Good Morning Vietnammmmm!

Everyone that has written a post about travelling to Vietnam uses that opening line and its a bit cliche, but i had to use it!

The thing I like about travelling in South East Asia is that you can eat whenever you want and there are always snacks available and its so cheap. That's what I love about Hong Kong. On every street corner, your bound to find a snack shop and they are open 24/7. So yesterday I had the following to eat at these places.

Breakfast
2 semi-stale rolls with Marmalade (provided free by hostel)

Lunch
TIm hadn't arrived yet so I went with these two Canadians who befriended me. We chilled out at this fancy cafe by the Red River Lake, which is the centerpiece of Town.

Papaya Shake
Rice and Stir Fried Beef with Capsicum

Afternoon Snack
Tim and I went for a walk around the city and did a loop and ended up at St Paul's cathedral. We stopped at this lil local cafe and I had a Custard Apple Shake - simply beautiful. I've never had one before and we shared a fried rice.

On the way to picking up our friend, i grabbed a pearl milk tea. I wasn't exactly sure what i was ordering, i just pointed at what the girl in front of me had.

Dinner
Tim and I had dinner with this chick from the Czech Republic, who he met on the bus. She's 32, travelled the world, 6 foot tall and blonde. Did I mention she's hot?

Back to the food....

The restaurant was a hot pot place but Tim and i really wanted to get down and dirty and eat on the streets and squat on those plastic stools. We couldn't find a place so we settled on this hot pot place.

I had beef in black bean sauce which had a pepper steak taste to it.

Came back to the hotel and chilled out on the rooftop and had a halida beer.

Water Puppet Show
We checked out this water puppet show and it was boring as. It was mainly full of old white folks like grandmas and grandfather types. The first 10 minutes were interesting and when they had these puppets kind of pop out of nowhere and dance in the water.

After the show, we went with our crew of 8 backpackers to find a pub. In our group there is an Irish dude, two Swedes, two canadians, Melbourne chick and two extremely good looking Aussie males (Tim and myself. Ahem.).

We walked through this food market which stretched for like 100 metres. There were rice paper rolls everywhere, fried fish, vegies. The roofs were hanging real low so sometimes we had to duck, so it was exactly like how an Asian food market should be! Including food scraps on the ground, slippery walkway, being real right, we could barely fit through, and some locals were driving motorbikes in the opposite direction to us!

We ended up at this Westerner expat type bar with the best seat in the house. It was ok. Didn't really feel like drinking since I've had 4 beers in two days and i was so tired.

So I ended the night on a sweet note with one of my all time favourite drinks - a mango lassie. It' s a yogurt based drink, thick and creamy. Whenever i have indian food, i always get my standard: butter chicken and a mango lassie!

That's been my food adventure on my first full day in Vietnam.

Hostel International

In case your wondering, I've been staying at this hostel in Vietnam called Hanoi Backpackers Hotel. It's so chilled out. Half the people in here are Aussies! Its the only hostel in Hanoi and a really well run one - its run by Aussies of course! Staying here its been so easy to meet people and hang out with them.

We've got a bbq on the rooftop tonite and apparently we are doing a swimwear/bikini competition. The chicks have been working on their catwalk runway hip movement/lap dance last night at the pub, so it should be a good show :P Supposedly the guys are supposed to wear their swimwear too, so not really sure about that.

Staying at a mixed dorm and at this place has been an excellent decision. I was a bit apprenhisve at first having never hostel'd before and i was concerned with my security of my personal belongings. I've got my own locker and everything was cool, until the person with the locker above mine opened my locker and took everything out and chucked her Hello Kitty paraphenalia in. Nothing went missing so that was good and I've just chucked my valueables in Tim's locker.

As soon as I walked into the dorm I met these two Canadians and we chatted like we were old friends. Then a couple of Aussie chicks showed up and we talked about our travels, education, "mushroom" shakes in Thailand (yes, those mushrooms!).

Since Tim hadn't arrived, I went to explore the town by myself. I walked around the Lake and got comfortable crosssing the road. There's just a million bikes everywhere. You can't cross the road completely, just have to weave yourself in between the bikes. Last night we started walking into the oncoming traffic - that's how the locals do it! You just have to walk slowly, confidently, and people will give way. Don't run cause that'll cause them to swerve. So far no close calls.


The Plane Ride

interesting. Should I say more?

In the departure line, I saw two of Australia's best fast bowlers - Glenn Macgrath and Brett Lee. It was unmistakable. Every one kinda had quick glances and hushed whispers. When they walked past me, i deicded to chat with them. In fact, i was the only person that spoke to them - they were going to NZ for the one dayers. Then they let in Shane Watson into the line - who do they think they are - they can't even beat the Pom's in one day internationals!

The passenger from Hell

On the plane from Sydney to Bangkok, i got a nice prime window seat. Then this 35 year old FOB lady from Laos sat next to me. This was ok, and i was minding my own business. Her arm and leg were touching mine and i was ok with this contact. A while later, i felt something poke my leg. I was like what the hell?

She then bumped me a couple of times with her foot and was kinda brushing up her arm against mine. It was unmistakeable, she was flirting with me. Her whole body language suggested it as well. Her legs were crossed and she was leaning over towards me and using her left foot to touch my left foot. I'm on a 10 hour flight and this FOB lady is rubbing her leg against mine. I'm in a cramp space and I'm trapped. So I pull out my picture of Marie (Thank God I had one) and just concentrated on her hahaha.

TO top it off, she then gave me post cards from Laos and used my headset. What the hell? WHo takes someones headset to use when they go to the bathroom? I tried to give the postcards back but she wouldn't have none of that. What am I, some kind of inflight entertainment?


I love you shortime

Then on the connecting flight from Bangkok to Hanoi, I was sitting next to this Viet dude. We didn't get off to a good start as I almost crushed his laptop when i put another bag over his laptop bag. He borrowed my pen to fill out his arrival card and I thought what the hell, i'm gonna talk to him.

I whipped out my Viet phrasebook and asked him a couple of basic phrases. He smiled and taught me hello, goodbye, etc.. Then we started talking and I found out he's really cool guy. He's been living in Germany for the last 3 years studying Civil Enginnering.

We talked about our girlfriends, checked out this hot Thai Airways chick and tried to guess her age. Apparently the local girls in germany aren't his cup of tea :P He likes that Viet flava too. I then flipped over to the "special section" in the phrasebook - pick up lines. We had a blast as he taught me how to say "that was amazing/wild", "honey, you are my everything", and some other phrases that can't be repeated here. But i made sure he taught me "i love you forever" which translates into the more common phrase "I love you longtime"!!!!!!!!!

When I was walking around the lake, i went into this side street and found this quaint DVD shop. They had all the covers of all the latest movies and I walked in. I negotiated the price down from 16,000 dong to 15,000 dong which is like AUD $1.30A to AUD$1.20. Hey, its Asia, you always gotta try and negotiate! Also cause i'm tight (Hoi, thanks for telling Marie that!). I was about to pay for my purchase and noticed that the sales person was trying to learn english via this computer program. So I asked her about it and we ended talking for about half an hour. She was really talkative and wanted to know my age, where i was from, my story, etc... so I whipped out my newly learnt phrase.... "I love you longtime!". I wasn't saying it properly so she wrote it down for me and practiced it a couple of times.....so Marie......

"Anh se ye em mai mai"!


I'm out like I love you long time,

DJ Ho.