Custom Clothes, Cheap Eats, Life by the River

7/25 Hoi An, Vietnam

Our mid-day one hour flight from Hanoi brought us to Danang which is roughly in the middle of the country on the coast. While Danang is one of the largest cities in Vietnam, we were heading to a smaller town about 30km away called Hoi An. We were met at the airport by a driver from the Hoi An Riverside Resort where we would be spending the next three days. The driver spoke enough English to point out a couple places of note along the way including China Beach – the first place the US military landed in Vietnam and also a frequent get away beach for the soldiers during the Vietnam War.

Hoi An is a quaint colonial French village located on a river just a couple kilometers from the ocean. It's only become a popular tourist destination over the past few years. While the town is relatively simple, they are very accommodating to tourists who are now supporting much of the economy. About half of the shops in the town are tailors or shoemakers that will make for you whatever you might want to wear within 24 hours (often same day). The other half were split between traditional Vietnamese handicrafts, art, and lots of different restaurants. There is no supermarket, only an outdoor market and people selling drinks and snacks in other shops.

We checked in and were delighted to find that resort we had found on Trip Advisor was really terrific. We were given a very nice room with a balcony over the river. The grounds, pool and restaurant at the hotel were all lovely.

We grabbed a taxi from the hotel and headed into the main part of town, about 3-4 kilometers away. We walked through town a bit checking out the little stores all over, and then landed at a little restaurant called Riverside Restaurant, where we tried some of the local fare. We had a set menu with 4 dishes – 2 appetizers, 2 main courses, and a dessert for each of us! The portions were smaller, so it was great to try many things and not walk away too stuffed. The first local dish is called Cau Lao, which is thick, almost fried, noodle with cinnamon spiced pork, and fresh greens. The sauce is a unique, sweet flavor, which is really great! Another signature dish is called the White Rose, which is a steamed wonton with a meat center, all shaped like a flower. Fried Wontons are another specialty, and they come with sautéed vegetables on top – very yummy. We also tried the spring rolls, hot pot, shrimp and vegetables, beef dish, and more. The total bill came to less than $10 for the both of us, incuding a large beer we split! Amazing. One of the interesting things about the local dishes (white flower and fried wonton) is that they were created by one family in town who holds the recipe and sells the ingredients to all of the restaurants who want to serve these dishes. You can't offer these dishes unless you buy from the source. Must be a wealthy family, given that nearly all the restaurants offer both dishes.

After returning to the hotel, we enjoyed the great air conditioned room, with a view of the river and rice paddies on the other side. Very picturesque!

The next morning we had a buffet breakfast at the hotel, which is included in the hotel package we booked. We were thinking about renting a motorbike for the day, and started to walk into town to see about getting a better rate than at the hotel. We passed the first few looking for something better, and after a while we had walked so far, that we just decided we should walk all the way into town. The 3-4km walk is no problem, but the heat is another thing! The temperature is around 90 degrees with 65-70% humidity. We bought a large water along the way, and also stopped into a man's art shop to peruse his watercolor paintings on rice paper. We selected a few we liked (and rested in front of the fan for a while), and continued our way into town.

Once there we stopped into a clothes shop to see about getting some clothes made. April picked out some cute fabric to have 2 skirts made, and Mark found some trouser material to have some work pants made. The 3 custom-made items would be ready in a matter of hours! April also stopped into a shoe shop and had some cute black flats made, as per the traced drawing of her foot. She also ordered a beautiful Asian-style jacket in a turquoise chinese-print, with a silk camisole underneath. We were both excited to see how these items would turn out later today and tomorrow!

We lunched at another great place in town, and headed back to our hotel for the complimentary ½ hour reflexology foot massage included in our stay package. Mark had been talking about this type of reflexology foot massage where they rub your legs and feet and then “poke you with a small stick” on your pressure points on your foot. We were thinking we would have this style the other day at the hotel in Hanoi, but they gave us the traditional style instead. But alas, the sticks came out for this one! After the massage, April wants to name it “relaxology”. This is the life!

We rested at the hotel and then headed back into town to check out our clothes, and eat. April's 2 skirts were done, as well as Mark's trousers. The trousers were made really nicely out of Cashmere wool and cost $20, so Mark decided to order a few more pairs, and a suit! April ordered a custom -style black wool jacket, and everything would be done before tomorrow afternoon!

We tried another restaurant along the river, that advertised 3,000 Dong beers (which equals about $0.15)!! The dinner was yummy, as we tried the Cau Lao at every place, as well as the spring rolls and other traditional dishes. As we were eating (as often is the case) we had young children coming up to our tables to sell us clay whistles, postcards, bracelets and the like. What is particulary striking is that the little girls start doing this when they are only 4 years old! And, they often speak better English than their parents. We walked around a bit, and then taxi'd to the hotel for the night.

On Sunday, we were determined to rent a motorbike, and ended up booking it through the hotel (at which they walked over and rented the bike from the place next door – with a fee of course). We zipped into town (honking frequently, of course), and went to see how the new clothes were coming. April's shoes were done (and very cute!), but the Asian jacket needed more time, so we zipped around town some more. The jacket ended up fitting perfectly, but the silk tank top underneath needed another fix or two during the day. Since we had the motorbike, we drove around town and by the beach, to look around. We lunched at the same restaurant we found the first night, as the flavors in the food's sauces were unique and soooo yummy. We picked up all the new clothes and then went to the Post Office to mail all of our loot home. This was a little pricey, but seemed worth it, as we have only ¼ of the trip passed so far – and the new things weighed 20 lbs!

We stopped along the road and walked to the beach this time to put our feet in the warm water. Down the way at the main part of the beach, it was very crowded with the locals. Maybe it's the typical Sunday afternoon thing to do, or maybe it was the local festival that started today. Either way, it was over-run with people, and the funniest part was the parking lot down the street from the beach housed the thousand motorbikes of the beach-goers. We ate dinner at a more touristy place in town called the Cargo Room, which offered foreign food as well as the local flare. Mark had a great Greek salad and a steak, and April stuck with the traditional dishes. The desserts were amazing.

Now we're done in Vietnam and off to Siem Reap, Cambodia for a day to visit Angkor Wat and the other temples there. Be back soon!

Ha Long Bay

Mark and I just returned from our overnight excursion to Ha Long Bay. We had heard that Ha Long Bay is one of the "must see" destinations in Vietnam, and we now can fully agree that this is the case! The journey to Ha Long Bay from Hanoi is about 3 hours by car. We had waited until we arrived in Vietnam to book our 2 day/1 night adventure - there are so many different boats, it's tough to know which ones are nice. Our travel agent at our hotel recommended a "deluxe" boat for us which was a bit spendy, but turned out to be amazing! It was called the Bhaya.

The trip started yesterday (Wednesday) when our private car (included in the package), picked us up at the hotel. We felt quite indulgent that we had our own air conditioned car for the whole trip, and it was a little strange because our driver spoke no English so we had a quiet trip, observing along the way.

We drove through rice fields, many cities, and still a zillion scooters riding along side of us. And you could tell by the number of tour buses and people headed in the same direction, that we were heading to a very popular spot! The rules of the road are not the same in Vietnam as they are in America. The road was one way in each direction, but the drivers create up to 4 or 5 lanes with the buses, cars, and scooters all zipping along side each other trying to pass. We went weaving in and out of traffic, honking and flashing to alert the scooters and cars coming the opposite way. Needless to say, we wore our seat belts, while the driver expressed his confidence (or stupidity) by driving without.

Halfway through the car ride, we stop at a rest area and the driver motions to get out. We thought it was to use the bathroom, but there was more ahead. After using the WC, we were ushered into a huge warehouse full of the Vietnamese handicrafts, with our own sales person escorting us around. There was lacquer ware, embroidered "paintings", clothes, jewelry, marble sculptures, and much much more. After discussing this place, we assume the drivers are contracted to bring people here and maybe get a commission if we buy something. They take a needed break and get some food, and we are encouraged to shop. We politely looked around and commented on how pretty things were to our own sales associate, but didn't buy.

After the rest of the journey in the car, we arrived at the harbor of Ha Long Bay. Our driver dropped us off and we waited a few minutes before boarding our boat. There are many boats that tour the Bay, and ours seemed to be a nice one. We boarded the little tender boat with the other passengers, which took us to the boat on a mooring not far from the shore. We were greeted on the boat with a cold washcloth to freshen up, a glass of fruit juice, and were sprinkled with rose petals from the deck above as we walked onto the boat (very nice effect!). We were all given our keys to the room and explained the itinerary for the two days. Since we had little information on what was included on the boat - we were happy to find out we had made a great decision.

We set sail (or motoring, really) for a 2 hour trip into the Ha Long Bay. There are 1969 karsts (or small mountains )popping up out of the bay, which makes for spectacular views. Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage site located in Quảng Ninh province, Vietnam. It's very hard to capture on film just how beautiful it was, with the layers and layers of rock islands.

We had a nice Vietnamese buffet lunch on the boat and then relaxed before our first stop at the Surprise caves Our tour guide took us through 3 caves of stalactites and stalagmites, and each cave is bigger than the next, which gives you a major element of surprise! They had only recently been discovered by a French man (around 1900) and were just available for tourists to see since 1999. They were quite spectacular, and seeing them was an added bonus for the trip which we didn't know about!

After the caves, we went to a popular beach area where we were invited to take a swim. We also decided on hiking to the top of the island which gave us an amazing view of the Bay. It was about a 15 minute rigorous climb to the top, but the view was well worth it. And, it made our swim in the Bay even more refreshing after we hiked down the mountain.

After our swim, we boarded the tender again and headed back to the boat. We freshened up and then headed up to the dining room where were were given a short cooking class - how to make Vietnamese Spring Rolls. It was a lot of fun. Mark took the prize for the best roll, and then we were able to eat our creations.

We then headed out to the deck for happy hour (actually 2+ hrs). As the boat was parked in the bay along side a large karst, the view was spectacular and we watched the sun set while also meeting some of the other couples on the boat. We had made friends with a young couple from Ireland who were on their honeymoon and spending 5 weeks traveling during their summer teaching Holiday. We also met another young Aussie couple and chatted the evening away swapping stories of traveling life in Southeast Asia and the like. It was great to have good conversation and to hear others adventures. Our conversations carried on through a delightful seafood dinner and into the night. We retired to our air conditioned (did we mention it's very hot here?) cabin and had a good night sleep.

The boat manager told us about a beautiful sunrise in the morning, and we just barely woke the next day, before it began. We rushed up deck, thinking we were going to see a big sunrise through the islands, but we had missed it. After relaxing for a bit, April headed back to bed and Mark joined some others from the boat for a lesson in T'ai Chi. After enjoying the breakfast buffet, we relaxed some more on the way back to the harbor. The end of the trip was just as delightful as the start, with the sprinkling of rose petals and the friendly staff waving us goodbye as we boarded the tender for the shore. It was an amazing experience and we would recommend it to anyone!

We returned to Hanoi for another day (we're heading to get a foot massage now) and then we head to Hoi An on Friday afternoon for a weekend on the beach. This is the life!

We'll be back again in a few days.

The Shack

Mark just finished reading The Shack and thinks it is really great!

The City of Six Million Horns

We've arrived! Our 13 hour flight from SFO to Hong Kong was relatively painless. We were surprised that we were even fed a couple of times by United Airlines in route! We watched a couple of average movies and we both slept a little.

We landed in Hong Kong at 6pm, and caught a shuttle to the Novotel Citigate hotel 5 min away. It was very nice and extremely convenient. We went for a swim in the mosaic tiled pool, had a drink at the bar and then hit the hay.

7/21 Hong Kong/Hanoi
On Monday morning, we took a flight at 9am to Hanoi on Vietnam Airlines. On the plane, we read up on Vietnam and made our plans for the day. At the Hanoi airport, we waited for what seemed like an eternity for our bags (it was probably 30 min), and changed some money (exchange rate is 1 dollar = 16,700 Vietnamese Dong, so yes, we're now millionaires!).

Hanoi is located adjacent to the Song Hong (Red River,) and has a number of large lakes spread around the city. Our drive to the hotel was full of sights and sounds that welcomed us to this beautiful country. (This was April's first trip to an emerging country, so the whole experience was very eye-opening.) The things of note were: throngs of scooters and small motorcycles as the main form of transportation, people honk their horns to let you know they are there, you are in the way, to signal they are coming, or just because they want to....meaning, there is a LOT of honking going on, people carry EVERYTHING on the back of their scooters, we saw rice paddies and people working the farms (and in the traditional triangular shaped straw hats), a man in a cart being driven by a cow, and a woman on her scooter (on the “freeway”) talking on her cell phone, to name a few

After checking in at our hotel, and grabbing some lunch, we were off to the Old Quarter in the city. Now this is an interesting place! We arrived at the Hoan Kiem lake and started to explore. We had brought along the maps for a walking tour from the Lonely Planet book, and our first stop was the Huc Bridge and the Ngoc Son Temple. What's great about many of these places we come to visit, is that the admission fee is cheap – usually around $0.25. After a view of the lake, we walked through the many streets of shops in the Old Quarter. The Old Quarter was an area that Hanoi's 36 guilds established themselves in the 13^th century, each naming a street for the trade. There is Silk Street, Bamboo Street, Mats Streets, Wooden Bowls Streets, etc. While some of the original trades are not there anymore, it's interesting to see how one street will have 10 (or more) shops that sell the same thing right next to each other.

As the afternoon wore on, we became very hot and sweaty. The humidity is really high here, so we were very thankful for our dry-wick clothes, and April had to buy a Chinese style fan from a street vendor to stay somewhat cool. We stopped into a cafe/bar in the afternoon to grab a Bia (beer) and sit in the air conditioned restaurant. (At many shops, we would stop to shop a bit longer if they had a fan blowing inside!) After recharging a bit, we walked a bit more to Quan An Ngon, which was a traditional Vietnamese restaurant recommended to us by an Intel employee from Vietnam. We had an interesting and delicious meal with soup, fried rice, spicy beef and some shrimp and pork rolls. Back to the hotel via taxi and we were sleeping by 9pm.

7/22 Hanoi
We got up a little later today and headed down to the gym for another morning workout. We want to exercise as much as possible while on the trip, so we can compensate for the yummy food we will be eating! And speaking of food, we had a great breakfast at the hotel buffet before heading out on the town. The hotel shuttle dropped us off right near the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, where our travels began. Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum is Vietnam's #1 place of pilgrimage, and many Vietnamese come to pay their respects. Minh is honored for his role as the liberator of the Vietnamese people from the French colonialism, and for his communist idealogy. The Mausoleum is where his embalmed body is laid to rest (yes, there is a glass sarcophagus). To go through the Mausoleum you must pass a security area where your bag is evaluated and then x-rayed. If you have a camera, you must walk it in an official red bag to the electronics holding area where you are given a claim ticket and you can pick it up at the exit of the Mausoleum (of which we wondered if it would really happen). Some other rules include proper dress (no shorts or hats, and shoulders need to be covered) and no fruit as I had to toss my afternoon snack from my purse (“banana, not allowed”). In addition to the mausoleum, we saw where Minh lived and worked on the nearby grounds.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around looking at art and shops, and then we headed back to the hotel for a dip in the pool and some rest. Around 8pm we caught a taxi ($1.50 for the 10 min ride) to a restaurant called Sen, which offers a traditional Vietnamese food buffet, in a sprawling indoor/outdoor restaurant that seats hundreds of people. It was an interesting experience to try different local foods (many of which were new to us), and yet to be able to pick and choose what looked good in the buffet. Our favorite dish was fried fish sautéed with greens and served over noodles with peanuts, fish sauce and some other spices. We finished with some fruit for desert and then headed to our hotel for bed.

Today we're off to Halong Bay for an overnight on a traditional Junk boat.

Day before blow out!

So it's the day before we leave. We are very excited. Today is spent wrapping up things at work and preparing for the big adventure. And then.....a blow out evening!
Our great friend Mike Flecker is flying up from Los Angeles, and our friend Navin is here from Hong Kong, and we are celebrating the departure with a COLDPLAY concert tonight. YIPPEEEE!!! We are tying to get ourselves nice and tired for the LONG plane ride over to Hong Kong tomorrow.
Counting the hours.......

T-8 Days

Well, it's T-8 days until we leave. The bags have been preliminarily packed, we are wrapping up loose ends at work and life in Palo Alto, and cannot wait until our plane takes off a week from tomorrow.
What will it be like? A MONTH off from work? How crazy is that?
We will be keeping you posted here on our travels. As we can, we will update our travel journals, add pictures, and tell you about our adventures along the way. Check back with us again soon!