Life Eaters

Day 5

Southeast Asia

Halong bay – day 2
Our boat took is to a floating fishing village. There are many fisherman in this area that live on their boat, with wife, kids and everything they need for their humble fisherman lives on one tiny little boat, offen only covered by a tarp or canvas. On some areas, a dozen or so of these families have gotten together and built a string of floating houses on the water in sheltered bays. Each house is pn a platform which sits on blocks of styrofoam or plastic barrels. These floating villages allows them to help each other out and fish together, eat together and raise their children together. It also offers then safety in numbers when a storm hits the area. They also build nets in the water to farm fish in.

We visited One of these villages, which we learned was medium sized, with maybe 15 – 20 homes, a community shelter and a school for the children. One of the village elders welcomed us and served us tea and some local herbal medicine (one may call it moonshine or hooch). The local medicine makes men strong, which he demonstrated by arm wrestling Mark and Heather.

One platform they showed us was made of a shoddy wooden planks and held a tint, primitive kitchen and the toilet, which naturally, dumped right into the water. At one alarming moment Alyssa’s leg broke through the plank she was standing on and her one leg fell through, into what may or may not have been their toilet tank. She suffered some scratches and an impressive bruise on her thigh, bet I think she’s safe from disease because we used every available soap, ointment, disinfectant and antibacterial spray we could get our hands on as soon as we got back to the boat.

After breaking the fishing village floor, our crew boated us to a beach where they set up tables and umbrellas on the sand and barbecued our lunch for us. We took a swim and did some more kayaking and lounged around the sun deck for the rest of the afternoon. Life is so good.

Southeast Asia

Days 4

Halong bay – day 1
We were picked up from our hotel at 8am for a four hour van ride to Halong Bay. Halong Bay is a world heritage site where 3000+ limestone rock islands jut up out of the water, offering boats an amazing place to cruise.

Halfway through our drive our “bathroom stop” was at a place that would be described as an art factory. Dozens of children used their tiny fingers to sew, paint, sculpt and stitch hundreds of pieced of art. I would say it was sweat shop like, except that I believe the conditions were very good and I think this was a very special job for these kids. I guess you would need to talk to them yourself to find out for sure.

We arrived in Halong Bay and were shown to our boat, which was amazing beyond words. It was the style of a traditional Vietnamese junk boat. Our rooms were enormous, and we were sharing the boat only with an older Indian couple, Mr. and Mrs. Joshi, and our crew of seven.

Our closest and favorite crew member was our guide, who went by the name Ha. Ha was really kind and great and amazing and we loved hanging out with him and learning about the area and about the vietnamese people.

Our Boat’s chef did magical things with food, and we never had a hungry moment, starting with the 6 course lunch when we boarded the boat to the barbecue on the beach.

At the area where we anchored for the night Ha guided us on a kayak paddle around some islands, where we got to paddle into caves.

Southeast Asia

Day 3

We spent our morning within close reach of Wi-Fi so we could constantly check the internet on our phones to get updated election results. It was sort of surreal checking in on such an important event when we were eating breakfast on Thursday when halfway across the world our friends were wart bing results on Tuesday night.

We took a cab to the edge of town where we did a Vietnamese cooking class through hiddenHanoi.com. We were first given aarket tour, where we learned the difference between the legal marker, the moving market (bicycles loaded with produce or women carrying baskets), and the frog market. The frog market got it’s name because all os the vendors set up on the street or sidewalk, and if the police come by they quickly grab their stuff and hop away. They then set back up when the coast is clear.

At the market we saw we saw pretty much every item imaginable, and some things you would never imagine. Lets just say I will never look at dogs the same again! We also sew mountains of fresh her s hand harvester that morning, fresh made rice noodles, live eels and worms and lots I’d tables of fresh cuts of meat.

Our cooking class had a theme of “street food”, and our instructor taught us how to make fried spring rolls and Bun Cha, which is a type of grilled meat, along with a dipping sauce for everything. They were really great and I would say this is a must do for anybody going to Hanoi. E finished the class by sitting in their patio garden, sipping tea and eating mango, jackfruit and pommel with chili and salt.

The remainder of the day held more walking around, more egg coffee on a rooftop, massage for the girls and a second fitting for our suits.

For dinner, we went to a place that has been noted by many people, including Anthony Bordain, as having the best Pho in town. The name escapes me, but it’s better known by it’s address, 49 Bat Dan. It was a tiny street-side hole-in-the-wall packed with people at shared tables inside, flowing out to the sidewalk with tiny plastic stools and tables. It was a painstaking process trying to order because I didn’t see a menu (I later saw it on the wall, with a whopping three items), and only had a few dollars left. We ended up getting bowls of some of the best Pho around for a whopping $1.50 each. One person behind the counter took our money, while another laded in broth that has been cooking the past 24 hours from a 5 gallon kettle, a handful of fresh rice noodles and a handful of thinly sliced beef. No bells and whistles here, just simple and properly executed hot soup.

Market tour and street food themed cooking class.

Southeast Asia

Day 2

After our free breakfast at our hotel we laced up our walking shoes and ventured out to the streets. What we met was completely unlike what we encountered after-hours the night before. This town is crazy, I mean really Crazy! The streets are packed with buzzing scooters handlebar to handlebar, zigzagging around each other with no real concept of lanes. The sidewalks are so crammed with parked scooters and locals eating on tiny plastic stools for restaurants that you’re forced to walk in the street with the traffic. Every where were street merchant women wearing the traditional conical hat either pushing a bike loaded up with fruits and vegetables. Or carrying two baskets of produce suspended from a board over their shoulders. If you want to cross the street, just look forward and start walking. Keep a steady pace and don’t hesitate and traffic will flow around you.

Alyssa made her first attempt to buy some street food, where she paid the equivilant of $7 for a bag of donuts and fried sweet rice balls. We later found out that this should have only costed her a dime or two.

We ventured down to the lake, saw a temple, and checked out the showtimes at the water puppet theatre, then headed up the busy shopping street towards a goods marked that was recommended to us by our hotel. If we thought the street markets were crazy, this place was ten times so. It was a giant covered building divided into hundreds of tiny stalls where shopkeepers haggled over mountains of fabric, scarves, jewelry, clothing and just about anything you can imagine. If you want a bag of 500 cheap shirts, then this is the place to come. We were a bit overwhelmed by the whole experience so we aborted immediately.

Our walk took us down a side street where we saw a dozen of so locals sitting in front of a restaurant drinking beers, having lunch, and having a generally merry time. Through some confusing conversations and language issues, we got ourselves a table upstairs where we were served a pretty delicious Vietnamese lunch. Fried spring rolls, barbecued chicken with greens, soup and tea.

Later on, through another recommendation I found on somebody’s travel blog, we went out in search for another local treat. Egg coffee. This apparently is a cup of coffee with an egg in it! We never would have found the place of it weren’t for the detailed instructions on the blog where I found out about it. In a small streetside clothing store, we walked to the back and then through a narrow alley where we found the small open air coffee shop. We ordered there, then up three flights os stairs and a spiral staircase to a rooftop patio overlooking the lake. It was a great find that we ended up re-visiting a few times during our stay. The egg coffee wasn’t as scary as it sounds either. It was a shot of espresso with a full three inches of sweet whipped egg whites, beaten with sugar to stiff peaks and drizzled with some sort of caramel. I reached some sort of coffee pinnacle in my life here, this may be the best sweet coffee I’ve ever had.

Our dinner that night was sort of a bust. It was a nicer, sit-down in full-sized chairs restaurant called Highway 4 where the food was overcooked. Getting wore out from our jet lag, we were back on our rooms and ready for bed by 8:00

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Southeast Asia

Day 1
Our flight to Vietnam went off surprisingly without a single hitch! Short flight to Chicago. 14 hours to Seoul, then 4 hours to Hanoi. No baggage was lost, no flights delayed, no customs issues, our cab to our hotel gound us and was on time, and Asiana airlines was super awesome. My only complaint really was that they only played kids movies the whole time, but I caught up on some reading instead.

When we got to our hotel around midnight and because of the jet lag we were wide awake, so we decided to venture out to look for a beer, but had no luck because everything shuts down around midnight. Little did we know that this will be the last night for the next week that we would be able to stay awake after 9 or 10 pm. Not to mention laying in bed wide awake at 3am. Oh jet-lag, how you torment us.

Southeast Asia

Headed out at 6:30 am. Check back soon for updates!

Southeast Asia