Day three – Vietnam

Good Morning my little Cum Quats (I like the fruit!)

Today we needed to be up and ready for our cooking lesson at 8.00am. We learnt to make Spring Rolls!! The success of the Spring Roll is all in the rolling!!! They could have told me that at 9.00am too!!

After our intense course which lasted for about 20 mins, the 8 of us sat around waiting for breakfast which was served at 9.30.before we disembarked.

Visibility was down to about 10 feet so admiring the emerald green water clearly wasn’t going to happen – that and the fact that it is littered with rubbish, poo and bits of wood, I doubt it is ever green!!!! Swimming isn’t an option even when the weather permits unless you are up to date with your Typhoid shots and Malaria pills!!

We were lucky as the day before boats weren’t allowed out and after bringing us back to shore, no boats were going out today.

The drive from Halong Bay back to Hanoi is 4 very long hours…..during which time we learnt
that if you live in a village or suburb, local government gives every family over 18 its own rice field to plant out. The annual crop is anywhere between 500 – 800 kgs of rice per annum which is an awful lot of rice and saves on government hand outs as no one starves here. Any surplus is stored as during typhoon season some rice fields tend to get flooded and the land isn’t useable until it has dried out. There is two types of land….building land and crop land and crop land isn’t suitable for building so nothing really goes to waste.

Even cemeteries are recyclable and re useable……for example if you are a Buddhist and die you get buried in a traditional coffin. Fast forward 5 years and they dig you up!! By this time, most of your body parts have been eaten or decomposed leaving just the skeleton. This is then ground up in a Pestle and Mortar type thing and you and popped in a small urn which is then reburied in a family tomb – thus saving loads of space. The original grave is then filled in and reused and then the whole process starts again. Which is handy as there are quite a lot of deaths on the road!!!

Traditionally the Vietnamese drive on the right hand side but most of the time, they drive wherever they fancy….left, right, it really doesn’t matter. There is a lot of horn honking and the on coming traffic is heading straight for you even though you are on your side of the road. Best way to avoid this is to pull over onto the hard shoulder or pavement and hope for the best. EIther kill or be killed!!

Currently we are sitting in a big traffic jam on the wrong side of the road as there has been a big smash up ahead…..basically it is a bit of a free for all, made worse by bicycles and scooters. A crane is pulling a lorry from the side railings, obviously facing the wrong way as the on coming traffic refused to pull over!!!! Never a dull moment!

To add to the chaos, a little know fact….bus drivers work on commission here so they compete with each other…….no one really uses the bus stops – they kind of congregate along the highways and wait for the buses to appear then one brave person jumps out to stop the bus. The problem with competition is that all the buses want to get to the people first so they just shoot across the road and see who gets there first. Its also a good way to ‘cull’ the population!!!! (Apparently 93 million Vietnamese people live here……so give or take a few!!!!!) On average 23 people die every week in Hanoi in traffic related accidents!

This evening we went to the Water Puppet Theatre, which in itself is an experience and one that could very well be missed!! The story all takes part in Vietnamese and unless you speak the language, you have no idea what’s going on!! The puppets really are quite good and even the puppeteers are in the water making it all happen.. For me, the best bit was when one of the puppets climbed up a tree and threw down coconuts – followed by puppets on horses having a race – as you can see, there is no understandable connection. The best bit for Indy was the end!!!

After the theatre, we went off to a place called Fanny’s. It’s a well known, famous even, ice cream parlour – a bit like Baskin Robbins with an edge!! I had Chocolate Chilli and lime ice cream with raspberry sorbet and mashed banana. Indy had Ice Cream spring rolls. Definitely not to be missed.

Then after there we went to a Vietmanese restaurant which has food stations all around the side and you just wander around and choose what you want to eat…..sparrow is quite popular…..feather free but still with it’s head on, Apparently it’s lucky to keep the head on. Shouldn’t think the sparrow thought so! Nether of us were brave enough to sample that – we tried to stick to things that we at least recognised!! That said, we had an enormous amount of food and had a very good night. Around 14 dishes between us (there were 4 of us) 6 beers and 2 glasses of wine – $12 a head. That’s considered quite expensive!

Next stop the hotel – time for bed as another early start tomorrow as we have an action packed day ahead>

On that sweet note – I bid you farewell.

Until tomorrow……

Lots of love,

Anna x