Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, I took a trip with 2 guys from Texas to a place in Northern Vietnam called Sapa. It's a lovely place for hiking and to experience more rural, traditional Vietnamese culture. We were scheduled to take a nine-hour sleeper bus up to Sapa, get off and immediately hike to our homestay. Apparently, this sleeper bus also doubled as a mail truck, because my seat buddy was a car door.
The conversation was riveting
It was raining in Sapa but we chose to hike anyway. And it was definitely as beautiful as everyone said.
backpacks under poncho, let's get this trend going
Unfortunately the shoes I had brought didn't have very good tread on the bottom. That coupled with the accumulation of mud made it hard for me to even stand still without falling. The local women walking with us found this hilarious. Scratch that, everyone thought it was hilarious.
I was having fun sliding around in the mud until we did a steeper climb with an actual drop-off in to the rice paddy fields on one side. I slipped and my legs were hanging off the edge of the narrow path, and I was holding on for dear life in the mud. My life literally flashed before my eyes. More specifically, I imagined the banana crepes I had been promised for breakfast the next morning. There was no way I was missing out on that just because of a pair of crappy shoes. Thankfully the guy behind me grabbed my arm and pulled me back onto the trail. After that the slippery shoes seemed more of a danger than an annoyance.
the only part of the hike where I didn't fall
Of course, the women and children walking the trail with us were doing so in order to promote their own handicrafts for sale. "You buy from me? You buy from me?" was all we heard at every rest stop. This was occasionally coupled with "you very beautiful!" or "you very handsome!" in order to butter us up and loosen our wallets.
"You buy from us?"
"I'll probably die here"
We got to the homestay for a delicious Vietnamese meal. The homestay was a lot more modern than I was expecting (the beds were nicer than my accommodation in Hanoi). Also, Sapa was about thirty degrees cooler than Hanoi so it was perfect sleeping weather. The matriarch of our hoemstay brought us traditional rice wine and we had a lovely night getting to know all of the interesting people on our trek.
The second day of trekking was a lot drier and sunnier than the first, so I only fell twice. And it was even more beautiful, if that's possible.
I'm adventurous, I do things
the true gentlemen who laughed every single time I fell
Sapa also had these really aggressive huge butterflies that would just come at you and land where they pleased. They weren't scared like they are in the US.
I do what I want
The waterfall I was too scared to climb down
We hiked back to the hotel where we all had showers and a really good meal. I also discovered that my t shirt tan was revolting. Then we took the nine hour bus back, arriving at 3:30 am. Overall, a breathtaking trip to a beautiful place. 10/10 would visit again.
First of all, this blog has officially received over a thousand views, so thanks for that.
This morning the water at the volunteer accommodations was officially shut off. This meant that when I really really had to pee at 11am, I had to find a shop on the street with a toilet. Do you know how hard it is to pantomime having to use the bathroom? There's no universal sign for "I have to pee". I ended up using the squat toilet at a cafe, which was just as delightful as it sounds.
We left around noon to check into our hotel, the Hanoi Guesthouse. All in all, each double room cost $20, meaning that I only had to pay $10. TOTALLY WORTH IT.
I actually broke down in tears at the sight of this
The type of thing my dad would love
not so much this though (shrimp chips)
I do feel bad staying in a hotel, even if it's only for tonight. I'm all for getting the full local experience. But the thing is, I'm leaving tomorrow night for Sapa, and really don't want to get on an overnight train after having neither showered nor brushed my teeth properly in 2 days. I think 1 hotel night in 8 weeks isn't going to ruin my experience.
After a glorious 45 minute nap, I think I am heading off to Old Quarter for dinner and shopping.
Most of the people at the volunteer accommodation were doing sightseeing trips this weekend, so I had a pretty quiet weekend in the city. By this point, "quiet" includes getting lost several times, being harassed by men on motorbikes, and wandering in the rain for 3 hours.
Thursday night we went to a French restaurant, Cafe de Paris, for a change of pace from the usual rice and Vietnamese food. I really appreciate the homecooked meals we get for dinner, but the amount of rice this includes is making me a little bit sick. I'm a little desperate for Western food-- Wednesday I even went to KFC. I don't even eat KFC in America. (Vietnamese KFC is vile fyi).
So I thought the French restaurant would be a refreshing change. I really really miss raw vegetables--everything here is cooked and limp. When I saw the restaurant had an omelette & salad combo I had a happy little moment, imagining that the meal would satisfy the cravings I had been having for vegetables and non-Vietnamese fare.
The first sign of alarm should have come when my simple omelette and salad took wayyyyy longer than everyone else's complicated french meals. It looked pretty good when it arrived, though. I immediately ate the salad and then cut open the omelette. I took a couple of bites and then flipped over a piece to see a GIANT WATER BUG.
The ladies running the Cafe were very apologetic, asking if I wanted them to fry up another omelette. At that point, I had lost my appetite.
Saturday I took a trip into the Hoan Kiem district to meet up with some friends my parents had made when they went on their second adoption trip to Vietnam. Lisa was adopting one of her daughters around that time and they had a fun time together. Lisa, her girls, and Theresa were all very lovely and we had a wonderful time walking around the lake. They treated me to a (much appreciated) American lunch.
I came home to find this sign, with no explanation
The other volunteers were just as clueless as I was. We asked around, and apparently the entire Hoang Mai district will have no water Monday through Wednesday. I guess the district has trouble in the summer with maintaining steady electricity and water. So Monday and Tuesday night I will be in a $30/night hotel in Old Quarter. It will be nice to have aircon anyway.
I spent most of Saturday shopping in Old Quarter. The day was mostly uneventful, but the bus ride back was the best bus experience I've had so far. About halfway through the bus driver put in a tape and turned the volume all the way up. The song was this:
Immediately everyone on the bus perked up. A couple men started bobbing their heads, a woman tapped her foot enthusiastically, and several people started whistling and humming along. An old man began dancing in his seat. It was like this one particular song was the snake charmer song for the Vietnamese people as a whole. It was one of the most surreal and hilarious things I've seen on the bus, where people are usually reserved and proper.
I realized I've posted a lot about Hanoi culture, the trips I've been taking, and the food I've been eating, but not a whole lot about the volunteer work I've been doing. So here's a quick overview of how I've been spending my weekdays in Hanoi:
Every morning I teach English to children in the building where I live. There are three age groups: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Overall, it's a very good experience, though it's very difficult to get the children to speak up. Culturally, I think quiet voices are encouraged and they are afraid of messing up. This makes it hard to practice English skills.
However, the children are lovely, and very eager to learn. The exception to this would be a little boy who told me "I hate you. I very very hate you." yesterday.
In the afternoons, I work in the office of an NGO, writing up grant proposals for a disabled center that was destroyed by typhoons last year. It's very interesting and fulfilling work, but sometimes work is slow. This is evidenced by a series of bored webcam photos
My best friend, the fan
The day I got a $2 manicure. It chipped off in 3 hours
Next week, I will hopefully be finished with the bigger proposals for my NGO. At that point, I think I will begin working in the Bo de Pagoda orphanage in the afternoon. I've heard this placement is kind of tough, because the Vietnamese nannies are very rough with the children. Also, and I find this shocking, children are not allowed to be adopted from the orphanage. They are raised there and then set out into the world when they are old enough. I've also heard there's a lot of corruption--the orphanage itself is run by the monks of Bo de Pagoda, and a lot of the money that is meant for the orphanage is actually allocated to the temple.
As noted in the last post, I spent this weekend in Haiphong inexplicably teaching a seminar on public speaking for Vietnamese children. The levels of English that these kids spoke varied greatly, but they were all very sweet.
That being said, the cultural contrast that the American volunteers experienced at the seminar was insane. We were basically there as show ponies, Westerners recruited to show how credible the camp was. And everyone wanted a picture with us, or to practice English with us, or to add us on Facebook. The amount of friend requests I received from people whose names I can't pronounce is amazing. And my mouth is still aching from all the unenthusiastic smiling I did for pictures with children and parents.
Of course, they were all very nice to us. But it was strange to see how differently white people are treated outside of Hanoi.
So. Much. Smiling.
For example, I walked to the market during my break at one point to get some snacks from a shop (I'm starting to get a little tired of rice). The girl working the shop must have been about 8 or 9 and she simply stared at me when I walked in. I assumed she didn't speak English. But then after a minute or so she said "Where you from?"
"America." I answered.
She walked a little closer and stared at me a bit more and then said. "You so beautiful. I...no."
I was shocked. She was a cute little girl, and I can't imagine saying that to a stranger. Also, I was sweaty and exhausted and most definitely did not look beautiful.
Later that day we did an exercise where the kids had to give a speech about themselves. One of the (ill-chosen) questions that they had to answer was "what do you like most about your body and what do you like the least?" Great question for a room full of adolescents.
90% of the girls in that room either said they hated their "fat stomach" (they were all twigs) or their "big nose" (they all had cute little noses). Not only was I shocked that they had such a poor perception of themselves, the fact that they were willing to announce it to a room full of their peers was surprising.
The obsession with Western ideals seemed very pronounced outside of a major city. In Hanoi, I think we are seen as tourists, moneybags, or nuisances. But there, everyone wanted to be like us, to speak with us, to take pictures with us. It was emotionally exhausting to be constantly socializing with non-English speakers and running on 5 hours of sleep.
Fortunately we got the chance to walk around Haiphong a little bit:
Relaxed for about 2 minutes before I was told to buy something or stand up
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