Hello Pineapple, Hello Banana

Well, what do I say about Vietnam? One of the two overnight independent travel trips I planned. I went to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay with a group of ten. Very small and very awesome! We left the first day on a flight to Hanoi and we got into our hotel and went off on our to go shopping and see the city. Crossing the streets in Vietnam is something else. During one of our pre ports they had a demonstration of how to cross the street and that you just have to keep the same pace, don’t speed up or slow down or else they will hit you. If you stay the same pace they will move around you though. Hmm, they make it sound SOOOO EASY! I am not even good at crossing the street at home, and they want me to just walk in the middle of traffic and survive. So the first day I arrived in Vietnam I was leading a group of ten of us to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay for the next three days. Some of my close friends were going on the trip so I knew it would be a good one. We left for the airport as soon as the ship cleared to catch our flight. We get over to the airport and we are taking the largest plane for a two hour flight I have ever been on. It was the size of a plane you would take to Hawaii or to another country for that matter. We arrived in Hanoi in the afternoon and got to our hotel and had free time the rest of the night. Juliana and I went out on the streets to look at shops and just hang out. We ended up at a shop with handmade tablerunners, pillow cases, and other cute things. Then we proceeded to try to cross the streets several times, which was interesting and I got one on video. Woo! Trying to cross a round-about isn’t as easy as it should be. So after we were done roaming around Juliana and I got some dinner where it was al a carte and we got to make our own Pho (pronounced Fuh). It was really great then we went back to the hotel and met up with Gio and Steven to go out one the town. We asked the reception where we should go out and we ended up going to Nutz Bar at the Sheraton. It was definitely interesting being at a place where mostly locals are. We ran into lots of Vietnamese people having a great time and we ourselves had a great time and headed back to our hotel around 2am. When we got back Juliana let me use her skype and I called everyone I could possibly want to talk to one night, it was very productive.

The next morning we had breakfast and headed out on our journey to Ha Long Bay. We rode the bus for about four hours and finally got to Ha Long Bay. I was really excited to finally get to see the beauty of Ha Long Bay. We got off the bus and headed onto our private wooden junk. A wooden junk is a wooden boat and they are all over the bay and carry passengers. There are cruise ship style ones on a smaller scale, and then ones that hold anywhere from 8-36 people. Ours was a six bed room one so it was our own private wooden junk with a top deck to enjoy the view. They fed us wonderful food the whole time and it was a very peaceful adventure. Now mom and Anisha, you will be very impressed to find out some of the things I have eaten or tried on this ship. Because we were in a bay, the only food really to find was fish, and they brough out the whole fish, along with crab puffs, prawns, oysters and other fishy foods. I tried the fish, ate an oyster, ate a crab puff, then survived off the rice, I thought you guys would be proud. After lunch we ended up cruising through the bay until we reached Surprise Cave, which was HUGE! We walked around there for about an hour, and then got back on our wooden junk and headed to one of the cliff beach areas and hiked to the top to get a beautiful view of the bay and enjoy the beach in the afternoon. I thought I was going to die getting to the top of that peak, it was only 1000ft but it was  a straight shot up the stairs no easy gradual windy way up. I am glad I made it up there though. After that we got back on our wooden junk for the night had dinner, which included more great food with fries and chicken and stuff. We played a few card games and headed to bed early.

The next morning I woke up early with Barry to see the sunrise, which was taking a very long time and it was freezing so I didn’t wait for the sun to come all the way above the peaks. I headed back to sleep until breakfast was ready. We enjoyed some breakfast and then went on a smaller boat ride through a little cave to get on the other side to see some beautiful peaks. We got back on the ship and headed out to to the middle of the bay, where they let us jump off the top of the wooden junk into the water. It was about a 30ft or more drop, everyone kept going, and I stayed to take pictures since I know I am scared of heights. Eventually though I realized that I am supposed to be getting out of my comfort zone on this trip and conquering my fear of heights starting with 30 ft would have to be a start. So I didn’t have my bathing suit on and didn’t have time to do so, so I jumped in with my clothes on and it was awesome. We had lunch and headed back to where the wooden junk got us and got on the bus and headed for the airport early, because our guide’s father had died that morning and he found out that morning. We felt terrible as our guide was great and his father had died so we didn’t keep him from getting to his family and just went straight to the airport super early. When we got to the airport we had four hours before our flight was going to leave so we tried to figure out how much it would cost to get on an earlier flight. We went to the lady and we found out that we can switch onto the flight that was leaving in 45 minutes for free, so we did that and we got back to the ship early which made it easy for us to find out friends and go out for the night. When I got back to the ship I went to Kelly Rose’s room to let her know I was back so we could go out since I didn’t get to go out with everyone the first night for her birthday. We went out with some other people to Le Pub, an then headed over to Apocalypse and danced the night away. We got back to the ship and in the morning we woke up and headed out to go shopping and stuff but ended up at a coffee shop for a very long period of time where I skyped with my friends and then we finally made out to the market. Everything in Vietnam is way too cheap, which makes it really easy to go buy everything. That day wasn’t very productive I just got a North Face jacket because we knew the weather in China was supposed to be freezing. I also got a north face backpack and some other random stuff. We finished shopping and Kelly Rose took to me the place where her and Laura and Becca were getting their dresses made so I could get mine made. I picked out the material and they took the measurements and they said they would have it done within 20 hours, since we were leaving the next day. Julia stayed behind to get a massage and a manicure and pedicure and Kelly Rose and I after chatting with the ladies for a while, headed back to the ship where we knew there was free internet and hung out for a few hours until dinner time and got ready to go out and headed out for the night again.

The last day I had an FDP to a cooking class with my Interpersonal Communication professor. We went through the food market and we saw live fish being killed on the spot, frogs being slammed to their death and other really gross things, it was pretty disturbing. After that we headed to the culinary school where they taught us to make their chicken soup, spring rolls, and rice dumplings in bamboo leaves. I got to heat up the bamboo leaves…I thought it would be just like heating a tortilla but it wasn’t really. Then I was put in charge of stirring the coconut jam, then I kept getting yelled at by the lady who was translating so I gave up. They then taught us to make spring rolls and I was really excited. I was hanging out with Denim and her mom during this trip and her mom was awesome and made it a lot of fun. All of Denim’s spring rolls looked completely different but her moms and mine looked awesome. We made our own dipping sauces and put the spring rolls in to fry. After they we ate them I decided to leave early with some people because I really wanted to go to the war remnants museum and needed to go shopping too so I left early to go to museum with Kristen, Jeremy, and B-Payne. The museum was really intense and Kristen and I had a hard time digesting the whole thing. Especially because the quotes from our side were all stating how we needed to study this so we know what we did wrong and to not do it again, except we are doing the same thing and have done worse things like in Guantanamo Bay. After we were done at the museum we walked around and go to see some of the Asian Olympic Indoor Games, got some coffee and met up with Kelly Rose again. Then I headed out to go shop at the market by myself and got lots of ridiculous stuff until it was time to go get my dress at the place. After that I headed back to the ship and called it a night on the ship. We weren’t leaving until the next morning at 6am so we sat in the port and enjoyed our night with a BBQ and story telling. Overall Vietnam was an awesome experience and definitely made my top 3 port list. I really hope that one day you guys all get to go, the shopping, and the food, and the people and history are all a great reason to visit that country.
A-Ram