly hot Southeast Asian capitals: electronics shopping (highly not recommended). The A/C in Hanoi is substandard at best and we did not find what we were looking for…we did not find even one mall. We did however discover urban mirages – sometimes it is so hot a furniture store starts to look like a restaurant with A/C.

lake temple in hanoi

We also visited the Women’s Museum of Vietnam and saw a fascinating mini-documentary on the female street vendors of Hanoi (most street vendors are women anyway). A typical day is going to the market at 2am to buy their goods for the day (flowers, fruit, shellfish, etc.). They then walk the steaming streets of Hanoi carrying two huge baskets of goods suspended from each end of a long stick which is balanced on one shoulder (or if they are fortunate, they have a bike they can push the goods around on). On a good day they finish around 3 or 4. On a bad day, maybe 7. Then they go “home” which for most is a room shared with 10 other women in a boarding house, which costs about $0.35 night per person. Then back to the market at 2am. They go back to their native villages every 12 days if they are lucky, where they tend to their children, rice plots, and ceremonial duties, and bring with them what they have earned in those 12 days – which is usually about $20.

everyone is happy with this pineapple transaction

Before I get to two-wheeled modes of transportation of all sorts as promised, I have to address the sidewalk situation here. Sidewalks are for everything but walking, and there is nothing “side” about them. They are absolutely front and center in Hanoi life. I don’t know how to say sidewalk in Vietnamese but I can assure you its literal translation does not include anything that could even imply it would be used for “walking”. Sidewalks are reserved for the following activities: motorbike parking, haircuts, shaves, midday naps, dish washing stations, play areas for small children, restaurant seating, store front overflow, in areas with slightly wider sidewalks – motorbike driving (and the corresponding tormenting of pedestrians by way of honking at them incessantly), street vending, touting, evening chatting sessions with friends, beer and tea “street” drinking, Badminton (incidentally, parked motorbikes serve as fabulous makeshift nets), cooking family dinners over charcoal burners, eating family dinners, and much much more. Again, anything BUT walking.

sidewalk drinking

sidewalk selling

Ok, so now the motorbikes (and cyclos and bikes and electric bikes and taxis and cars). There are a number of rules for navigating the streets in a vehicle in Hanoi:

1. Go. And go fast when possible.
2. Stopping at red lights (when there actually is one) for the full duration of the light is considered a pussy move. That being said, you are not penalized for doing so.
3. Activities that endanger your life and the lives of others while driving a motorbike are encouraged. Some possible activities to choose from: texting or talking on a cell phone (no predictive text or headsets, please), tickling small children, and water gun fights with fellow drivers. If you lack a cell phone, small child, or water gun with which to be distracted, looking in any other direction than the one you are going in is a suitable substitution.
4. Honk as much and as often as possible. (While I have not yet been able to confirm this, I believe that hefty fines are imposed for honking less than 50 times per city block.)
5. Moderate physical contact between pedestrians and your motorbike is acceptable if the pedestrian is the slightest bit in your way.
6. You can put as many things on your motorbike as your tetris ability permits: 10 foot long Bamboo poles, boxes stacked 8 feet high, dozens of bags of concrete and full-sized refrigerators are some examples. Bonus points if your load impedes your ability to drive safely or the visibility of other drivers.
7. If going the wrong direction on a one way street, or alternatively driving on the wrong side of the street, is the more direct route to your destination, or if you just feel like it, you should by all means do so.
8. Only get out of the way, slow down, or yield to avoid fatal accidents. If death is not threatened, no use arriving 10 seconds behind schedule.
9. Young children on bicycles are welcome on the road and under no circumstances should they wear helmets or be supervised by a responsible adult. Also, no coddling. Offensive driving is the game and children should not get special treatment (by the by, no helmets for children also applies when they are passengers on motorbikes ).
10. The right of way goes to the most aggressive driver. When there’s a tie – which is 99.9% of the time – the free-for-all method should be applied.
11. If you are going to have a car, it should be as expensive and ostentatious and luxurious as possible, and the size must not, in any way, be appropriate for the tiny streets of Hanoi. Range Rovers, Lexus SUV’s, and Mercedes SUV’s are preferable. If you are going to get a regular car, it should be a ridiculous looking Porsche sedan.

So the sidewalk situation coupled with the motorbike situation might leave you with the question, “where does one walk”? And my response to that is that I have no effing clue. We are still trying to master crossing the street. The basic idea is find a break in the massive wall of motos where the first moto that makes up the wall theoretically would have time to brake before hitting you if you stepped in front of it. Step in front of it, pick a route (and stick to it), keep your speed the same, and pray. Most of the time the motos and cars miss you. Sometimes you get an un-friendly nudge. Always you get honked at.

frogger haley

So that has been our first few days in Hanoi. We leave tomorrow for a 3 day boat trip to Bai Tu Long Bay (an extension of Halong Bay) and are super excited. After that, we are determined to find a place to settle and live simply for a month or so in Northern Vietnam. Talk soon. We love you all.

Haley and Gabe

A few final thoughts about our time in Southern Thailand:

rain over phi phi leh. kumiko left and it's raining...this sucks

Everyone loves Kumiko. Everyone.

Dave Matthews dance parties are awesome at 19. They are even better at 33. Gabe did not participate and claims not to like Dave Matthews because he is not female.

Replacing overconsumption of Argentinian wine and bread with overconsumption of insanely delicious Thai food and fruit shakes does not a smaller ass make.

You can sunburn through clear plastic first aid tape. Trust me on this one. Unless you want to sport a ridiculous sunburned but soon-to-be suntan frame around a wound you’ve been covering, apply sunscreen like a college graduate would.

Pad Thai does not get old.

Agreeing to share a room with two women who have been friends since college is an indirect relinquishing of your right to sleep over their right to late night gossip and reminiscing.

Kumiko’s food will always be better than yours no matter what you order. Plan accordingly.

Kumiko – thanks for an awesome visit.  Now come back, please.

thank you