noodle quest 2006

haaaaaaahahahahha! so it turns out that pho chai in a tone (indascernably) different to me, means “i will burn everything down!” hahahah no wonder that dude was so pissed. i couldn’t understand why “vegetarian noodles” would be so offensive to someone. yesterday we woke up and had some coffee at the hotel. then we decided to walk around and take some photos we had missed the first day. we split up to walk around. i began to sincerely feel a bit of the hostility that other travelers have expressed feeling in this country. we got a bit of it at the market with the larvae eating woman the first day- just some kind of shoving and grumbling, but i felt too glad to care about it too much. however yesterday i just felt a little beat on. i mean lots of people were just kind of rude, waving me away from their food stalls, growling at me sometimes when i took a picture of a thing, store, etc., and just being kind of unfriendly and hostile. i know, that i am there with only good intentions, i am not abrasive or ostentatious or mean. i am always only friendly and polite so whatever, screw them. [read on]

there is one vietnamese channel that as far as i can tell, only shows skits of small children (lip) singing and dancing in costume and at other times shows montages of bird pictures with soft silly grocery store music accompanying them. on other notes, Jue has grown on us and he is now one of our favorite new friends. other fantastic new friends include dutch people- everyone from holland that we have met and have yet to meet. they seem to be so worldly and smart and interesting. i have been blown away by the wit, kindness and self possession of every dutch person i have met. holland never really interested me before but now i think maybe i will visit. we took the boat back from cat ba island to ha long city and it only took half the time as it did the day before so i guess we were cruising around the other day. the boat was a bit more crowded today which only meant more random and interesting people and stories to meet and hear. [read on]

after breakfast jess and i took a WILD WILD WILD stroll around town. this place is like no other. every couple of streets is like a little town that specializes in something, we strolled from noodle town (although ... [Continue reading this entry]

this morning we woke up and it appeared as though all of vietnam was listening to the same radio station as there was this women's newscaster-esque voice booming over the street. we both slept like dead people and this ... [Continue reading this entry]

unbelievable. we are finally here. the flight was so long it is excruciating to even revisit as a memory although only japanese flight attendents could somehow be kind and gracious enough to make the cramped steerage section bearable. ... [Continue reading this entry]