Hanoi, Vietnam: Meeting Uncle Ho

Uh oh. My alarm clock says 9:05am. We are late to meet our tour guide. But wait, false alarm! We changed time zones on our Singapore day trip but I hadn’t changed back my clock. For a confusing description of our trip route, check out Hong Kong-->Singapore-->Hanoi on a flight path. We took the two day, 6 hours route instead of the one day, 2 hour alternative. Truthfully, it didn’t make any sense. That’s what happens when you plan your trip between the hours of two and five in the morning over Skype’s one week free trial conference call tool.

We enjoyed a complimentary breakfast at Hanoi’s “Charming Hotel” (noodles for every meal), and prepared to meet our tour guide in the lobby. Lang had contacted a company called Hanoi Free Tour Guides in advance of our journey to arrange for an English speaking university student to lead us on a full-day free tour through the city. Actually, Lang contacted two free companies in the chance that one didn’t show. After all, what is their incentive? But in a leap of faith, and unsure of what we would we do if both tour guides actually showed up, he canceled one company and hoped for the other to show.

Defying all odds, at 9:05am a beautiful young girl named Duyen (pronounced Zwin) entered our hotel room. Duyen is a 21 year old third year university student in Hanoi. Actually we’d like to take this moment to give a big shout out to Duyen, her friends, and all of our new Vietnamese readers! We’ll call her Z from here on out—honestly, we never really knew exactly how to pronounce her name; the D-U-Y-E-N thing wasn’t crystal clear. She was on to our style from the beginning as the hotel receptionist informed her that we were out late last night (Big Brother is everywhere in this country)! Little did she or we know she was about to have the best day of her life.

Z planned an incredible itinerary for us: Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, an ancient Confucian temple and a traditional Vietnamese water puppet show. Breaking up these activities were two excellent meals and snacks on the hour. What she didn’t plan was Lang’s star reception, me getting mugged and our experience with Vietnamese masseuses.

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum was built to house the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh, the former leader of North Vietnam. Affectionately known as “Uncle Ho,” his body is carefully preserved for all to see even 40 some years after his death. As the only people in the country over 5 foot 8, we got some of the best views of Uncle Ho ever. Z told us that all Vietnamese citizens try to visit his body at least once in their lifetime. In addition to some great views, we took away some rice hats from the gift shop (for your last chance to win a rice hat, click HERE), and a photo that a Vietnamese man insisted on taking with Lang. First he used his own camera to snap the picture that we were posing for along the water (he didn’t like the first so he requested we stay for a second). Then he motioned for Lang to stand with him and had his family take a picture of the two of them. Either he was a big Blake Griffin fan or he was quick to recognize that Lang has the second largest feet in Asia, behind Yao Ming.

Next up was the ancient Confucian temple and university “Van Mieu – Quoc Tu Giam, Historical and Cultural Vestige.” Preserved for nearly 1,000 years, the temple is dedicated to sages and Confucian scholars and was used to train talented men to spread Confucian teachings across the nation. In the temple, we found over ten different praying sites complete with incents, brass idols of different kings, sages and teachers and receptacles to donate money. Z told us that many students pray at this temple prior to their college entrance exams for good luck. She, however, had arrived after the doors closed for the night…oops!

After we had walked for nearly three hours in the blistering hot, humid air, we sat down at Nha Hang Ngon, an incredible Vietnamese restaurant. While chowing down on rice cake spring rolls, macakarel, beef, Pho Ga and a $2 filet mignon, we talked with Z about her life in Vietnam. It turns out we have a lot of similarities: she is well aware of Rebecca Black’s Friday, she has a Facebook (and knows “10 different ways to get through the firewall”) and, of course, like us, she has fed her dog…dog. Okay, so maybe just her on that last part. Definitely a cultural thing.

In the afternoon, we aimlessly walked around the streets of Hanoi. If you’ve never been to Hanoi, then this may seem like an innocent activity. Let me assure you, it’s NOT. For every one car, there are 20 motorcycles. On these motorcycles you will find adults, kids, entire families, couples, friends and, if you’re lucky, a baby at the helm. After being amazed at how many babies had woken up early to commute to work, we spent the rest of the day trying to find the best picture of a B.O.B. (Baby On Bike). Nothing beat our first sighting of the day – a baby with a matching outfit to its mother complete with a floral print hat, riding in the front of the motorcycle and reading the newspaper (I swear). Sadly, the baby sped away before we could get out our cameras to capture the photo (can you say caption contest?).

Traffic flows two ways on every street, no matter if it’s a large intersection or an alleyway, and no one stops for anything. The creators of Frogger must have visited Hanoi (for reference material). In order to cross, you literally just start walking into two-sided oncoming traffic and hope for the best. We found that if you close your eyes, act visually impaired and walk slowly across the street; the bikers respect the bravery. For a country that absolutely needs horns, we also found it ironic that the honking makes it sound like the bikers are in a Clown parade. The horns are so frequent and in such a hilarious tone that you’d swear every motorcyclist also sells ice cream. As we’d find out, every Hanoi-ian wants to sell 6 feet tall Americans something, and would indeed sell us ice cream.

When Stevie squared stopped at an ATM to withdraw some Dong at a rate of 21,000 Dong to 1 USD, a seemingly kind, small man approached me for a shoe shine. I was wearing my beat up Sperry’s and he was very insistent. Time passes, the Steves were still at the ATM and the small Hanoi-ian is getting more vigilant about the shoe shine. He told me, 30,000 Dong. This game of hopscotch is no longer worth it, it will cost me just over a buck…I’m in! The second I let down my guard he takes my shoes off, checks the soles, realizes they are falling apart, rips the threading out, and proceeds to rethread and resole the shoes with a friend who emerges from the woodwork. It was all happening so fast, but I knew this was more than I had negotiated. After this street craftsman tears apart my shoes in front of my eyes, I fear this won’t end happily. My 30,000 Dong shoe shine has been upped to a 700,000 Dong complete shoe restoration. Z had kindly suggested I not give my shoes to this guy, so now I was on my own. I bartered it down to 300,000 and walked away. Z said since he was much smaller than us I should’ve lowballed him (we appreciated the observation). With all those bikes, you never know what shoe shine biker gang might emerge from the nearest corner shop. Was I mugged? Maybe. But I was happy. A man on the street fixed my shoes for a nominal fee. His repair came with a 10 year money back guarantee!

With brand new kicks, we had a few hours to kill so we went to the upscale Placencare Beauty & Spa for our first official massage. Lang took the Shiatsu massage, Cymerman the holistic massage, Z the foot massage and I the Thai massage. It was just like four girls spending an afternoon on the streets of Vietnam. Mani and Pedi Tuesday, holla!

After changing into our way-too-small, man thongs in the shower area, we went to the room where our masseuses were waiting for us. During the 75 minutes, Lang paused his massage to go to the bathroom (been drinking lots of water, its hot here), Cymerman asked Z how to say “Harder” in Vietnamese to which Z uncontrollably laughed for nearly five minutes and the masseuses gossiped about us the whole time. We know this because we couldn’t understand a word they said. They, including Z, were giggling the entire time and, in accordance with Vietnamese masseuses to Vietnamese tour guide code, Z wouldn’t tell us what they said. Meet the Gossip Girls of Nam. Or, as they were all married, the Real Housewives of Hanoi.

We then made our way to the Thang Long Water Puppetry Theatre for a traditional water puppet show. If you’re looking for a way to find every white person in Vietnam at once, just visit this theatre. The show was Mask and Wig style, complete with a band, and instead of men dressed as women, the actors were puppets. A beautifully choreographed affair, the show featured puppets swaying to the music and an entirely too literal program. Water puppets= puppets in water, buffalo fighting scene=buffalos fighting, horse race scene=horses racing. The last act, the climax, was spoiled by the program as we knew ahead of time that the “Carp transforms into Dragon.” This lack of suspense did not impede a rousing applause from the crowd. Z and I were on the edge of our seats through most of the performance. I asked Z if she has ever been to a real puppet show; perplexed, she responded, they have puppet shows outside of the water?

For dinner, we took Z to the highly acclaimed “69 Restaurant.” According to Asian culture, “69 is believed to have auspicious meanings and is considered to be lucky for future prosperity.” Hm. Well their language came first… Something weird happened in translation. We ordered the 9-course tasting menu, which came out to just less than $12 per person (including two Hanoi beers each) and continued talking to Z about education, politics and her background. She informed us that her mom is worried about her tour guiding job. Why, we ask? My mom thinks I’ll be with a group of foreign guys, fall in love and never come home. Sorry Z, love happens. We also met a power consulting couple of recent Brown graduates who are writing a much fancier blog (they both worked for the newspaper at Brown).

So in exchange for the tour, Z received two excellent meals, a day at the spa, a rum-coffee-ovaltine-egg yolk drink at a coffee shop, great company, and riveting conversation (and some pictures with Lang— since those seem to have some value over here). At the end of the day, Z was more of a “RentAFriend.com” than a “HanoiFreeTourGuides.com.” Without giving her the opportunity to say otherwise, we confirmed that we were her best tour group ever.

We’re off to Halong Bay for a three day, two night luxurious honeymooners cruise. Either you won’t hear from us for a few days (if there is no WiFi), or you will hear from us about five times per day (if there is WiFi). On Friday, we’ll be back in Hanoi for karaoke and drinks with Z and all of her friends!

Bon Voyage and let us know!

Caption Contest!

As a token of appreciation to our readers, we are sponsoring our first of many contests! One reader will win an authentic Vietnamese rice hat, to be hand delivered in America.

Please provide a caption to the image below in the "comments" section.

Good Morning Vietnam!

Made it to Hanoi, Socialist Repubic of Vietnam.

Facebook is blocked here.  Everything is dirt cheap.  Trip is about to get a lot more interesting.

Stay tuned...

Singapore: Thank God We Aren't Drug Traffickers

A gentle nudge to the shoulder from the man to my right woke me out of a catatonic state. I had slept only 2 hours in Macau the night before. The man handed me an immigration form from the flight attendant. Drug Traffickers will be punished by Death in Accordance with Singapore Law. Uhhhh... Welcome to Singapore!

Cymerman's friend Shawn, a Singapore native and Penn '10 alum, greeted us upon arrival at the airport and took us on a brief tour of the city. We made a comment about the immigration forms, which led to this exchange:

Shawn: There was an American who was caned for graffiti a few weeks ago.

Us: What?

Shawn: Graffiti.

Us: No, the punishment.

Shawn: Oh, caned. What did you think I said?

Us: Uh, I don't know? He got beat with a cane?

Shawn: Yea, we have a guy for that.

Okay then.

Shawn took us around the expansive Singapore airport and sent us on the MRT system to the center of the city.

Singapore is the cleanest, strictest, and most orderly country in the world. Sandwiched between Malaysia and Indonesia, Singapore has four official languages, including a confusing dialect of English. The locals have an accent that sounds just like broken English, so it seems like you are speaking to someone who doesn't know English at all even though it is probably their primary language. Very frustrating.

The only problem with our plans for Singapore was that we didn't make any plans for Singapore. So when we reached the center of the city we dragged our bags into Starbucks to connect to the free Wifi and searched for a place to stay. And searched... And searched... And decided to walk to the local hotels and check with reception desks.

Singapore is about 200km north of the equator. Lugging our bags around to search for a place to stay in the stifling heat was about as pleasant as being caned. We didn't bring backpacks, but this experience alone would have justified it. Apparently a major Communications conference begins tomorrow, so all of the hotels were either booked or had jacked up their rates. Remember the clothes that we were wearing in that last Macau photo? As day turned to dusk, they were painted to our bodies. With buckets of sweat pouring down, we walked up to a clean, quaint restaurant overlooking the river of Clark Quay, and asked to be seated for our 6:00pm reservation (Shawn had called earlier). They couldn't find our reservation, so we camped out on the front steps with all of our bags to plan our next move. Turns out this restaurant had another location about a half mile down the river where we had likely made our reservation.

Jeff's friend Peter (Penn '11 and temporary Singapore resident) was supposed to meet us at this restaurant, so we didn't want to leave him and risk missing him, since we had no way of contacting him. How the hell did people live before cell phones? Resigned to missing Peter, we made our way down the river to the restaurant's other location, and they agreed to seat us even though we arrived 45 minutes late for our reservation. I don't think any measurable amount of time elapsed between their agreeing to seat us, and their immediate regret of their decision to seat us. We were seated at the most visible table in the front of the restaurant with a beautiful view of the Singapore River.

We were disgusting. A waitress came by to cover our bags with napkins because they were spilling out from under the table. Unphased, we ordered Chili Crab, a Singapore specialty, and chowed down on free peanuts.

Midway through the meal, the outline of a man... like a ghost emerging from the shadows... appeared on the horizon. It was Peter! (or so Jeff said). He found us! And he was here to rescue us from a likely night in Singaporean prison (I don't think they do the homeless thing in this country). Peter was thrilled to see us (or so he said), and he stood by our side as we returned to Starbucks to do more hotel research.

We settled on a hostel not far from Starbucks and booked the last 3 beds (slumber party with 28 new friends). Peter patiently waited as we dropped our bags and exhausted the last bit of our energy to sit for a late night drink in the beautiful Clark Quay. I was worried about the hostel accommodations but this was easily our best night's sleep of the trip. Now sitting in the spectacularly clean Singapore airport. Hanoi later today.

Do us a favor and let us know.

Blogging about a Bathroom

As per our plan, we spent the good part of today in Changi Airport.  The airport does have the aforementioned luxuries available to its passersby-- a free movie theater, gym, amusement park, internet access, animal exhibits, free two hour city tours, etc.  Unfortunately, these amenities are for every airline but our own, the local budget airline that will take us to Hanoi, Vietnam later today.

What we do have access to, however, is the bathroom, which is equally impressive as everything else in this country.  I have been in hundreds of public bathrooms in my life, but never before have I seen one as clean as this one.  Singapore is the cleanest country in the world, and they assure of you this before you even leave the airport.

There are flies engraved in each urinal, a form of soft paternalism intended to improve users aim and prevent spillage.

More importantly, they use squat toilets, which are fully equipped with water hoses, soap, and auto-sensors.

Impossibly clean... how can anyone have aim this good?

And of course, the touch screen exit survey...

Full Singapore recap coming up...

Sin City of the East.. Kind of. Happy Father's Day!

It’s Father’s Day here in China, so I’ll kick it off with Thanks Dads!  I speak for Lang and Kaplan as well when I say we wouldn’t be here right now in Macau if it weren’t for your support.

We spent Saturday night in Macau, a sea of casinos, flashing lights, and some way too serious Chinese gamblers.  Unlike Vegas, Macau is not the bachelor party type destination that we had expected.  Instead of a multitude of shows and nightclubs, Macau focuses on one thing: catering to a Chinese culture of over 1.3 billion people whose obsession with gambling coupled with their stoic demeanors lead to a gambling atmosphere that is a bit too dry and serious.

Absurdly High Speed Ferry (70 MPH+).  NYC-Hamptons summer route would kill.

To get here, we took the extremely high speed ferry from Hong Kong, reaffirming the fact that the Chinese do all things transportation so much better than us.  We departed Hong Kong without actually getting to see the giant Buddha as the cable car going up the mountain was undergoing its yearly maintenance and we opted out of the alternative: a six hour roundtrip hike to the monument.  Instead of Budha, we prostrated ourselves before the glow of slot machines and sounds of a multi-billion dollar gambling industry that easily dwarfs Vegas.

Macau

Macau, like Hong Kong, is an independently governed special administrative region that is part of the Chinese nation.  Instead of devoting its intellectual power and free markets to create a thriving capitalist region as did Hong Kong, Macau committed its resources to create a gambling mecca like none other.    Since the Chinese government regained sovereignty over the land from Portugal in 1999, the entire region has boomed.  Macau is home of seven of the ten largest casinos in the world.  The billions of dollars that pass through here in a year take the city of Las Vegas three years to match.  The amount of construction and the absurd prices of all of the nearly booked hotels give no indication that this growth is slowing. 

We checked into our hotel, Casa Real, after a brief conversation with the receptionist at the front desk who to our confusion was named “Trainee”.  I would imagine it would be hard to move up the corporate ladder with a name like that in the states.  After some exciting craps games at the world's largest casino, we got dinner at the world's largest buffet, took some naps, and spent the night exploring the world's most spectacular casinos.

In the morning, we bid farewell to Jen. Tomorrow we have a brief 24 hour layover in Singapore on our way to Hanoi, Vietnam.  Changi International Airport in Singapore is renowned for being the best layover Airport in the world, as rated by multiple travel blogs (I swear there are rankings for everything).  Our plan as of now is to take advantage of the airport’s free city tours, massage chairs, and movie theaters to pass time.

Then the fun starts as we enter the deep north of Vietnam, where the food will be more exotic and the adventures more extreme.

Dragons and Jet Lag

Yesterday started off promising, as Cymerman, Kaplan and I saw our first sunshine of the trip. We ate a big lunch at a restaurant with a panoramic view of the Hong Kong city skyline. It was hard to focus while we were eating, because the whole time an enormous grumpy looking fish stared us down from his death tank.

The atmosphere was a bit stuffy for our shorts and T shirts, and we didn’t help matters by deciding to play Lazy Susan Roulette for the last dumpling. I spun the wheel too hard and all of the food and plates flew off of the lazy susan, crashing down onto the table. The staff and fellow patrons seemed less amused than we were. Must be a cultural thing.

After lunch we headed down to the riverfront to watch the Hong Kong dragon boat festival. It's a 2 day festival with teams of all age categories from all over the world competing against each other. Barges lined the center of the river to block off the wake so that the boats could race down a 500 meter course, and crowds filled grandstands that lined the side of the river. The festival was sponsored by San Miguel, a Philippino beer, which leads us to the next part of our story...

San Miguel set up a beer garden adjacent to race course filled with promotional activities and kiosks to buy beer. We grabbed a few beers and sat down on the dragon boat themed bleachers. Just as we were ready to get on our way to the next destination, we heard the whispers of a what seemed to be a rambunctious man yelling in Chinese on a microphone from a distance. Cantonese is about as foreign a language to me as any in this world, but from the excitement in this man's voice I knew we were not far from one of two things: an auction or an eating contest.

In the middle of the beer garden, a table was set up on a stage surrounded by speakers. On top of the table were four devices not much different looking than the scales we used in high school chemistry lab. Or college chemistry lab if you didn’t take Geology 100 to fulfill your Physical World requirement. When the beer was removed from the device by a contestant, a timer was set off that subsequently stopped when the beer was placed back down. A carefully measured yard of beer was propped up on each of these stations, and a commentator stood to the side to give a scintillating play-by-play to the audience. He was speaking very fast in very not-english, so he could have been saying anything, really. Steve C. and I made a bet for the loser to pay for the winner's dinner.

Nerves were high as we walked up to the stage. My heart was in my throat. I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of the small crowd of 100 or so gathered around the stage. Steve, Jeff, me, and small middle-aged Asian male managed to get into the last heat of the day. As the commentator yelled "GO!" we each grabbed our yards of beer and began chugging. I started FAST, and things were going so well that I figured I might be able to get the whole thing down in one gulp. But just as I got to the last ounce, either an air-bubble exploded (think the boot in beerfest) or I choked, because the beer exploded all over me. The commentator did not seem to notice, and I put the glass down well ahead of all the others and was declared champion. Never mind the contest, my focus immediately turned to fighting off the opposing forces battling inside of me. In retrospect, I missed a golden opportunity.

It hit me soon after the contest that any video of a beer chugging contest in a foreign country with three American tourists competing against a small middle-aged Asian male, in which one competitor downs his yard of beer twice as fast as any of the others and immediately projectile vomits all over the stage while speakers blare as a live commentator screams to the audience in Chinese... is a mortal lock to become a youtube sensation. If there were a formula for a viral video, this pretty much hit all of the marks. This may have been my one shot at world-wide fame and I blew it. I apologize to all of our loyal readers for the oversight. I clocked the fastest time of the day, and if the time holds in the top 2 after tomorrow I win a large crystal trophy that says San Miguel King of Beer Drinking. Not really sure how I'd get that one home.

After the contest, we headed to Mong Kok, the most densely populated region of the world, to sift through some of the fake crap in their street markets. Highlights included Steve C. spending 45 minutes looking through fake designer belts before deciding not buy one, and a bunch of other things I didn’t witness because I decided to go back to the hotel early. Street market shopping with Steve and Jeff is a truly insufferable experience. Also, Angry Bird apparel is apparently big over here (or maybe they just think it's big in America?). Either way there were Angry Bird themed T-shirts, hats, slippers, lighters, USB cords, etc.).

Jet lag hit us hard and between the three of us we hadn’t slept one full night's sleep since the day before we left for our trip, so we were too tired to really enjoy our last night in Hong Kong . After meeting Jen and her brother for dinner, we headed back to the hotel, napped, had a failed attempt at going out (complete with some testy emotions - but not to worry, BHHN group dynamic is once again strong as ever!), then had our best night's sleep of the trip (6 whole hours). Macau later today. Can't wait.