GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!
Hello there from the city of Hanoi... where I never thought I'd be in my life, that I didn't even know of until a few months ago...
Before coming here with my family on a good old family trip, I borrowed a travel book from the library about Vietnam and learned about water puppetry and a few things, but I didn't think about it in depth, to have preconceived notations..
But now that I have been here a total of 1.75 days, a few things stick out
1. MOPEDS MOPEDS MOPEDS: so many, and yet although there is craziness, it is controlled chaos... People drive all over the roads, herds and herds of them weaving about, and yet although they basically cut each other off, there's no road rage.. they seem really calm in the midst of what I call an extremely overwhelming situation. We've improved in our crossing the street abilities as we wait for an opening and then walk and they go around you.. ahhhh! This brings a lot of exhaust in the air and lots of honking as the cars and mopeds let each other know they are near another... hurts my head! Right now Ryan and Jason are out riding mopeds. I declined due to my prior experience on them of ripping skin off my body as i fell off...
2. People are very nice. Lots of people selling fruit, hats, hammocks, rides on carts, etc. of course, but as a whole people are kind and that makes me like Vietnam
3. SNAKE We had a snake lunch today that grossed me out as a whole, but I kinda liked too. We went into a place to eat lunch and the men decided to be daring and try the snake.. since this is THE place to try it, being in a location where they breed snakes to sell to restaurants. Soon we learned that this place prepares snake in 9 different ways.. ewww and pretty cool. Not long after ordering, a young guy comes over with a snake.. we all figure it is a display of showing the tourists a snake. we ooooo and ahh over it for a second and then it wraps around the guy's forearm. Christine points out that the guy's arm is completely purple, cause the snake is wrapping pretty hard.. Hmmm, I wonder. Weird. Then I notice the snake's mouth is open and the guy is pinching the neck of the snake hard, for a long time... then the snake started convulsing... hmmm. The someone says,, "is he killing it now?" And yes.. he was.. then he sticks a knife in and slits it.. drains the blood and bile into glasses. I can't believe it, but then as though it's no big deal, they offer it to us.. along with the beating heart. WOW! I declined that, but the men were MANLY MEN!!! They tried it.
Well -off to dinner, the rest of the trip will have to be told another day! We are going to Halong Bay to see the limestone rocks! Happy rest of 2009!
Before coming here with my family on a good old family trip, I borrowed a travel book from the library about Vietnam and learned about water puppetry and a few things, but I didn't think about it in depth, to have preconceived notations..
But now that I have been here a total of 1.75 days, a few things stick out
1. MOPEDS MOPEDS MOPEDS: so many, and yet although there is craziness, it is controlled chaos... People drive all over the roads, herds and herds of them weaving about, and yet although they basically cut each other off, there's no road rage.. they seem really calm in the midst of what I call an extremely overwhelming situation. We've improved in our crossing the street abilities as we wait for an opening and then walk and they go around you.. ahhhh! This brings a lot of exhaust in the air and lots of honking as the cars and mopeds let each other know they are near another... hurts my head! Right now Ryan and Jason are out riding mopeds. I declined due to my prior experience on them of ripping skin off my body as i fell off...
2. People are very nice. Lots of people selling fruit, hats, hammocks, rides on carts, etc. of course, but as a whole people are kind and that makes me like Vietnam
3. SNAKE We had a snake lunch today that grossed me out as a whole, but I kinda liked too. We went into a place to eat lunch and the men decided to be daring and try the snake.. since this is THE place to try it, being in a location where they breed snakes to sell to restaurants. Soon we learned that this place prepares snake in 9 different ways.. ewww and pretty cool. Not long after ordering, a young guy comes over with a snake.. we all figure it is a display of showing the tourists a snake. we ooooo and ahh over it for a second and then it wraps around the guy's forearm. Christine points out that the guy's arm is completely purple, cause the snake is wrapping pretty hard.. Hmmm, I wonder. Weird. Then I notice the snake's mouth is open and the guy is pinching the neck of the snake hard, for a long time... then the snake started convulsing... hmmm. The someone says,, "is he killing it now?" And yes.. he was.. then he sticks a knife in and slits it.. drains the blood and bile into glasses. I can't believe it, but then as though it's no big deal, they offer it to us.. along with the beating heart. WOW! I declined that, but the men were MANLY MEN!!! They tried it.
Well -off to dinner, the rest of the trip will have to be told another day! We are going to Halong Bay to see the limestone rocks! Happy rest of 2009!
2 comments:
Must... fight... down... envy. Great to know your trip is going well. I look forward to hearing more.
For some reason I can not read and when you listed off the things vendors were selling I didn't see the comma between fruit and hats - and therefore thought they were selling fruit hats.....like the chiquita banana. hehehe
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