Moldy March

9:42 AM

Hanoi is where our friend Monica is living and teaching (we vacationed with her and her brother Tim on Phu Quoc) and she informed us of the lovely nickname for this time of year: Moldy March. And it's so appropriate! Everything is simply wet all the time which feels yucky AND makes it impossible to have clean clothes since nothing ever dries. Took my mirror out of my bag and it already has condensation on it! It's also a place with all new food for us to try. This is a restaurant and this woman made four different dishes for her two patrons! 
Monica brought us to the oldest cafe to try the Hanoi specialty of egg coffee. It's above a luggage shop and the entrance really doesn't encourage you to go further, but once inside, it's an old school kind of cool. They play a very interesting mix of music, some so corny, with young hip guys smoking pipes and crunching on pounds of sunflower seeds. I'm not able to eat it but apparently it's liquid tiramisu and both Ryan and Monica were sold. 
We met up with our old Da Lat buds Alex, Dani and Frank for a night of quizzo run by a machine of a backpackers hostel. We were thinking we'd hit quizzo then go for some dinner and drinks, but this was the most intense quizzo game of my life. It lasted for three hours, there were other competitions intermixed between the rounds, and the drink specials were just silly cheap. An unexpectedly raucous night. We may not know the most trivia but we rocked every other competition that night! This is the only identifiable picture from that night... This foot does not belong to either of us. 
Peter and Lauren, also from our hostel in Da Lat, were in town so we explored the town with them and ventured to see the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. We slowly shuffled around city blocks and through the huge grounds of the Mausoleum in line for two and a half hours. In the actual building, you continue your shuffle in silence in two single file lines around the outside edge of the room where Ho Chi Minh is on display for ten seconds and yup that's it!
This eel was not excited about the boiling water poured over it so it escaped and slithered down the street gutter until the machete won out. 
Shop of buttons!
We have these two weeks left in Vietnam to hit the amazing landscapes of the north. Our route for the next 16 days: Hanoi > Cat Ba (Ha Long Bay) > Ninh Binh > Hanoi > Sapa > Hanoi > Bangkok. 

Cat Ba is mind blowing in a Jurassic Park kind of way. There's nothing happening in the town but when you get to the beach there are just no words. And we just walk in awe. 
And motorbike in awe. 
And boat tour in awe. 
And watch construction in awe. I believe this is called the Barrel Full of Monkeys system of scaffolding, completely reliant on little hooks at the end of each ladder piece (flip flops, no harness, nice to see the scooter helmets though).
And hang out with our host's cute kids. 
Hop over to Ninh Binh and it's similar but different in that we can actually climb these limestone karsts so that's fun. And we spend hours watching billy goats climb way better than us. The main draw to Ninh Binh is taking one of two riverboat tours that wind between, under and through these amazing karsts. One is known for westerners and the other is where the Vietnamese go, we opt for the Vietnamese experience and oh the experience! As we saw in Da Lat, making amusement parks out of nature is a special skill here in Vietnam and the boat ride through Trang An did not disappoint. I keep relating it to the Pirates of the Caribbean Ride in Disney World. Flags were flying everywhere, incredibly loud patriotic theme music played over loudspeakers, strangely modern pagodas were constructed in the middle of the river and our rowing lady maneuvered our boats through these tiny caves like it was on rails. Since we're one of the few westerners on these boats, we're receiving a lot of attention, lot of waves, lots of, "HI!!!!! Where you from? Photo!!" At one point our boat crossed paths with a line of eight boats full of other westerners and we all started screaming at each other, "HI!!!!! Where you from? Photo!!" Good to know we're all in on the joke. So strange but so beautiful. Sidenote: witnessed another amazing construction practice of trying to demolish with a jackhammer the column you're standing on (again, flip flops, no harness or hard hat, sorry no picture either). I just don't get it. 

We're still awesome at selfies. 
Ryan and I match outfits all of the time back home so makes sense that we would match on the road too. Just makes us feel even more silly since we have limited choices in our backpacks so it happens often. Lauren and Peter titled this look "The Cargo Couple." We embraced it and geeked out for an impromptu photo shoot. 
We're waiting for Tyra to call. 
Our rower lady laughed minaically as we handed her a tip... No idea why. 
Best motorbike keys yet. 
After a short stop back in Hanoi, we're onto Sapa, a town in the way way north with beautiful hilltribe minorities living off the mountainous land. The clouds and moisture have followed us throughout the north and Sapa is even more intense. At times, we can't see the hotel across the street. We pal around in town and through a small village for a couple days where the Black Hmong and Red Dao women peddle their amazing crafts and I want to buy everything. They make their fabric from their own hemp plants and dye them using homegrown indigo leaves and beeswax and then embroider like crazy. I'm in love with all of it.
One of the common themes in our interaction with Vietnamese, is my state of pregnancy. Everyone really wants me to "give" Ryan a baby. They don't understand why we don't have SO MANY BABIES already. My belly has been rubbed out of a strangers curiosity. One evening after returning from dinner, our Pumpkin Hotel host was having a dinner party for friends, family and neighbors. We thought we could sneak past and not interrupt, but they were waiting for us! So many whiskey shots later and shots from a big jug of mushrooms, bamboo worms and gogi berries, we headed to bed. As we climb the stairs, one of the guests calls out, "Ryan! Make a baby please."

We get picked up from our hotel by a tiny Black Hmong woman named Mau and she's taking a group of us trekking through the mountains and to her home for a couple nights homestay. On our way up the mountain, our group is extorted by a Vietnamese man demanding money for us to pass. It sucks. We've had our share of being extorted in the north and we're over it. We were inches away from tossing him down the mountain but we didn't want him to hurt Mau on another day. But after we told her our thoughts, she said it's ok to throw the bad man off the mountain. If you see this man, you know what to do:
But after that, the hike was AMAZING. The clouds were moving so fast, the view was constantly changing, we could see peaks of the rice paddy fields that Sapa is known for below. Mau's family is lovely and we meet up with so many other traveler's and hang out all night. I probably chewed three full stalks of sugarcane, it's SO good! After dinner Mau pulls out the "Happy Water" which is a rice wine that I just can't choke down. Mau parties harder than anyone and has zero hangover in the morning. She's a beast.
The next day we hike through villages and rice paddies and corn fields. A puppy joins us for a few miles and we name her Hillary, the one no one asked for but we ended up with. There are so many sweet filthy pantless kids full of smiles and waves strapped onto the backs of their sibling who is maybe three to five years older.

After a big overnight rain, we went out for more hiking, say our goodbyes to Mau and her smiley husband and get onto our buses back to Hanoi. So after three days of hiking and no typical Beth klutz catastrophes, at the last stream crossing within the rice paddies I fall in. I saved my phone but I do not smell nice. With the moisture around here, I have no choice but to bag everything up and wait until the warmth of Thailand to try to make it better. It was bound to happen. 
Random things we need to share before leaving Vietnam: You can restock your housewares by buying you favorite foods. Yes that is an entire cooking pot in that bag of noodle soup! Glass plates, steel ladles, to-go coffee mugs and so much more!
Even the mannequins don't fit into the tiny Vietnamese clothes. 
And these are THE BEST banana chips on the planet! Yes you can order them through Amazon and I swear they're worth it for a special treat. 
On our last walk through Hanoi towards our airport shuttle at 5:30am, the park around the lake was PACKED with people working out. Walking groups, running groups, individuals, an entire gym was set up which was not there the night before. Where did this come from?! These people are efficient and industrious and it's impressive but the northern Vietnamese people have been through hell at the hands of outsiders so they're not very welcoming. And as much as we understand why, it's draining and we're excited to head back to Thailand. 

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3 comments

  1. We were only traveling for 3 weeks through Thailand and the Philippines (I wouldn't call it backpacking like you guys are doing) and we were tired at the end. I'm exhausted just from reading the stories. Keep it up! Good stuff! Safe Travels.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Laughing at 'hillary, the dog no one wanted but we ended up with' Hilarious! Probably true, sadly.
    Loving your journey, and your sense of humor! Bisous.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Laughing at 'hillary, the dog no one wanted but we ended up with' Hilarious! Probably true, sadly.
    Loving your journey, and your sense of humor! Bisous.

    ReplyDelete

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