Life in Hanoi

It is a dreary, rainy, and slightly chilled Sunday in Hanoi.  We went out for breakfast and coffee earlier, but decided to stay in while the rain falls.  We thought about walking around in our rain ponchos but the traffic here is so crazy, it seemed a bit too much to deal with.

Our time in Hanoi is coming to a close - we leave for Cambodia in 8 days.

Overview of Hanoi

In our first few days in Hanoi, we were skeptical whether or not we were going to like it here.  You have to really hunt for a quiet place here.  The traffic is crazy.  Crossing the street is crazy.  Lots of horn honking. If you want to take a leisurely walk, you are going to have to walk through 10-15 minutes of crazy to get to a place where you can relax and not worry about bumping into people or being run over by a motorcycle.  We have found it is quite common here for motorcycles to get tired of the traffic on the street and simply drive on the sidewalk.  Unlike other places we have been, you can actually find wide sidewalks where there are no motorcycles parked or businesses spilling out on to the walkway.  The dodging things can get tiresome.

But most of that stuff we have gotten used to and actually like it here despite the poor air quality we have had the past week.

Tuesday, we are getting out of the hustle and bustle and taking a 2 night cruise in Lan Ha Bay.  You may or may not remember that originally we were not going to come to Hanoi but we saw a place called Halong Bay that looked beautiful so we decided we wanted to see it.  As a result, we modified our itinerary and made a month in Hanoi happen - mostly to do that cruise.

Then we started researching and found that Halong Bay is overcrowded with tourist boats and the water is not so clear (it’s a bit polluted - shocking).  We learned that you can get the same views with fewer tourists and more beautiful water in Lan Ha Bay.  As a result, that is where we are going.

It is about a 3-hour drive from here. We leave Tuesday morning and will get back Thursday afternoon.  We decided to splurge and selected the 5-star option for our cruise.  We shall see if it really is 5-star.

We booked this through one of the many local tourist shops in town.  We did some online research and started to get very overwhelmed with the options and trying to figure out exactly what company to go with.  That is why we stopped in the one of the local places.  The lady was very helpful giving us all the information and cost for each option and let us choose what we wanted without an annoying attempt to up-sell us.  It ended up being cheaper than what we found online for a 5-star experience.

We were so happy with our experience with her, we went back and booked a day-trip to Ninh Binh which is supposed to be a beautiful location in the mountains.

One last thing to note about Vietnam in general - they erect and open businesses and buildings at a speed I did not think possible. Our thought on this after much discussion is they don't have the licensing and inspections we have.

This building near our AirBnB was a complete wreck of a construction zone when we got here three weeks ago and two days ago, it was this and fully open for business.  We went there yesterday - it was lovely.  If someone had told me it would be done and open before we left, I would have called you a liar!

Cost in Hanoi

While Hanoi is certainly more expensive than Da Nang, Vietnam, it is in no way "expensive." We spend about $8 - $10 for 2 coffees and one breakfast in the morning (Blaise doesn't eat breakfast, unless it is part of mine that I did not finish). We can get yummy coffee drinks anywhere for a total of $4 for the both of us. Dinner for both of us without drinks is usually $10-$12 and add another $4-$7 per mixed drink or wine.

We spent about $870 on our AirBnB in the heart of Hanoi's Old Quarter (prime tourist area) and that includes weekly apartment cleaning and laundry service.

How We Spend Our Days On The Road

Since we are here for a month, we don’t have to rush around and see everything.  There are some days we identify something we want to see that morning and go.  Other days, we wander around and see what we can find.  And other days, we go to the lake in the Old Quarter, walk a few laps around, and watch the locals take their Tet pictures in traditional clothing.

A street we walk down nearly every day.  The people along this street sell produce and a variety of meat.  The woman in the green, walked from right next to our AirBnB to deliver a tray of food to someone working on this street.

Some of the meat sold on the same street.  If you zoom into the meat on the table at the top of the picture, you will see chicken with black feet sticking straight up.

Same street. That guy sits there every single day making whatever paste that is.  Some people simply pull up on their motorbike and pick up food on this street, never getting off the bike.

Yesterday, we wandered around and found the monument for where John McCain was shot down.  The monument was originally erected in 1967 but rehabbed several times since then.  That is one of those places we would have never set out to go see because you really aren’t going to find it as a tourist destination on any list.  And there really isn’t much to see, but it is interesting. Those are the things you are going to find when you are just walking around.  If we had an itinerary every day, we would have never seen it.

Monument of where John McCain was shot down

Information in English about the McCain monument

Same for the opera house we found the day before.  We went walking by the lake and decided to go down a street we had never been down and there it was - the beautiful opera house with a lovely cafe’ we stopped at for coffee.

Hanoi Opera House

Cafe' at the Opera House

Because we stay in one place for so long, we like to get a lay of the land, do some research and then book tours once we are at the location.  I don’t think we have booked any excursion prior to arrival at a location since we have been gone.

We are still walking a ton.  On low days (1-3 times a month), we are only walking about 3 miles.  The most we have walked in one day is 9 1/2 miles.  My pedometer app says we average 5.6 miles a day.

Neither one of us are sure how much weight we have lost at this point since the pharmacies here often have scales but when you ask about them they are "broken."  We have a pharmacy near our AirBnB with a scale.  Blaise would go there and weigh but one day, the scale was partially hidden behind something and yesterday they told us, it is broken.  We don't believe that to be true but the bottom line is they REALLY don't want randos walking in weighing themselves.  I believe I have lost over 30 pounds and Blaise has lost over 20, maybe 25.  I am eating what I want but we are walking so much and I am eating less in general so I guess that is why the weight is coming off.

Coffee

Vietnam has set a new bar for coffee culture!  Their coffee game is even stronger than Italy.  When we started looking into it, we discovered Vietnam is the second largest exporter of coffee in the world, behind Brazil.  I would have never guessed they were 1 and 2 in coffee exports.

I am not a huge coffee drinker.  I don’t like coffee that much.  I would never drink it black and I never drink it at home but there is something about being on the road…  I DO drink coffee when we travel.

And Vietnam has the best coffee drinks from coconut coffee to egg coffee to salted coffee.  They like putting sweetened condensed milk in their coffee and that is delicious too.

I think the United States has really missed out by not embracing condensed milk.  There is so much you can do with it and it really is tasty, in small amounts!

I am going to miss the coffee drinks when we leave Vietnam!

What Do We Do Other Than Be Tourists

When we are not exploring the city or taking a tour of someplace, I read and we watch streaming.  We only watch one streaming show a day so we are really not watching much TV, although I still watch my Food Network shows. I find them comforting.

Since we have been gone we have watched all seasons of The Diplomat (Blaise had not seen the first two seasons), the latest season of Man on the Inside, and several Korean dramas:  King the Land, Beyond the Bar, and we just finished Extraordinary Attorney Woo. I guess we are gearing up for our visit to South Korea.

When watching King the Land, I discovered the two main characters were in separate KPop groups.  Then I went down the KPop bunny trail and now I am a fan of KPop.  Whoda thunk?

I also read a great deal.  In 2025 I read 73 books.  In case you need/want something good to read, here are some of my favorite books in the past year:  Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance (Espach), The Stationery Shop (Kamali), The Widows of Champagne (Ryan), Where the Rivers Merge (Monroe - the first in a series but the next book is not yet out), One Golden Summer (Fortune), Recursion (Crouch), and The Partisan (Worrall).

So far I have read 5 books this year and I am currently reading The Phoenix Pencil Company.

If you have read or watched something you have really enjoyed, let me know. I am always looking for something new to watch or read. (But we only have Netflix, Prime, and Philo for streaming.)

Nipah Virus

We have no concerns with the Nipah virus and have not been affected.  It is not here and not easily transferable between humans.  I did find out from the woman at our regular breakfast/coffee spot that their numbers are down because Vietnam is turning away travelers from India at the airport as a result of the Nipah virus.

Trip Status

We are more than halfway through this trip.  We left on the cruise from L.A. to Tokyo on September 24.  Our cruise from Tokyo to Alaska leaves May 9 and is 12 nights.  How did we get nearly 5 months into this trip already?  We are only 3 months from hopping on a boat back to the U.S.  Time has flown by!

Thus far, we have been to 2 countries we had never been to before: Thailand and Vietnam.

Although we had changed planes in Japan before this trip, this is the first opportunity we have had to spend time in Japan.  When we count the countries we have been to, Blaise counted Japan before this trip but I did not.  My thought is you don’t count a country unless you have spent some time exploring it.

But Japan IS a bit different because before this trip we actually changed airports to change planes, which by the way is so common in Tokyo, they have a whole well-oiled system for busing between the airports. I still don't think it counts.

In this trip, we will add three more countries to the list of countries we have visited:  Cambodia, Malaysia, and South Korea, bringing my count of countries visited to 56 and Blaise’s to 57 (he’s been to India and I have not).

Likely the next time you will hear from me, I will be in Cambodia where we will knock out one of our bucket list items - Angkor Wat.

We have three more bucket list items to mark off before we make it back to Texas:  the DMZ in Korea, cherry blossoms in Japan, and Mt. McKinley/Denali (whatever we are calling it these days).  Isn’t that a variety?!

Blaise LOVES these little trucks!

Hello Hanoi, Vietnam!

On Friday, January 16, we loaded up our stuff and flew from Da Nang to Hanoi, Vietnam.

The Trip

The trip to get to Hanoi was rather uneventful.  The flight left about 10:15 in the morning and arrived in Hanoi just before noon.  We took a Grab (Asia's version of Uber/Lyft) from our AirBnB to the airport in Da Nang.  We got to the airport around 7 AM or so and had to wait until 8 AM to check our bags since check-in was not yet open for our flight.

Even though our luggage is carry-on size, we check it because we are both above the weight limit for carry-on luggage.  The good news is the cost of checking a bag is usually around $15 in this part of the world.

We flew Vietnam Airlines, a first for us.  We were in line to check our bags before they opened for service.  There were many of us already waiting.  When it was time for them to begin service, the airline employees walked in front of the counter and bowed to us simultaneously.  Then they went around the counter and began helping us.  I thought that was a nice touch. It reminded me of when we flew JAL (Japan Airlines) and the ground crew bowed to the plane as we pushed out of the gate to leave.  So polite.  I am a fan of the bowing.

Our Accommodations

Our AirBnB is in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, selected specifically to be in the heart of the action.  While the area is touristy, it feels like it has maintained some of its authenticity in that it appears many locals are in this area are simply living their lives. For example, many of the locals come out and buy their meat and produce right on the street.  You can find a touristy restaurant right next to someone selling whole chickens (with the feet on!). Also, there is a small lake in the heart of the Old Quarter and every day we have been there (it is a lovely place to walk), there are locals dressed in traditional clothing taking pictures for Tet, their lunar new year coming up February 17. It is nice that it is not mostly tourists in the old part of town.

The lake in the Old Quarter - if you zoom in, you can see the young girls in traditional clothing preparing to take pictures right next to the lake.

Our AirBnB comes with weekly house cleaning and laundry service at no additional cost.  That is a handy thing to have.  We are not staying in a particularly upscale place.  But it's not a dump either.

Hanoi

We have been in Hanoi ten days now. How do I describe Hanoi? "Frenetic" is the best word I can come up with.  The streets are absolutely the craziest I have seen.  Blaise has heard that Ho Chi Min City (formerly Saigon) is Hanoi on steroids and that is surprising to me.

Crossing the street here is an art in and of itself.  Most of the time, you just have to step out into the street with faith that you will get across safely.  That's a hard place to get to in your head!  There are definitely more motorcycles than cars and no one is really going very fast.  And as the pedestrian, you never look any of the riders/drivers in the eye.  They WILL slow down for you and let you cross but it is a game of Frogger, as it was in Da Nang - only crazier.

Hanoi is also very clearly more French influenced than Da Nang.  There are some parts of Hanoi where you might think you are in Paris and not Vietnam.

Shockingly, it is cleaner than Da Nang.

The people in Hanoi are just as lovely as the people in Da Nang but there is not as much "we are glad you are here" statements.  Actually, we have had none of that.  That is probably because we are in an area where foreigners are plentiful.

If you go to the little lake in the Old Quarter, there are people, mostly children, that ask you to talk to them in English so they can practice.  Last Sunday, we had a father come up with three girls and ask if they could practice their English.  It was 2 sisters and a cousin; the youngest and most animated being 5 years old. Yesterday (also Sunday) we talked to twin boys, age 10.  They were quite the nose pickers and booger eaters. After that, I was not so keen on talking to the children anymore - I really didn't want to watch them pick their noses again.  I am sure I will do it again, once I work past my issues with that.

The lake in the Old Quarter - this is a temple on a little island in the lake.

The Buses

We have taken the buses several times already.  They are clean, although not as spotless as the buses in Da Nang but are much more used than those in Da Nang.  The most we have paid for a one-way trip is 12,000 dong each, which is about 46 cents.

A few days ago, we were on a bus with the craziest bus drive we have experienced anywhere in the world.  I think his goal was to drive his route the fastest he possibly could.  He did not stop at every stop like the other bus drivers we have had in Hanoi.  The doors to the bus would open and close only fast enough to let someone on or off and he would be driving off as the doors were closing.  And he was a horn honker.  I would not have wanted to be a motorcycle in front of him.  He would lay on the horn until whomever was in front of him had moved out of his way. I have never had a more horn-hocking bus driver than this guy.  He kinda scared me.  At one point, the driver turned around and said something to Blaise in me in Vietnamese but we had no idea what he was saying. He was looking right at us so we knew he was talking to us but we had no clue.  If it wasn't "hello" or "thank you" in Vietnamese, we wouldn't know what was said.

We still like taking the bus; it gives us a chance to experience the lives of the locals. We are obviously not locals, but we like to live like a local as much as possible.

Activities While Here

We have seen the mausoleum of Ho Chi Min, train street, and wandered extensively in the Old Quarter.

On Thursday, we are going to see a water puppet show.  This is supposed to be a cultural show native to this area.  I am not sure what other parts of the world have water puppets.  I am looking forward to it.

The water puppet theater. This is right next to the lake in the Old Quarter.  On the left is a vertical set of windows with a puppet in each window.  There are a couple water puppet theaters but my research says this is supposed to be the best.

Our other plan (which we have not yet booked) is a 2 night cruise in Lan Ho Bay.  We were originally going to do Halong Bay, but our understanding is that Halong Bay is too overrun by tourist boats. Lan Ho Bay is supposed to be a quieter, more natural experience.

We are tossing around some other ideas.  We will be here until February 16, a rather unfortunate day to leave since Tet is February 17.

Next Locations

On February 16, we leave for Cambodia to check off a bucket list item - Angkor Wat.  We will be there for 2 weeks and until just the other day, that is all we had booked out.

Now we have booked our flight from Cambodia to Kuala Lumpur on March 2.  We will stay in an AirBnB there (already booked) until March 30.

The rest of the trip is not booked so it is subject to change but as of right now the plan is to go to Osaka, Japan to see the cherry blossoms.  We will stay there about a week and then head to South Korea, where we will stay until just a day or two before we catch our cruise to Alaska.

I can't believe we are already looking at nailing down the last month of our trip. It seems like just yesterday we got on Ovation of the Seas to begin this adventure.

Added Benefit of Trip

One of the great benefits of this trip is getting healthier.  We are walking anywhere between 4 and 9 miles a day.  Some days it is a little less than 4 miles but only a handful of days in a month.

We are also eating less (not snacking much at all) and healthier.

I didn't weigh myself until 6 or 7 weeks into this trip but since I have been weighing myself, I have lost 28 pounds.  This is the first time in I don't know how long, I have been able to lose weight without some sort of medical intervention.

I can tell my stamina has increased - I can walk much farther these days without a break.  Since the weather at our last few locations has been rather mild, it will be interesting to see once we hit places like Cambodia and Kuala Lumpur, if I will be able to handle the heat better. Fingers crossed!

Let me know if you have any questions about Vietnam.  I am happy to answer them.

Life in Vietnam

 Happy New Year!

Yes, I am saying it even though we are 11 Days into 2026.

I haven't had much to post about in the past couple of weeks.  We have simply been living, walking a whole lot, seeing sights on foot, and taking the bus from time to time. I've been posting pictures periodically on Facebook to document all that.

We did do a couple of tours in the past few days so I will talk about those first.

Ba Na Hills

We call this banana hills because sometimes you see it as Ba Na and others Ba Na Na.  It is very much a tourist sight with an amusement park.  The smart thing they did with the amusement park is some of it is inside and some is outside.  Since it gets really really hot here, I thought that was smart. But if it were me since I hate the heat so much, I would have shoved the whole thing inside.

What was not smart was choosing to pay for a tour to get there, which we did. The tour gave us 3 hours at the amusement park but the outside part was closed because of the fog.  But even if it was open, I'm not sure we would have spent 3 hours there.

What you really go there to do is to ride the longest cable car system in Asia and to see and walk on the Golden Bridge.  They had a beautiful garden up there too but you didn't really need a tour guide for this.

The Golden Bridge - the main reason we took this tour - it is said these are God's hands lifting us up

If we had to do it again, we would have taken a Grab up there and back for $14ish (one way, so $28 for the round-trip) and done it on our own.

As a result of this revelation, we are testing a new theory from here on out.  If there is no historical significance to the trip or special knowledge needed to either navigate or understand where we are going, we will not buy/do a tour - we will just get there on our own.

The views from the cable car once the fog lifted were stunning, the Golden Bridge was cool, and the garden was beautiful, so I would say the trip was worth it.  It's just that a tour guide can add no value to the trip.

The best picture I was able to take on the way down after the fog lifted.  The glare from the glass in the car was too much to get any really good pictures.

I really like this picture of us in the garden

Hue and the Imperial Palace

We took this tour yesterday.

Vietnam's last monarchy ranged from 1802 to 1945.  It was the Nguyen dynasty.  During this time the capital city was Hue (pronounced Way or Hway - with a little hhh at the beginning - I'm not sure which one - it's hard to tell).

The Imperial Castle is in Hue so we took a tour to see it.

Part of the tour was a train ride to Hue.  We chose this tour because we had heard the views from the train are beautiful and that proved to be true.  It was a comfortable train and the ride lasted about two and half hours.

A view from the train ride to Hue

We had a great tour guide who provided historical context for everything we saw.  We visited three sites:  the Imperial Palace, a Buddhist pagoda, and the 12th king's tomb/mausoleum. (There were 13 kings under the Nguyen dynasty.)

We learned about 50% of the people in Vietnam have the last name Nguyen because many people during the Nguyen dynasty took the last name of the king to show their allegiance. That is why it is such a common Vietnamese last name.  I did not know this.

Imperial Palace

The palace was gorgeous.  Every time I look at these palaces, I think of all the money it takes to create such a home and wonder what the living situation was for the common people of the country during that period of time. But it sure was purty.

Outside of the palace

13th Century Buddhist Pagoda

Us outside of the 13th century Buddhist pagoda

Our second visit was to a pagoda build in the 13th century.  It was amazing but the big story for this site was the blue car stored behind the pagoda. In 1963, a Buddhist monk from Hue, drove this blue car from Hue to Saigon and set himself on fire in front of the Cambodian embassy to protest President Ngo Dinh Diem's policies supporting only Catholicism and attempting to shut down Buddhists' ability to worship.  The monk traveled from Hue to Saigon because he believed if he set himself on fire in Hue, no one would report on it thus not bringing world attention to the problem.

I will not post the picture of him on fire - you can Google that and see it. It is fairly gruesome and maybe you have already seen the picture.  The house the actual car the monk drove from Hue to Saigon behind the pagoda for all to see and to remember his sacrifice for religious freedom in Vietnam.

The name of the monk was Thich Quang Duc.

The car driven from Hue to Saigon

King #12's Burial Site

Our last visit of the day was to King #12's mausoleum.  I say King #12 because that is what our tour guide called him.  It is a rather grand mausoleum built by the King who increased taxes by 30% just to pay for it.

It was most certainly grand - and this from a King who admitted he was a bad king.

Other things of note about this King:  He became a drug addict and died in 1926 of tuberculosis at a rather young age. While he preferred the company of men, he did have a wife with which he slept with only once solely to produce a male heir.

Overall, this was a great trip filled with Vietnam history pre-independence AND pre- what we call the Vietnam War.

There were multiple levels to this burial site.  This is from the bottom looking up to the first level.  The actual burial is at the top level.

Entrance at the top to where King #12 is buried

Finally! After all those steps and all those edifices, here is where he is buried.  Our tour guide is to the right in the picture.

Life in Vietnam

Here are some new observations of Vietnamese life and culture . . .

1.    We still find the people here so very welcoming.  We have had multiple people thank us for visiting their country.  The kids are the best!  The kids will come up to you, ask you your name and where you are from - all in English.  We have found if people speak English, they want to talk to you in English.  If they don't speak English, they never seem put out at all by your inability to speak their language.  Many will pull out their phones and Google translate.  They WANT to interact with us and really go out of their way to make us feel welcome here.  Sometimes it feels like we are kind of a show because we look so different  - being white, Western, and tall.  There is some staring that happens. But it doesn't bother me. They are in no way rude about it. To be fair, I am tall at home.  I can only imagine how I must look to them - most Vietnamese are fairly short compared to me.

2.    We have taken the bus many times and they are always clean and not nearly as crowded as buses in Italy.  In Italy, buses are often crowded and you have to stand.  We have never had to stand on a bus here.  Sometimes the buses have just a bus driver but other times, they have a bus driver and a conductor.  If there is a conductor, he or she takes your money and if there isn't one, the bus driver has to take your money.  In any case, the bus driver, conductor, AND the passengers are so very friendly and helpful.  I really can't say enough about how welcoming the Vietnamese are.

The only downside about the buses is sometimes you may have to wait a while for the bus to show up. Today we waited 30 minutes for bus #16. Finally bus #13 stopped and we were told to get on when we told them we were waiting for #16.  I'm not sure what that was about but the bus took us right to where we wanted to be dropped off.

3.    We have found that many services of the same variety congregate on the same street.  We have what I call the produce street.  Then there is the laundry street, the barber street, and the pig street - where you see whole pigs roasting.

Here is one of the pigs on pig street.  I think part of him is already missing.

4.    Crossing any street here when there is no traffic light is a whole thing.  You can't do like you do at home and wait for a break in the traffic.  You have to Frogger across. Rush and stop. Rush and stop.  Sometimes a car or motorcycle will yield to you. Eventually you will get across unscathed.  The more you do it, the easier it is.  I think one of the big differences here is people are not driving distracted like they are at home. I certainly wouldn't try this in the U.S.  I don't think drivers pay enough attention to the road for you not to get hit.

5.    The words in Vietnamese are short.  I am not sure I have seen a word more than 5 or 6 letters long.  Six letters would be a really long word here.  I think they can have such short words because they have lots of symbols that go above letters.  Compare this to Thailand, where the words are SOOOOO long.  And someone told us they don't have breaks between words and sentences in Thai.

6.    I am not impressed with the cleanliness of the streets in Da Nang.  Especially after seeing Hue yesterday.  Hue was so very clean but Da Nang needs to do something about their trash pickup.  People litter here and the trash on the sides of the road pile up.  The trash is grouped up together like it is waiting to be picked up.  Some people are really good about sweeping and cleaning up in front of their establishments and others are not.  Contrast the streets of Da Nang with the beach here. The beach is very clean.

7.    Even the people from the U.S. here will start talking to you.  We met a woman who looked like she was in here 20's from California who had been living here for several years.  Her parents were immigrants from Vietnam so she was of Vietnamese heritage.  We were just sitting on a bench resting before our walk home.  She was walking her dog and stopped to ask us where we were from, in perfect Americanized English.  Her dog was a husky, Nala, and was 12 years old. Yep, we got to pet Nala! We got the impression she was here with her parents although she never said.  She works for an American company who has an office here in Da Nang.

The other day at our usual morning coffee shop, we met a man from Abilene, Texas. He and his wife own a salon in Abilene but are from here.  He was here because his father passed away so he came back to pay his respects.  You could tell the death was weighing on him but he really wanted to talk to us.

We also met a guy from Detroit and Houston.  He claimed them both.  He is living here with his Vietnamese wife that he met here.

All of these conversations were initiated by the other person, not us.  It is not like we are unfriendly but we just don't go around talking to everyone.

8.    They are really stingy here with their napkins.  We have found this to be the case almost everywhere since we landed in Tokyo.  When they do have napkins, you are lucky if they are as big as a cocktail napkin.  Conversely, they are quite generous with plastic bags.  Americans are not going to save the world from the woes of plastic and styrofoam so long as this part of the world uses and discards as much as they do.

Stomach Problems

On New Year's Day, I got sick again.  I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible stomach cramps and was sick for about 2 days.  The only thing Blaise and I can come up with is that the night before, when we shared a dish at a restaurant, I had ice for my drink and he did not.  I'm thinking the restaurant used tap water for their ice.  If that is the case, I don't think that is a common practice here since we get ice in our coffee drinks all the time and nothing happens.

Weather

The weather here continues to be wonderful.  We have had some rainy days here and there but nothing too bad.  The day we went to Ba Na Hills was one of the yucky days and the first time I really felt chilly here. The low temps are normally in the mid 60's and the highs are anywhere from 70-75.  Absolutely lovely!

Next Steps

Friday we leave Da Nang and fly to Hanoi.  We are staying at another AirBnB there.  We will be there for a month after which we head to Cambodia for 2 weeks solely to see Angkor Wat. Yes, I know it won't take us 2 weeks to see Angkor Wat but we do want to get a feel for the culture there before we leave.

We have nothing booked beyond there but we think we will spend a month after that in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, heading on after that to Japan for the cherry blossoms, then to South Korea.  Our cruise back to the states is our hard out - it leaves May 9 from Tokyo.

Hello Vietnam

Hello from Da Nang Vietnam!

And Merry Christmas!  Yes, I’m a little late but it is still the holiday season.

We have been in Da Nang for almost two weeks now.   It will be two weeks tomorrow. We leave here Friday January 16 and fly to Hanoi, Vietnam where we will also be for one month.

Arrival in Da Nang

We arrived at the Da Nang airport around 9:30 PM on Monday, December 15.  It took a while to clear customs - it was one of the longest customs lines we have seen in a while.

To visit Vietnam as a U.S. citizen, you have to apply and get approved for a visa.  We did this about 3 weeks before we were to arrive in Da Nang.  It is all done online.  Along with answering a bunch of questions, you have to upload a picture of your passport AND a passport type picture with a white background.  We just took pictures with our phones in the bathroom in Chiang Mai against the white wall.  It worked.  The form is very particular in that you have to apply for the visa on the same device from which you take the pictures.  I found that out the hard way.  The request costs $25.00 and it can take up to two weeks to find out if your visa is approved.  After literally hours of trying to get it right, it took about 2 days for us each to get approved.  I filled my application out first.  Blaise started his after mine but since I had learned so much doing mine, I just went ahead and filled his out for him to save time and effort.

After we were both approved, we both started reading and seeing YouTube videos of the nightmare some people were having with the process.

But, I digress.

We took a Grab from the airport to our AirBnB and met our host.  I have concluded I do not like arriving at a new place in the dark.  The neighborhood looked ominous and not so great in the dark.  I had doubts about feeling safe here.  Those doubts were dispelled the next day after the sun came up. It’s just a working class neighborhood.

Our Home for the Month

Our AirBnB is fine.  For a studio apartment, it is big.  It has a long balcony but not much of a view really.  All we can see is the other side of the street and the Dao Tien hotel.  The sign for this hotel has a heart at the end of it so one wonders exactly what kind of hotel it is.  Is it a “love” hotel?  We don’t know but we never see any odd activity there, other than people pushing their motorcycles out of the lobby.  That is not uncommon here.

Our Neighborhood for the Month

The neighborhood is a fairly working class neighborhood.  Nothing fancy but nothing seedy, despite the “love” hotel. Lots of children in the neighborhood going to school in the mornings. Lots of families.

Families here not only live together, but they also ride their motorcycle together.  Yes, motorcycle, singular.  It is VERY common to see the whole famn damily on the motorcycle - both parents and child or children.  We haven’t seen 5 on a motorcycle yet, but we have seen four, multiple times.

It appears that many people own a business on the ground floor and either live above or behind the business. I am not sure how one short block can have 6 or 7 coffee shops and they all survive, but it appears to be the case.  We have a coffee shop on the ground floor of our building but I rarely see anyone buying coffee.  Maybe once?  The guy that runs it seems more concerned with the fish he has in the tanks than selling coffee.  He seems to be growing or cultivating (or whatever you would call it) fish for fish tanks.  Some of the fish are huge while others are small in a big bin that looks like what we would see someone use to bus tables in a restaurant.  Only the bin has water, small fish, and a hose hanging over the top and into the water blowing bubbles in it. 

We are a less than 5 minute walk to the river and about a 25 minute walk to be able to place our toes in the surf on the beach. Da Nang is on the coast of the South China Sea (yes, I had to look that up).

The Temple in our neighborhood

The Cost of Things

If you thought the cost of things in Thailand was reasonable, you will think they are downright dirt cheap here.

Their currency is the dong and there are approximately 26,000 dong to one dollar.

The most expensive meal here was last night.  We ate a place called Motor City, known for its Detroit style pizza.  We got 1 pizza and a hard cider for a little less than $15.00.

We can eat down the street from our AirBnB for about $5.00 total.  We can both get a coffee drink down the street at “Heaven Coffee” for $2.43 and it is tasty.  I am becoming a coffee drinker on this trip.

I got a facial for about $52.00 that is comparable to what I get at home and pay over $200 for. I haven’t gotten my nails done yet, but that will be tomorrow.

While we do have a washer, since we have no dryer and would have to hang up the laundry either in our studio apartment or on the communal roof of the apartment building to dry, we take our laundry to a lady down the street.  She charges 9,000 dong per kilo.  Last week our laundry cost 50,000 dong to clean; that’s $1.90.  I am not sure how someone makes a living that way but things are certainly much cheaper here than at home, so maybe that’s it.  

Cheese is expensive here.  They don’t really eat it in their food so it is pretty expensive in the grocery store.

The Food

I do like the food here better than Thailand.  There are more non-soup-like choices here.  I am not a big fan of soupy foods.  The banh mi’s are delicious.  They have these bau bun things that are yummy and I like their rice choices.

We have a stove-top here in the apartment so I have been cooking more here. It is Western food that we are used to so I don’t miss the food at home as much as I did in Thailand.

They do an unusual thing here with coffee that we haven’t seen elsewhere.  I call it a coffee chaser.  Oftentimes when you order coffee, you get an extra drink.  At Heaven, our morning coffee place, they weren’t giving it to us at first, but now they are.  I guess we are local now. We have seen this extra cup of beverage everywhere so I had to Google it.  It is a tea that serves as a palate cleanser between drinks of coffee.  Blaise and both agree it is a type of tea we had at the house at home but we can’t quite place what kind of tea it is.

The People

The Vietnamese people we have come across have been amazing!  Every place we have been on this trip, the people have been lovely.

The Vietnamese are a bit different though.  We are clearly not Vietnamese.  In non-tourist areas, we tend to stick out.  And when we do, there seems to be a curiosity with them when they look at us.  Their gaze lingers a bit longer.  Their smiles are big and genuine though.

We have been asked more here than anywhere thus far, where we are from.

The children seem the most curious.  We have walked past a school several times and all the kids say “Hello!”  They seem so eager to try out their English.  Yesterday we were waiting at a bus stop (for the bus, clearly) and two boys (preteenish) walked by and asked where we are from.

The Scout Meeting

Last Sunday, we were at the restaurant down the street and across from the river eating lunch. We had been there once before and it was good so we went back.  It was about 1:30/2:00 PM.  There was a large group of men at a bunch of tables placed together to make one long table.  There were about 15-20 of them.  To picture this properly, you have to keep in mind that all the tables and chairs were half the size of what we are used to.  It’s a cultural thing that my 6 foot frame is not a fan of.  Also, this is outside, as are most restaurants here, with a covered area.

When we walked up and sat down, several of the men smiled and enthusiastically said “Hello” to us.  They had been there a while and they all had had a few beers.  There were coolers around them with plenty of beer at the ready.  This was a festive group having a great time.

I was facing their table while Blaise had his back to them.  The men kept looking over at us.  It wasn’t a glaring thing.  It didn’t feel rude in any way.  More curiosity.  After we had been there for 15 minutes or so, one of the men came up and set down a plate of food for us.  He had taken food from their platter and gave it to us.  We thanked him and he went back to the table.  Some of it was chicken and some of it was some weird sea creature that Blaise took a bite of, said it was awful and so we hid the rest under some rice.

As I was struggling using the chopsticks on the chicken they gave us (I’m still not good with them - never have been), another man brought us some forks.

The next thing you know, some other guy is talking to Blaise in Vietnamese, broken English, and using Google translate.  He tells Blaise through Google translate, that they are “scouts” having a meeting. It was no scout meeting I have ever seen!

One thing leads to another and they are handing us beers, teaching us their version of “Cheers!”  Then I am not sure how it happened but we are at their table right in the middle of things, drinking beer and getting hugged.  We had already paid and were ready to leave but it was difficult to extricate ourselves from the celebration - they did not want us to go.  It was a fun experience, one we were not expecting.  Until Blaise got sick from the beer.  He is not supposed to drink carbonated beverages but felt obligated to have a few sips.  Also, they were not going to let that go until he drank.

The Cultural Nuances

It is always interesting to see how other cultures have evolved and what things are unique.

Here are a few we have noticed:

1. The little tables and chairs have to be number one.  Ugh!  I googled this one too and google says it is done for a couple of reasons - 1) the smaller tables and chairs create an intimate environment for people to visit with each other; and 2) it makes it easier to move them out of the way when it is time to close up.  I guess so they can take them inside at the end of the day.

2. There is LOTS of honking of car and motorcycle horns.  Honking and beeping all the time.  I don’t need to google this one to know why that is.  They have traffic lights at the major intersections but there are absolutely zero stop signs.  So people honk as they are approaching an intersection to warn those coming from other directions.  It seems to work.  The traffic flows well and people rarely have to stop at an intersection with no traffic light.

3. We have been asked no less than half a dozen times if we want tempered glass for our phones - sitting at the beach, sitting at a restaurant - just about everywhere.  It took us a few times to figure out what this was for.  They all have a laminated sign situated landscape with prices.  It says “Tempered Glass” at the top of it and we originally wondered why would someone want to sell an obvious foreigner tempered glass.  It took a while to figure out it was for cell phones.  But still.  I guess breaking your glass on your cell phone is a serious problem here.

4. Lots of bonsai trees all over the place here.

5. Lots of places to play pool here.  And they are serious about their billiards.  You look in these places and you have to hunt for the bar.  Pool is not just a thing you do to kill time while you are drinking beer.

6. They have many tall skinny buildings.  We kind of live in one.  It is 5 stories with a rooftop area on the 6th.  The building is so skinny, there are only 2 apartments on each floor; one in the front and one in the back.  Some of these buildings stand all by themselves while others are right next to each other.

7. They work 6 days a week here and the children go to school 6 days a week but only for ½ day each day.

8. Sundays appear to be family day.  We see multiple families with several generations out and about on Sundays.  I think it is wonderful!

9. Whenever we visit a new country, I like to see what their religious makeup is.  I find it interesting but it also affects their culture.  Vietnam is 74% non-religious or they worship their ancestors; 15% is Buddhist; 7% is Roman Catholic; while the rest is a mix of other religions including Protestant, Islam, Caodaism, and Hinduism.

This has nothing to do with anything I wrote but this is before a major intersection telling you what vehicles are allowed in which lane.  It works well.

The Hospital Experience

We were originally going to take care of some preventative medicine while we were in Osaka.  We were both going to get colonoscopies and I was going to get a breast MRI.

But that did not happen because our time in Osaka was shortened because our cruise was extended due to a typhoon.  Then when we got to Osaka, one of our 5 days left there was a national holiday.  If you have ever had a colonoscopy, you know you have that one night of God-awful preparation.  If you don’t know, I will let you Google that shit (pun intended).  The prep is definitely worse than the actual colonoscopy.

Anyway, we still had to get those things done.

So no one worries, I was getting a breast MRI at the recommendation of my gynecologist at home.  After genetic testing and really, my family history of breast cancer, the doctor recommended alternating every six months a 3D mammogram and breast MRI.  It is just a diagnostic thing.

Blaise did the research and found a place here called Vin Mec International Hospital, a JCI accredited hospital.

Last Monday we went over there to see about getting these things done.  They asked if we could come back Thursday at 8 AM for a doctor consultation.  So we scheduled it only to remember right after we did it, that Thursday was Christmas Day.  By then, it was easier just to keep the appointment than reschedule.  It’s not like we were visiting family or unwrapping gifts anyway.

We showed up Thursday morning.  Our colonoscopies were scheduled for the next morning (we still had to do the prep) and I did my breast MRI right then and there Christmas Day.  I also got an X Ray of my left heel as well as an ultrasound of the same since I had been struggling with pain for over a year.

The two colonoscopies, breast MRI, X Ray, and ultrasound cost $914.00.  We paid at their payment counter and we were good to go.

The MRI, X Ray, and ultrasound were all done within a couple of hours and by around lunchtime, I found out I have a bone spur, calcification, and plantar fasciitis which I Google-diagnosed myself with a year ago. I got some medication from their pharmacy, was told to buy a sleeve that went around the heel, and given some exercises to do.

That's my heel!

They told me they would give me my MRI results the next day after the colonoscopies.

We did our colonoscopy prep hell that night and returned the next day for the deed.  When we got there, the doctor told me they needed to do an MRI with contrast and that could be done right after the colonoscopies.

We got the colonoscopies done.  I got my second MRI and the very sweet technician was asking me all kinds of questions afterwards about why I was there to do a breast MRI instead of a mammogram, family history, etc.  She was very kind about it but all that did was hike up my anxiety.

We went in to see the doctor for the results of everything.  Colonoscopy results were great.  No issues, zero polyps for the both of us.  But they wanted to send the MRI results out for reading by an expert and we would have to come back the next day for the results.  This new MRI cost $40 and we paid right then.

The next morning, we got there and they said a doctor wanted to do an ultrasound and to go back to imaging.  No charge. Free!  An actual free medical procedure. The actual doctor did the ultrasound, not a technician.  Then, right there after we were done and I was dressed, the doctor showed me the pictures and explained what she saw.  There were some lesions but not cancerous.  She spent about 10 minutes explaining everything and said my doctor had a good plan, given my dense breast tissue and family history.  But she also told me to always get the MRI with contrast for diagnostic purposes.

I was blown away by this last part of the process.  I have had breast MRIs and ultrasounds in the past at home - all a part of the whole dense breast problem and family history - but no one has ever sat down and explained all the details with me, showing me the MRI pictures of my breasts.  All I have ever gotten is - “You’re OK” and “You have dense breasts so it’s hard to tell.”

I left the hospital with a CD of all the images and report to provide to the next health provider. 

That was a long 3 days, but I am glad we did it and it is done!

The Emotional Struggle

One last thing before I call it quits for the day. Even before I got here, I struggled a bit with coming to Vietnam.  This is the place that really screwed up my dad.  While I think it is quite possible he would have become an alcoholic without Vietnam, what happened here is what made it a certainty.   There were zero good memories here for him.  I have no doubt, had he lived past age 46, he would have never stepped foot in this part of the world, let alone Vietnam for any amount of money.

What happened here changed the trajectory of my life.  A chunk of my life was rough because of what happened here.  Then I lost my dad at age 19 (in part) because of the war.

Even the first week I was here, I was unsettled as a result of this.

But the people have won me over.  So kind. So friendly, full of smiles for you. So curious.  So eager to talk to us.

You have to separate governments from their people in many ways.  And I’ve had to keep in mind, the majority of the people in Vietnam were not alive during that time in their history and have absolutely nothing to do with what happened to my father or me.  And if they were alive during that time, they certainly don’t want to dwell on it, have moved on, and hold no animosity.  And so must I.