REWIND-back in hanoi

Today, I am in Suvarnabhumi international airport in Thailand, on my way from Vietnam to Berlin. (**OK, so I started writing this a really long time ago clearly. just work with it.**). Although I'm SERIOUSLY going to miss all that is the 'real' Vietnam (and Mr. Cong, of course) I'm overflowing with excitement and anticipation to start my quarter abroad in Berlin. But while conical hats, pho and motorbikes still run rampant in my mind, let's reminisce about my final (and arguably best) days in Vietnam. We begin with Hanoi.

On our second full day in this capitol city, we started the morning off with a meeting with two representatives from the Trade Remedies Division of Government at the Ministry of Trade. Because I wouldn't understand economics if my life depended on it, what's important to know about this is that I MET TWO REAL LIVE COMMUNISTS. like party members. like live, breathe and die for red. kind of weird if you think about it. Anyways, we then continued our day with a cyclo ride around the old quarter of Hanoi, a place of tiny but BUSTLING streets with store after store after store selling anything you could possibly imagine for exorbitantly low prices. That afternoon was the visit to the Hanoi Fine Arts Museum the Hoa Lo Prison used both during the French Colonial period AND where John McCain was held during the Vietnam War. THEN we had seminar for two hours. Needless to say, I was exhausted. But definitely not tired enough for a Hanoi rendezvous with nicky j, owen, blake and ben. It was like Mao's Red Lounge knew we were coming, because the drink special was Long Island Iced Teas for 35, 000 VND. According to today's exchange rate that is exactly $1.93. Suck on that Illusions. After a few more rounds and few trips to the toilet (hey nick) we decided to go to Hoan Kiem--on foot and sans map, naturally. Somehow, after wandering around DEAD quiet streets (everything literally shuts down at like 8 besides bars), we arrived at the beautiful lake, took some great FB status shots and found taxi's home

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But of course the night didn't end there. Upon returning to my hotel room, I realized that everyone from the program had left the bar, except for Oliver. Though Oliver is probably one of the biggest guys I know, completely competent at handling himself AND training to be in the US military, I decided it would be a good idea to stay up all night (literally) worrying about him and creating multiple scenarios of his night, all ending with him never ever coming back. I even called the bar and said, "ummm I have a question? is there an American wearing a black shirt in your bar right now?". Maybe the long islands had worked their wonder, or maybe I'm going to be the best mom ever. But what you need to know is that not only was Oliver completely fine, he returned to the hotel merely 15 minutes after I did, and quote "had the best night ever".

Needless to say that when our trip to Halong Bay (including the 3+ hour bus ride) was postponed because of, you guessed it, another typhoon, my body went into fatigue 911 mode. To be honest, the rest of that day was kind of a blur, minus our interesting shopping excursion to Nguyen Huu Huan street. What looked like cute shops from afar, turned out to be shop after shop of bootleg designer anything. From Dolce & Gaddana to Channel to women trying to sell blatantly fake gucci bags for $1,000, nothing was purchased. Sleep that night never felt so good. MLIA

BERLINBERLINBERLIN!

Today, is my third day in BERLIN. city's wild. so little time, so much to do, so little blog. but i did spend last night drinking wine in an abandoned rocket. MLIA

--big mama update coming soon PROMISE--

i'm the worst

Today, I apologize to my loyal readers for falling off the face of the earth. SO much to come tomorrow you won't even know what to do. Brace yo selves. This is NAM. MLIA.

hue to go! your SO not hanoi-ing.

Today, I got a manicure for under $2. Enough said.

On a completely separate note, Tuesday was our last day in central Vietnam. We drove up to the DMZ (de-militarized zone) and saw the 17th parallel where North and South Vietnam were originally divided. Really it was just a bridge that we drove about 1.5 hours to see, including a lunch stop at a deserted hotel that attempted western food by making shrimp with green rice krispies fried onto them. Dinner at the hotel that night was also an attempt at western food which nearly succeeded, until they served spagetey (yes, that's what I meant to write) with what seemed to be the mango salsa from oneg. Later that night we hit up a couple of bars in Hue, including the Backpackers Hostel (featuring it's own ridiculous flavored vodka, check out the flava flavs) and the DMZ featuring 30 year old creepy Aussie and Irish men and walls and ceilings to graffiti. Here are some of the highlights:

The next day we flew from Hue to Hanoi, which is where we left off yesterday. September 9th was a national holiday second only to Vietnamese Independence Day because we were able to go wherever we wanted for dinner. It was FINALLY time to wet my appetite with French gastronomie including garuppa tartar with tropical fruit. FUCK.YES.

This morning began our first day of sightseeing in Hanoi with a walk down communism lane and a visit to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum and his house and office as well as the famous one-pillar pagoda and the Confucianist Temple of Literature. All in 95 degree weather what whaaaat. In the afternoon we went to the US embassy to meet with the US ambassador to Vietnam which was prettaaay legit.

Let me end this day by reiterating the single most wonderfully phenomenal thing in the world: IN VIETNAM A MANICURE IS $1.96. Take that Tammy! MLIA.

no hue, jose!

Today, we arrived at our final destination Hanoi, and just checked into our brand new hotel. Our room has a bathroom with a glass door that spans almost the entirety of one side (you can imagine how small the room is), which means my roommate and I get to watch eachother pee. I love Hanoi already.

You may be wondering what I've been doing since I last wrote (or not, but yeaaaaa i'm gonna tell you anyways), which was exploring the small city of Hue, located in central vietnam. To get there we probably drove about three hours, including driving over the Hai Van Pass, a mountain road with the highest elevation in Vietnam. Of course, with our luck it was absurdly foggy, and not without a pack of feisty Vietnamese women, or vultures, who followed us the entire time we walked around trying to sell us everything from bracelets to beer bottle caps. Later that day as we got closer to Hue, we visited the tombs of two imperial emperors: Tu Duc and Khai Dinh. Although I know you would love to hear all about the history of these two rulers and about the layouts of their lavish final resting places, I know you'd much rather see a picture of the 5-star squat toilets available for use at the sites.

Yes, that sign outside the bathroom says "Will you please put some money for you making _______". I was actually making pancakes there, but unfortunately I had no spare change. The days adventures continued with our "4-star" hotel in similar fashion. The only thing more intense than the smell of dirty Vietnamese food coming from our neighbors or the construction noises in the back was my craving of American food. When you are served "fish in clay pot" and "sautee vegetable with mystery chicken/pork/beef meat" at LEAST once a day (sometimes twice), you have to ban the words "In N Out" "Chipotle" "Sushi" and "CHEESE" (god help me) from your vocabulary. Because the restaurants that advertise "Western Dishes!" aren't kidding, but a bacon cheeseburger will be two slices of soggy bacon in a bun. And I dare you to find some mustard. mmmm mmmmm goood!

But don't let my tired tastebuds get you down. Hue itself was a wonderful imperial city to explore, like a mini version of the Forbidden City (or something) in Beijing sans Starbucks flanked with beautiful Buddhist pagodas (i see you julia!). We took a look around where all the monks are trained and came across a few munchkin ones, who I took home with me. Unfortunately, only in this photo.

In the afternoon, we explored the modern city of Hue, and then met some students from Hue University for dinner. Along with some interesting conversation, I was pleased to discover they had equally reserved feelings about the mystery rice gruel soup at the table.

Did I mention how much it rains in Vietnam? Or that Hue is considered the rain capital of the country? Here are the latest fashions in rain gear, courtesy of Daniel, Cong and myself. More on Hue and Hanoi tomorrow. MLIA.

soaking wet dong: a brief history of the past four days

Today, I FINALLY have time and internet woooooop! Let me fill you in on the last four days in Việt nam.

WEDNESDAY:
Today, with a 7:3o am start (YESSSS) we began our tour of the Mekong Delta, just slightly south east of Saigon. We took a little boat and toured a bunch of islands there and I held a python around my neck, NBD. We also went to a place that made "snake wine", which is as much wine as 20 snakes soaked in everclear is. Also, if I thought I was losing weight here, our ten course lunch proved me wrong. In the afternoon we finally had some free time to roam around HCMC. We went to the Ben Thanh market, which was like an indoor shuk on serious steriods. Luckily, to escape the heat and satisfy my Fraiche craving, we found a fro yo place across the street. This was almost as satisfying as doing aerobics to Hindi-techno music in the central park with about 25 vietnamese ladies. MLIA.

THURSDAY:
Today, we left Saigon and flew into Danang airport, into central vietnam, and literally into a typhoon. I have literally never seen so much rain in my life, all of the streets were flooded, but of course, all of the motor bikes were zooming at full speed. The latest and most practical trend in Vietnamese fashion is the plastic full body poncho with a hood. They come in many colors and patterns such as neon green and clear with purple polka-dots, and can be purchased for the lofty price of $.56 at any of the trendiest boutiques. MLIA.

FRIDAY:
Today, the rain stopped (but not for long, we'll get to that later) and I enjoyed what was my favorite day so far on the trip. We started the morning with a walking tour of historic Hoi An, or what I like to call the cutest fucking town in Vietnam. Everything was picture perfect: the old wrinkly women selling vegetables in the marketplace, the colorful boats on the river, the shop (after shop after shop) lined streets, the ornate pagodas and the famous Japanese covered bridge. In the afternoon, after a seminar about the aftermath of French colonialism and the rise of nationalism (yipee), a bunch of us went to Cua Dai beach. Though the clouds were gray (something we are quickly getting used to), we enjoyed the 90 degree water and the dead pig washed up to shore. I'm pretty sure I now have swine flu, please don't tell the Vietnamese government. Of course shortly after the rain began again, but we ventured into Hoi An to try to find a place to eat anyways. What seemed like a pretty easy journey in a tiny town turned into the biggest wet mess in the world. Drenched would have to be the largest understatment of the past 1000 years, as we waded through 6 inches of water accented with pieces of vegetables and fish floating around left over from the vendors in the central marketplace. Needless to say, our dongs were soaking wet (that's the Vietnamese currency, stop being so dirty). 30 minutes later, we found a dry restaurant. Naturally, I ordered a pizza. MLIA.

TODAY, we began the morning with a visit to the My Son ruins of the indigenous Cham people of Vietnam who were masters of bricklaying and pretty amazing. We had the afternoon off again, so a bunch of the girls went back to downtown Hoi An to do some shopping. And I thought forever 21 was overwhelming. First of all, there were probably over 200 "tailor made" cloth/clothing shops in Hoi An (a town with three streets). You could literally get ANYTHING made in any fabric and they'd have it done for you the next day. Like the prettiest taffeta silk dresses, great wool coats etc. for only $20-$40 but since I had gone to the beach the day before, I ran out of time. Instead, I hit up a bunch of the equally numerous leather shoe stores. HO.LY.SHIT. Again, you could get any kind of leather sandal in any color you wanted. In fact, I have a pair of gold gladiator sandals I designed for the whopping price of $8 USD that should have been delivered to the front desk of the hotel. I'm gonna go check up on that.MLIA.


_(miss and love you all)_

omigod like so many entries

Today, we visited the Cu Chi tunnels, a network of underground tunnels used by the Vietnamese guerilla NVA during the war. I'm the smallest (SURPRISE) so Mr. Cong had me climb into one of the camouflaged entrances (about 2 inches wide). He then called me the best Viet Cong soldier in the group, about every 5 minutes from that point on. MLIA.

rice vodka and other stories

Today (well, yesterday), was our first full day of sightseeing in Saigon. We started off the morning with what we assumed would be a 45 min drive to the Nike plant outside of the city. If I thought the vietnamese traffic was hard core yesterday, boy was I in for a treat. Luckily, we made it to the plant before sundown, and were taken right upstairs to the board room where we were given a presentation on the Nike factory operated by a Korean company called PCC. The factory is the biggest manufacturer of Nike in Vietnam-the products alone consist of about 6% of Vietnam's exports in general (60,000,000 pairs of shoes in the last year, including my pink dunks which were made there in '03). We were then taken down to the factory where we saw every step of the shoe making process-from cutting the leather to sewing, to molding, to bonding, to lacing and then boxing. Most importantly, THEY WERE MAKING DOLLIE SNEAKERS (miss and love you). Regardless, I have decided though far from certain, my career goals do not include working in a factory.

Later that afternoon we toured around Saigon looking at some of the famous buildings there including the Reunification Palace and the Notre Dame Cathedral. TO MY 'SISTERS' GIRLS- I kid you not when I say that the man guarding the door there had Junice arms and hands and broke out in song (well, not that part). I almost peed myself, but the afternoon rain that comes WITHOUT FAIL every day at 4pm took care of the water thing for me. 5th period would never exist here. Also stumbled upon Marc Jacobs-HCMC and exchanged $50 into Vietnamese Dong (I know you're laughing). I am now a millionaire in Vietnamese Dong (seriously, stop laughing).

I think the most important lesson I have learned thus far: do not order a bottle of $5 Vietnamese whiskey at dinner. And don't think it will taste good. Certainly don't even think it will be whiskey. But what you CAN think is that it will be rice vodka that is SO dirty you'll wish you could pour a whole glass of Taaka down your throat. MLIA.

the beginnings of vietnam

Today, I finally have time to start the blog you've all been waiting for. After spending just 2 full days in Saigon aka Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, I can already tell I'm in love with all things asian (not that I didn't fully already know this). I started off my journey with about 24 hours of traveling from Boston to San Francisco to Hong Kong and finally to HCMC. With an endless supply of tea and ramen noodles served by smiling chinese geisha flight attendants, my flights were much more enjoyable than I thought. However, upon landing in Hong Kong I was greeted by about 40 "Health Inspectors" attempting to catch H1N1 infiltrators. When it's 5:30 am, the airport is silent and you have a cough that sounds like a small lizard is living in your throat, things can get pretty scary. Needless to say, I was able to control myself, well, at least until I found safe-haven in the bathroom.

Finally, I made it to Saigon and was picked up by our tour guide Mr. Cong and some other people on the seminar. As I looked out my window onto the streets, Mr. Cong noted that the traffic was pretty light, because it was Sunday. Let's put it this way. There were literally-- and I am NOT exaggerating-- 10000000000000000000 people on motor bikes in the streets. And these were not just any old motor bikes. These were bikes with sofas attached to the back, motor bikes moving a small army of outdated desktop computers, and bikes bringing children to school (including a father giving a ride to his three year old son who was dangling off the front of the handle bars, naturally). MLIA.