Hanoi and Halong Bay

Sorry for the delay in getting a first post up here. We were experiencing some technical difficulties on the other side of the planet.

Vietnam kicks ass. Spent the first day in Hanoi checking out a lot of the major sites: the Old Quarter, Haon Kiem Lake, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, blah, blah, blah. The shopping here is killer and outrageously cheap. It's too bad this is the first stop on my trip. I've found all kinds of stash I'd love to buy, but can't schlep all the stuff around with me for another month in my backpack. I also grabbed a nice 60-minute massage that cost me all of $14.

So enough with all the unimportant crap, on to the food. I had the best $18 meal of my life for lunch the fist day here. I had some soup that was made with rice noodles, egg dumplings, whole plantains with the skin still on, and snails. I never would have guessed that skin-on unripe bananas would complement escargots, but I guess that shows you what I know. I also had some spring-roll like things with some sugar-roasted pork, fresh herbs, bamboo shoots, and other veggies. To top it off I had a whole bottle of Vietnamese wine. I know what you're thinking, and yes, it's actual grape wine. Even more surprisingly, it was good! Don't get me wrong, you wouldn't ever mistake it for a Grand Cru white Burgundy, but it was quite pleasant and went fantastically well with all the food. I also got to sample a couple other things. A couple young Vietnamese women were seated across the table from me, and I was chatting them up while eating. I think the saw me eyeballing the food they got and asked if I'd like to try any. Out of politeness I said "Thank you, but I couldn't", and unfortunately they took me literally. So I spent the next half hour forlornly eyeballing the beef stir-fry-like thingy they were hardly touching and hoping they'd offer again. When it became apparent that they were done eating and weren't going to ask again I sheepishly muttered "Um, is that offer to try that still available?". It was. I ate it. It kicked ass.

I spent the next day a half cruising Halong Bay. Words would really not do the place justice, so if you want the low-down on that, just check out the photos. I’ve already got a bunch up at http://picasaweb.google.com/tunafishandgrits/Vietnam, so feel free to check them out. We spent a lot of time cruising around, took a brief swim (at least I did, everybody else stayed on board), and visited a floating fishing village in the bay.

Did more kicking around last night, got another massage, and through a course of events that I won’t bother getting into ended up eating water buffalo at this little dive mom-and-pop restaurant with a half dozen Vietnamese guys. I took a cooking class this morning, and will knock around a bit more before heading down to Hue this evening.

BTW - I got a local SIM card for my cell phone. So I'm not currently reachable at my regular number. If anyone needs to text me or call I can be reached at +84 166 6 256 950.