Daily Life in Vietnam

Some things I wanted to jot down regarding Vietnam in general:

The Food:
For the most part, the food here is pretty mild (that is if you stay away from flattened dried squid, dog, snake wine, snake, or any of the other multitude of gooey concoctions that you see on the street - we just haven't been very brave I am afraid...). The standby for everybody is pho - (noodle soup). It was indeed the very best in Hanoi, but is everywhere, and is what the locals eat for breakfast (and lunch and dinner...). Rice of course is the other staple and can be found in so many forms, you usually don't even know that what you are eating is rice! Spring rolls are the final item that is on every single menu. We have eaten our fair share of them, but have grown weary of how fried they are. Just yesterday, here in Saigon, we found some wonderful rolls that were "raw" (i.e. fresh and not fried) - delicious. We just got done eating another handful for lunch today. The other fun thing worth mentioning is trying out all the desserts. We continue to have a sweet tooth after dinner, and while the Vietnamese don't focus as much on dessert as we Americans do, they do have plenty of bakeries with interesting delights that we are not shy to try. In fact it has become somewhat of a ritual for us (okay, so it's mostly me) to find the best bakery in each town and sample its wares. Mostly bready, rolly things, the best of which come with a coconut-y filling. The best dessert yet, was yesterday (dad you will appreciate this one) - sticky rice all beaten to hell and mixed with corn, then warm coconut milk poured over the top - heavenly!

The Coffee:
In short it is really good. Strong enough to take the enamel off your teeth, and with a hint of a chocolate taste. To make it drinkable for us, we always request cafe sua (white coffee). This means you get about a half-inch of sweetened, condensed milk in your cup. Rich and meant for sipping. (And so very healthy). It is also served in a unique way. It brews right at your table. You receive a cup with a small, individual filter system balancing on top of it, and have to wait patiently with your mouth watering as it brews its jet black potion. Yum.

The Traffic:
I know we already addressed the honking, but did we mention how it is to cross the street here? Yes there are some traffic lights, and some crosswalks, but they are rarely used or obeyed. What you are faced with the majority of the time is an onslaught of neverending traffic coming at you in both directions. If you were to wait patiently for everyone to stop for you because you are standing on a painted crosswalk, you may as well wait until 2 in the morning to cross. You just have to step out and go, making eye contact with everyone coming at you. It was a bit unnerving at first, and you really have to fight the urge to quicken your step...running will surely get you hit. It is a remarkable thing really, you just meander slowly, weaving your way in and around bikes and cars with them doing the same, and you repeatedly get to the other side alive. Amazing!

The Massage:
We had an authentic Vietnamese massage yesterday at the institute of the blind, and sorry to say, did not find it too rejuvenating. It was a very 'surface' massage, with very little deep muscle/tissue manipulating. And a whole lot of pounding. They rub their hands over your skin (sometimes squeezing the skin and sometimes getting to the muscle, but not often enough) for a while, then follow it up with an equal amount of time pounding (in really a nice sounding rhythm) with their fists, then with their open palms. It doesn't hurt, and I'm sure it's helping the circulation, but I don't know if we'll go back for a second one.

That's it for now. We visited the Cu Chi tunnels today. Such and amazing network of tunnels that the Vietcong used in their combat. We saw some of the traps they used to catch Americans and South Vietnamese troops off guard (most of which involved very sharp bamboo spears), and got to crawl through a 100 m section of the tunnels. Amazing to think they lived and fought in such small spaces. We were sweating profusely after our short little crawl...I can't imagine spending weeks down there. We also were treated to another extremely one-sided video. The propaganda continues to liken the US presence in the war to genocide and uses terms like "American Killer Hero" (for a brave Vietcong soldier), and implying that the US intentionally used Agent Orange to wipe out civilians and villages. No question we did some wrongs over here, (war is HELL) but it's hard to hear the one-sidedness of it, and we are young - what do returning Vets feel when they come here?

Tomorrow we take off on a 3-day guided trip to the Mekong Delta, which terminates in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Our time in Vietnam is quickly coming to a close....