I am so happy with this picture. After 3 weeks of Trevor being out of town on business, he was such a trooper for coming out to take this with me. We don’t have enough pictures of ourselves and I want to be able to look back 20 years from now and say…hey, we didn’t look that bad. Thanks, Trev! XO
I’m so excited to be visiting San Francisco. Trevor’s been out there and I found an amazing deal on Virgin America so I’m jet setting to the west coast tomorrow! I’ve already booked our tour to Alcatraz and mapped out all of the places I want to visit. It’s a very short trip for me, but I hope I have time to see a lot. I know we’ll be back again. I’ve always wanted to see Yosemite, but we’ll have to save that for another visit when we have more time.
Last Saturday, our friends Audrey and Jaymie came over from New York to have their first family pictures. I picked up a little tutu at the local toy store and it turned out great. Here’s their really adorable little girl!
Our good friend Jessica generously watched our birds while we were away. Here’s a couple pictures of them. Noah’s quickly growing into such a handsome boy!!
We made our way out of Lao Cai and to a rural market. Our guide said that the market he wanted to take us to was flooded so he was taking us somewhere else. It seemed odd but whatever. The market we ended up at can be summed up as:
Muddy
This place was off the tourist path. We never saw a single other westerner while we were there. People were genuinely curious about us and would follow us around and watch Chi haggle with the vendors. Kim had on less than water (mud) proof shoes. So she bought some $2 Chinese made boots that smells VERY strongly of gas.
Chi bought some sticky rice from this lady
Natural colors
Wrapped in a banana leaf
The market was on a hill which allowed us to look out over the village
So we started down this path of stairs…
And found another part of the market below:
However once we got to the bottom we found that they were preparing Thit Cho (dog meat) and there were a lot of birds around. We made a 180 and walked right back up the stairs and piled into our van, trying to wipe off mud…
From there we started the 1 hour drive to Sa Pa with awesome views along the way. It was a SUPER window road without guard rails and VERY steep inclines. Our driver was from Sa Pa (we went to his house) so we felt that he at least knew the roads. Kim and I chewed ginger gum and tried not to pay attention to the drop.
We also went to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum and saw his body. (However there are rumors that what the public sees is a wax statue as the real body is only viewed by VIPs). Upon arriving everyone must surrender their bags, cameras, cell phones, etc. to a guard booth. No shorts, short sleeve shirts, hats, etc. When you enter, you are not allowed to talk and your hands must be kept at your sides and out of your pockets. There are guards there with bayoneted rifles to remind you. This is a shot from outside:
We also went to Ho Chi Minh’s house and presidential palace
This is a one-man bomb shelter that Uncle Ho would go to whenHanoi was being bombed
Of course, they had shopping:
We went to so many temples and pagodas that I can’t keep track. I think this was a Confucianism temple..
Kim at a restaurant overlooking the city
Taking a rest…
One of the countless street vendors. The stick and baskets weigh more than 80lbs.
We went to the famous Hanoi water puppet show. I’m glad I got to see it and thought that it was the right amount of time. The narrator/singers:
The puppets
One of the highlights of the trip for me was taking the night train to Lao Cai and on to Sa Pa
We left Hanoi at 2100 for the 11 hour ride towards China. Here’s almost all our bags on a cart. I usually watched security over everything and everyone.
Inside our air conditioned cabin. Very tight quarters
We finally arrived to Lao Cai. Lao Cai is a border town that was destroyed by China in the 1970′s. It has been rebuilt but there isn’t a whole lot there in the way of good places to eat. All my tourist books say that there are a lot of thefts at the train station so I was on the lookout. Sure enough as we walked out of the train station I saw a young guy taking a note of all our bags on our cart. He wasn’t looking for someone as everyone else was but rather looking at people’s bags. On the top was one of Kim’s carry-ons. He stared at it, then at me, then at the bag then at me. I put my hand on it and stared at him. He just passed on.
Trying to find coffee…
Our guide took us to a crappy place with bad overpriced food. The good thing was that we could trust (somewhat) the owners to keep our luggage secure and get some coffee.
Kim is sleeping so I (Trevor) will post.
We are finally back home in the good ol’ USA. I can now post and not feel scared that the Vietnamese authorities are watching my Internet traffic. Vietnam is CORRUPT. When we got to the airport in Saigon my mother in law’s bag was “randomly” selected for search. Out of all the passengers flying only Vietnamese people were “randomly” searched. It was obviously not random as the government guards were giving a hard time to the people they were searching. They were trying to get “coffee money” from them. The told my mother in law that her bag had “bullet shells” in it. My father in law (white guy) stepped in and said “you have got to be kidding me” they government guy just grumbled and cleared the bag without re-searching or re-xraying it.
Most of the immigration and customs workers in Vietnam pay up to 20k USD to get the job. The job is attractive as it gives the employee power over the people and allows them to take bribes, etc. All of the workers looked mean and I could tell they half-assed the security at the check points.
Anyways, we did not care that much for Hanoi. We met some nice people but it was obvious that the government influence was greater in the north. Our first guide even said that if he didn’t smile, it was because he was from the north. We also found that we all preferred the Pho from the south which is a bit sweeter.
Anyways, on to the pictures…
Chi’s cousins live in Hanoi and are some of the nicest people I have ever met. Here we are at the house:
That night we at a a restaurant called Ngan. The place went around Hanoi and found the best street vendors that run the tastiest food stalls and assembled them into a single place. We all ate more than we should.
One of the best spring roll vendors in Hanoi…
Wow posting is so much easier from my home connection.
Our great waiter…
The next day we got up and made a 4 hour van ride to Halong Bay
Walking to our boat..
This is a boat that you would go on if you wanted to stay overnight. We had a day trip.
This was our boat. We waited for all these people to clear off. We had our own private boat.
We went to a cave located on one of the islands.
The cave was only discovered in 1993! While we were inside the cave, the lights went out for about 15 seconds. Luckily we were standing near this opening which gave a dramatic effect.
Trevor pushing Kim to the top.
Finally at the top
Inside the cave
Kim and her mom
The view from the observation deck
And so begins the story of the most famous fish in Vietnam…
Part of the tour was that we had a seafood lunch on the boat. One thing to understand about being a tourist in Vietnam is that almost everyone everywhere tries to sell you something. Fine. Everyone from the guides, tour companies, taxi drivers, reception desk clerks, waiters, etc. all send you to the “best place”. One our way back from the cave we stopped at a floating fish farm. While no one ever said it, it seemed that we had to buy our fish for lunch fresh from the farm. It was sort of a half “hey look at our fish” and “hey why don’t you buy our fish” show. More on that later…
Fresh crab
The fish farmers live on their boat with the family. They also have a floating school for the kids of the fish farmers.
The floating building with the yellow wall is the school
Checking out the merchandise
They wanted to sell us a squid or cuttle fish. I never got a full answer on what it was. Anyways, they had to de-ink it before they weighed it. Glad that they did that.
Anyways, back to the famous fish. The fisherman asked Chi if she wanted to buy it. Chi asked how much “that” one was. The lady said that in order to weigh it, she’d have to kill it (wack it with a bat). You may see where this is about to lead…
At some point during the chaos when the fish was flopping around the deck, Chi agreed to a price that she saw flash on the lady’s calculator. Only it was hard to see the decimal point, convert the kilos, convert Vietnamese Dong to dollars…
WACK!
We just bought a $79.00 USD fish.
Paul with his wallet ready to pay for the now dead (but weighed) fish. Note the lady on the boat in the background. She pulled up to see what we were bargaining over.
Buyer’s remorse…
Payer’s remorese
After lunch we went upstairs to look at the scenery
Kim and Trevor are on their way home. We’ll post the rest of the pictures when we get home back to the land of faster internet. Posting from .vn is s-l-o-w 
Our guide Huong took us to her favorite Banh Xeo place. It was sooo good.
Making it the real way..
Our guide and driver ate with us. This was a local place, no tourists.
Trevor and the driver
After lunch we made our way to the Citadel.
This one is for Allie. Note Kim’s freakishly long arm.
Lest you forget that we are in a communist country
And another boat ride. Every boat in Vietname seems to have bilge pumps running all the time. Those that don’t, bail it out by hand. Like these guys.
This car belonged to Thích Quảng Đức. More info can be found here. You can see the car in the background of the famous photo.
Note: Funny, the Wikipedia article has the exact same shot using the exact same focal length lens (we think).
Monk children studying
This shot was taken at one of the Kings burial sites. The writing describes the King’s life.
Our driver disappeared. For a moment.
Our hotel in Hue
Mrs. Venne got us on some cyclos at night. Cyclos are man-powered bike carriges that are slow and offer to crash protection what so ever. Also, the drivers speak no English at all. I kept and eye on where they were taking us. It turned out to be crazy and a lot of fun.
Kim’s self portrait
Me, trying not to crap my pants as we drover through a dark, traffic lightless intersection
Chi and I trying to remember the path that the drivers took us. A lot of places don’t have street signs.
Chi had the drivers take us to some place that sold tea. Several families were hanging out there and loved listening to our terrible attempts at the language. They also loved hearing Chi bargain with the head lady over a huge bag of tea. Kim and I already told Chi that we weren’t carrying it home in our luggage for her.
We can drink the tea even though it is made with local water since they boil it. I hope.
This guy was great. He loved having us there and wanted a lot of pictures taken. He’s actually hanging on us as Paul and I are much taller.
That’s all from Hue. On to Hanoi.
Hand made lanters
Kim and I on the streets of Hoi An
Hand-weaving silk pictures
Silk worms
Nice rice field near our hotel
This is one of Chi’s (Kim’s mom) friends from 40 years ago. It was a great reunion.
This is Kim at Marble Mountain. HUGE marble statue market.
Ahhh, Vietnamese iced coffee..
We finally make it to our hotel in Hoi An. One of the most relaxing places we went.
On the beach at Hoi An
Chi walked next door to another resort and met a nice security guard. After some chatting, they met up with them the next day, went to their house for a snack and tea then went out on the motorcycle.
Paul struttin’ the hog
Rather than eat expensive hotel food, Chi went out and bought a TON of cheap food stall food. It was awesome and a great picnic on our patio overlooking a river.
Pork and beef skewers and Banah Xeo (bang sow) and beer. It was sooooooo good.
More of the food…
The best part is that Chi went to the restaurant and took a ton of their nice dinner dishes. Someone stopped her but she turned on her Viet-charm and we had nice flatware.
Trying to update the blog…Internet would only work outside our room.
The next day we got up early and went for a walk on the beach.
Found this guy combing the beach for another resort with a water bufflo.
Our fearless Dictat– err leader.
Victoria hotel
Chi goofing off…
More flattering picture..
The bloggers
This is some mountain pass that we stopped to use the WC and take a break on the drive to Hue. The view was great but I was too busy swatting flies, pick pockets and pushy vendors. We call this “Fly Mountain”. The vendors were too “touchy” and Paul found that all the zippers in his bag were open when we left. We didn’t lose anything however. We noticed that when the vendors wanted the hard sell, they led us out of the cover and into an area where there was a swarm of flying ants. This disoriented and distracted us and that’s where they starting hugging Kim, etc. I had my hands in my pockets the entire time and my bag was on my side, not back. We ended up tersely telling them we didn’t want anything and slammed the van door in their face and drove off.
Back on another boat… I can’t remember where this was.
We have some self-induced down time so we are updating this post…
Our shuttle from the mainland to Vinpearl Land
Our room
View from the beach
About to board on our day trip to the fishing village, aquarium, and scenic lunch spot.
The aquarium
A throne fit for a tourist
Some crazy eels
Scenic seafood lunch spot.
Our best friend throughout the trip -antibacterial wipes from Wegmans.
Vietnam’s best beer…so I’ve heard.
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