All of the "H" Cities

oh the places you'll go. oh the tombs you'll see!

Ok, I admit it. Time marches on and blogging falls by the wayside in favor of living life. Juliet and I spent some great days back in Hanoi, Hue and Hoi An (why always "h" cities???). Many tombs were visited, dresses were made and purchased and food was eaten. One of my favorite parts of travel is the warm gooey feeling you have inside when you have a really great time somewhere. Like, you try to explain why you liked a place so much (and you can't) and you try to remember all of the names of the bloody tombs that you visited (and you can't) and you try to describe the taste of the delicious delicacies (and you can't even remember if it was chicken or pork but you just remember it was good). Details blur but the feeling stays.

I loved the feeling of Vietnam.

when a normal room is unavailable obviously one checks into the honeymoon suite



read an article about these urns on the airplane on the way to hue. so we took photos with every one we saw! it became a bit of a "where's waldo?"....... oh look, an urn!
love the red and gold


view from the honeymoon suite


tomb
tomb
never have I seen Juliet more happy than when she was eating this persimmon

delicioustomb
the resemblance is uncanny (face only)
this is the Japanese Bridge
this is not the Japanese Bridge
Possibly our best meal in Vietnam. Our driver took us to his favorite Vietnamese pancake and crispy pork place.

I give Vietnam a high recommendation for the historical sites, delicious food and friendly people.... but mostly, I recommend the feeling.

"We are so lucky we are interesting people. There are so many boring people!"

After a jam-packed day in Hanoi, we awayed to Halong Bay. Our tripadvisor-picked Black Pearl Junk Boat awaited us for our 2 night, 3 day "romantic" cruise. And so we loaded onto a bus and away we went. However, shockingly, upon arrival in Halong Bay we were told that the Black Pearl was unavailable so we would be joining a different tour. Baited and switched! I should have not only asked if this was the bus for the Black Pearl tour but also if we would be getting ONTO the Black Pearl. Oh Vietnam, you are a sneaky one. We were skeptical at first. But our only choice was get on the boat.... or don't..... and I really hate buses so we joined up with the patrons of the Heritage Junk: Jeanie and Clayton, a lovely Hawaiian couple, Mark and Alex, an interesting pair of 30-something Canadians who seemed both annoyed, amused and amazed by Juliet and me and a German couple and a Vietnamese couple that we never spoke to (oops!).

And the Halong Bay cruise was LOVELY. Halong Bay is really breathtaking and we had a great time just watching the scenery go back, chatting with each other and chatting with the other guests. Jeannie gave us some great recommendations (she is a tripadvisor fan too) including the hotel we stayed at in Hue which was fabulous. But alas, we were all separated after Day 1 because we were on a different tour and had to go to the Sunflower hotel on Cat Ba Island for night 2 while our new friends went elsewhere. No worries, we made new friends, including some Danish, Finnish and Switzerlandian (is that a word? **Ed. note: I have since remembered that the word is Suisse! Or Swiss. Ugg. I am not sure again.) people. But then we got to lunch on Day 2 on Cat Ba Island and a booming voice came from our tour guide (who was really not our tour guide apparently, just some fake tourguide who was babysitting us on behalf of another tourguide that we never met), "Ms. Juliet and Ms. Jennifer must sit alone at this table." Again sequestered and left with only each other to talk to. Luckily we are interesting people. There are so many boring people (as Juliet later pointed out). On Cat Ba Island we swam and we watched monkeys and we drank a lot of coffee. On the morning of Day 3, we boated back to the Halong Bay port and went to lunch where we were allowed to eat with the group. Then we all proceeded to the bus to take us back to Hanoi.... except when I say "we all" I mean "we" like "they" because we stayed behind and waited for another bus with a new set of people. By this time we had become fairly adept at chatting with strangers, explaining our professions without getting glassy stares (it ain't easy being a lawyer and a book editor when you are talking about the dork scale) and defending the American people (not American politics though- that is too big a fish to fry so I took the stance that we should all just blame Texas. sorry Matt.). On this particular bus we chatted with some ladies from New Zealand who described the vistas at Halong Bay as mediocre scenery compared to their country. Juliet and I stared at them in disbelief and I felt very lucky that I am not that jaded and that I realize that a bathing suit sarong as a dress belongs on the beach. I am sorry. That was mean. But it is true.

Halong Bay was so amazing.

Panoramo
Not thrilled about the bait and switch
Halong Bay

Sunset over Halong Bay
We really were made to sit by ourselves.
Aren't we cute?

Caves
View of the bay from the caves

You sure do meet some characters. This Danish gentleman went from Mountain Man to clean shaven 23 year old in about 30 seconds. This look matched his t-shirt better.
Goodbye Bus!

If I didn't take a picture of it, it didn't happen, right?

Because of the past kindness of Juliet's extended family, Juliet has some lovely and generous family friends who live in Hanoi and took care of our EVERY NEED. Their driver, Mr. Hong (said with a breath of air so that your cheek pop out a little), was our official tourguide taking us to all of the places that anyone could ever want to do in Hanoi. The man was magic with a turn signal and a car horn. Her lovely friends took us for chicken noodle soup, pho ga, for breakfast, river fish for lunch and Vietnamese buffet (with rice cooked in sweet wine for dessert which was amazing!) for dinner. There were many sights to be seen in between (including the ones from my last post).
One Pillar Pagoda




Ho Chi Minh's Tomb
Crouching tiger, Hidden Juliet

I think this is a dragon. Appropriate maybe.
Beautiful crane! And Juliet loves birds! She loves to eat them. (so pointed out our guide, Dang, in Hue. Ha!)
Alexis and a fish

Hanoi

(when one finds oneself with reliably fast internet, one jumps at the chance to upload a million photos! hence, the rapid-fire blog posts!)

Juliet has been visiting since Tuesday. She spent 3 lovely days in Vientiane with me- I had to work but she entertained herself with local buses, strong coffee, every temple she could find, making Japanese friends and discovering new fountains in Vientiane so as to make my "meet me at the fountain in town" idea a very very bad one. After work we ate delicious food, got massages (um, ouch!), went to the herbal sauna and walked around the night market. But, since I have taken photos of everything there is to see in Vientiane twice already, I didn't take many photos of those days. And, if I didn't take a picture of it and post it on facebook, it didn't happen, right? I will say that a highlight was drinking jujube daiquiris at Makphet. I didn't think they were that delicious but now I know what a jujube is which is ideal since I have been calling Juliet that for years.

And then, on Friday night, we were off to Vietnam!

Juliet has some Vietnamese family friends who were kind enough keep us very well-fed and show us around the city. And I loved it! The weather was cool and lovely. The food was amazing. The sights were old and Asian. It was all of the things I love :)

Me and the mean streets of Hanoi
When one's boyfriend is an Andrew Zimmern fan, one must purchase Cat Hai fish sauce and bring it back to Boston, via (in chronological order) Hanoi, Halong Bay, Hue, Bangkok, Vientiane, Bangkok again, Tokyo, Chicago, Boston. This bottle of fish sauce will be quite a globe-trotter (if it makes it).
Pho Ga, chicken soup for breakfast
Crabby lady, not only because she is about get run over by a motorbike but also because she is carrying crabs through the streets of Hanoi on a justice-scales type basket thing-a-ma-bob

First stop on our tourist trail: The Temple of Literature, first constructed in 1070, it is dedicated to Confucius, sages and scholars and was also the home to the Imperial Academy, Vietnam's first national university.

Inside the Temple of Literature
Cranes and turtles are signs of luck and longevity and we sure do wish them both on Juliet!
flowers
the grounds

names of graduates were carved on these tablets

and now, dear and faithful readers, I must depart for bed. Though the draw of high speed wifi calls to me, after our packed day of sightseeing, sleep calls more. ..... but there is more Hanoi where this came from so stay tuned :)

As time winds down...

I have only a few short weeks left in Vientiane, the City of Sandalwood.

Last Saturday, I had the most perfect Vientiane Day. Lao iced coffee, shopping, Wat Si Saket, manicure, more shopping, foot massage, sunset, dinner. It was indulgent.

Wat Si Saket was built in 1818 and was one of the only temples that was not destroyed when the Siam armies invaded in 1827. Its cloistered walls hold over 2000 ceramic and silver buddhas.

flowers at Wat Si Saket
Buddhas inside of Wat Si Saket
many many Buddhas
so many buddhas.
Wat Si Saket
That Dam, the Black Stupa, is the largest stupa in teh city. Many Lao believe a seven headed naga, river snake, lives inside who was the protector of the city. Legend has it that the stupa was once gold but when the naga failed to protect the city from the 1827 Siam invasion, the Lao people stopped taking care of the stupa and let it go black.
flowers near That Dam
Sometimes the sunset over the Mekong is so lovely

The sunset was particularly nice this evening

The lovely people you meet

One of my favorite places about traveling to a new place is the wonderful people that you meet!

My Lao class has been a lovely source of friends and companions for figuring out the market, going for dinners, and chatting about expat life.
Ossi and Karen, my lovely Austrian friends, are serious about learning Lao!
Me, Cecilia (the only Argentine in Vientiane, who speaks English with a Kerry Irish accent!), Ossi and our delicious BBQ dinner
This is the only cooking I have done in Laos :)
Cecilia, Ossi, Karin and our food!