Hoi An: A Town of 400 Tailors

What's up,

What an amazing time in Hoi An (the coast of central Vietnam)! After too much time scrunched into tiny sleeper bus compartments, it was time to relax.

By the way the sleeping buses make ZERO sense (but they're much cheaper than the trains) for the following reasons:

1. All the buses leave at around 6pm and get in at 5am. Why not leave three hours later and get in at 8am?

2. They all play Vietnamese soap operas late into the night. You can't turn off the speakers above you're head which are blaring the yelling of the Vietnamese girlfriend at her boyfriend. My Bose headphones turn paper thin, when matched against the piercing bus speakers. And you thought nails on a chalkboard was bad...

3. The back seat of the bus is so bumpy, you wake up every ten minutes because your head hits something.

4. Worst of all! Music videos of the Vietnamese pop (a more obnoxious Backstreet Boys) start playing at 5 in the morning. Unbelievable... Inconceivable...

Moving on... Our first three days followed a similar schedule. We started our day early with a cup of sweet Vietnamese coffee. The coffee with condensed milk is unique to Vietnam and will be most missed most after we leave for our next country. After talking for close to an hour we make our way to the beach via motorbike. I picked up a photocopied book on the way for 3 dollars: High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. I've seen the movie but the book is much funnier. I laugh to myself consistently which draws strange looks. I enjoy music and so I find it hilarious how them main character related every slice of his life to a song or artist. My reading on the beach is broken up every few minutes by locals of all types selling you their goods. Lighters, cards, fake cigarettes, paintings, unknown foods, sunglasses, and who knows what else. One vendor that always manages to sucker us into buying is the fresh fruit lady. Nothing like a cold pineapple or mango on the beach. I took a pineapple photo shoot shown below:

Each night pool, pool, and more pool at the Treat Treat Cafe. My game is steadily improving and the constant laughter of foreigners, locals, and friends, is slowly deteriorating. Ari is having a little more trouble, because instead of playing pool he would rather discuss philosophy as shown in the picture below. In this photo, Ari explains the difference between moral truth and moral relativism to an interested English lad who performed on the British American Idol, X-Factor. Oh Ari.......

Our last day in Hoi An was different, and much less relaxing than the previous 3 days. Hoi An is most famous for their 400 tailors who supposedly make incredible suits for a very cheap price. I figured that I was in a great place to buy my first suit! Not only would my suit be inexpensive, but it would be a special keepsake for my travels. I can't begin to understand how women find shopping desirable. Trying to choose a tailor was easily the most stressful part of my trip to date. After looking at only about 5 tailors of the 400 tailors in Hoi An, we hesitantly chose to go with a group of ladies that were the most friendly to us: Lana Tailors. We thought the major decision process was over. Not at all... What type of material, what material design, what suit style, how many buttons, what type of pockets, what color lining, what color hemming, matching vest, matching overcoat, where we wanted the seams, how many flaps. Man oh man... The picture to the right is what I got. I think you can click on it for better quality. Who knows if this is the suit I ordered, but I like it. Grey, with pink pinstriped, and rust lining:

I'm currently in the beach town of Nha Trang. More details coming soon...

Take care,

Sam

Typhoon Hue

Hi everyone,

Our morning bus layover in Hue was unbelievable. I thought I knew "rain" living in Seattle. Clearly not... Check out the photos below. I'm in the middle of the street and the water is entirely covering my feet. Even the locals were outside shooting pictures, so I don't believe this happens often. Despite the intense rain, we still managed make our way to the citadel (the main attraction in Hue). Hue was the capital of Vietnam until about 50 years ago.

Best,

Sam

Trekkk to Sapa

Hi all,

Last Sunday night Ari and I boarded the sleeper train to Sapa in Northern Vietnam with three of our new friends: Orin, Gil, and Joe

Orin - A goofy Israeli with a PHD in mathematics. Everyday, he tells us four or five "riddles" from his infinate riddle database. We even caught him reading a riddle book last night before bed. He is known to say very politically incorrect comments (a lot like Borat), that often recieve a lot of grief from locals. My favorite "approprioate" riddle Orin told is as follows: There are 100 buttons in a line. Every button is turned off to start. There are 100 dwarfs lined up to jump on the buttons. The first dwarf jumps on every button. The second dward jumps on every other button. The third dwarf jumps on every third button. And so on... all the way to the hundredth dwarf. Which buttons are turned on after all 100 of the dwarfs jump? There is a very simple answer if you approach the problem in the right way!

Gil - Another Israeli who we met at Yom Kippur services, is a computer programmer. He is a super intelligent guy currently working on the software patches for the iPhone.

Joe - He grew up as a othodox Yeshiva boy in Brooklyn. Now he is no longer religious. Jo graduated from Law school, and will be working in the New York DA office when he returns to the states.

As the five of us were dropped in Sapa, we were bombarded by a pack of 15-20 locals trying to take us to their hotel. The pushing and yelling caused me to grab my shoes hanging from my backpack. Unfortunantly, I didn't think to put my hands in my pocket. After the commontion settled down, I reached in my pocket grab my camera, but it was GONE... Lesson learned, don't leave the hand string dangling out of your pocket. Totally my fault. I lost my Halong bay and rock climbing pictures, but have replaced the camera, so more pictures to come soon!

The day after we arrived we rented motorcycles for the day to ride through the hills. I was very apprehensive about the whole motorcycle process, but am glad I overcame my fear to aquire a new skill. Ari took pictures of the beautiful hills, so I'll borrow those to upload.

Sapa was very relaxing relative to the big city of Hanoi. During the day we would play card games, read, play chess, play GO (A traditional Vietnamese game like Connect Four), and eat delicous food. The food in Sapa was the best yet. I almost always get a bowl of Pho with my meal which is good everywhere and about $1. Every night we would play pool and darts. Within minutes of arrival to the bar, the Sapa tribal girls (not Vietnames) would waddle in the door and challenge us to a game of pool. No big deal, we told ourselves the first time. Our confidence deteriated within minutes as Ko-Pih-Pih sunk the eight ball in one-handed and giggled at our 5 balls on the table. The first night with these girls was quite the sureal experience. Not only was their English flawless, but they picked up bits and pieces of every language from tourists. She knew some of our crew was Israeli so whenver we would take too long to shoot she would shout "Yala" (casual Hebrew for hurry up.) That really took my Israeli friends off guard. The tribal girls hate Orin because he tells them, "Why do you girls not go to school... Stop playing pool, and go to school..." They're response is as follows with a witty smirk, "Talk to the hand, cause the face don't listen." Very strange...

We took another sleeper train back to Hanoi this morning which arrived at 4:30am. We had to say goodbye to Orin and Gil this morning as they headed separate ways. Ari, Joe, and I just bought a 4 stop open bus ticket down South. Us three take off at 6:30pm tonight. First stop Hue!

Best,
Sam

Vodka Hanoi: Our Halong Bay Adventure

Sorry its been a while,

So I'm dancing the "Soldier Boy" in a swimsuit at 1am on a boat surrounded by 1969 little islands. That sentence describes the first night on our Halong Bay adventure! At that moment, I was having a hard time grasping the fact that, my brother and friends were heading to a long day of school.


Let's go back in time... After spending a couple days in Hanoi, we were definitely ready to leave the crowded and dirty city for a first real adventure. We were tired of getting offered photocopied books and opium from the same Vietnamese guy twice a day every day. By the way, crossing the street in Vietnam will be by far the most dangerous activity of my trip. There are no stoplights or rules, so to safely cross the street you must walk in a consistent and predictable motion, hoping that the bikes and buses will swerve away from you. They will normally avoid you, but you still must be very attentive... Unfortunately, there are 31 motorcycle fatalities in Vietnam daily.

After hearing the Irish girls speak so highly of their Halong Bay trip with the Backpackers Hostel, we figured we couldn't go wrong. Without hesitation, we booked a ticket, and were off to Halong Bay in the morning (One of the "1000 places to see before you die"). We would soon find out that this 3 day trip really is everything its made out to be and worth every penny.

The first day, was spent cruising while meeting our "soon to be" friends for the remainder of the trip. Before dinner, we went on a kayaking safari and swimming in and around the caves in the bay. Dinner was great and we spent the remainder of the night drinking, dancing, and swimming in 90 degree weather. Not too bad...

The second day, marked my favorite day of the trip so far. We went rock climbing with a huge African-American guy, Slo, who looked identical to the guy in gladiator. We climbed on the beaches of the uninhabited Halong Islands. Slo free climbed rock after rock without shoes and without a helmet.

That night, we spent on Cat Pah Island. We played some soccer with the locals who play every day all over the country at exactly 5:00am and 5:00pm. After soccer and dinner, pool and darts at "The Good Bar". My skill in both pool and darts is embarrassing, but should improve throughout the trip, as we play every night.

The next day, we took a bus back to Hanoi.

It wasn't easy to squeeze four full days into one blog post. Hope I wasn't too brief. I need to keep getting caught up with the posts. Now that I'm actually back to civilization, the blog posts should be coming almost daily. Pictures to come soon too!

Miss you all,
Sam

Your meal will be 30,000 dong (Less than 2 dollars)!

After a tedious couple days of travel, we are finally at our first destination: Hanoi, Vietnam.


With absolutely no track of time, I've been wide awake since 5:00am this morning. Ari and I tried to save a little money by spending the night at the Bangkok airport, instead staying at a nearby hotel for the night. Not such a great idea. Fluorescent lights and airport benches made sleeping slightly difficult. After deciding sleeping was hopeless, Ari and I started playing tackle football with his pillow. The Vietnamese workers thought we were pretty ridiculous. As a result by the time our last flight to Hanoi came around, we had only about 2 more hours of sleep under our belt, after 12 hours at the airport.


I'm not sure why, but I've been eating like a cow. About 5 or 6 large meals a day. All the flights serve food and my new trip mantra "Never turn down free food." Soooo, after all the airplane dinners, I still get tempted at every airport restaurant we walk by and have to get a few pieces of sushi or some curry. Ari is convinced it is the Thai girls that always giggle when we walk by and make fun of us in Thai. Pretty frustrating and there's nothing that we can stop them.



Taxi! You want cheap taxi! As expected we were instantly bombarded with taxis after stepping foot in the Hanoi airport. Instead of riding with the sketchy taxi kids, we hopped on a shared van to the old city with some other tourist that were on our plane. They looked as confused as us, so we still weren't 100% sure about this decision. I think we got the fasted van drider in Hanoi. He loved honking for no reason. About 45 minutes into the rollercoaster ride the van lurched to a stop and a Vietnamese boy squeezed into the van next to me. "I am your new driver. Please give me your money now." Along with the rest of the suspicious tourists, we reluctantly handed him the 3 dollars worth of Vietnamese notes, hoping we were not being taking advantage of. Miraculously we were dropped off in the old city of Hanoi about 5 minutes later and pointed in the right direction to the Hanoi Backpackers hotel. "Only 5 minute walk" the new driver assured us.


Even with our handy lonely planet map, finding the hotel took another 20 minutes. The streets are named, but there are no visible street signs. We would just ask tourists and locals every few steps where to go in hopes of staying in the right direction. On our way to the hostel a young boy started talking to us. The conversation went as follows:



"You want books? Travel book, Vietnam War Stories, Key Phrase, etc, etc. No thanks. Do you want maps? Not interested. Do you want marijuana? No thanks. Do you want Opium?" We laughed and walked away. The progression from guidebooks to opium in a matter of seconds was pretty funny.


Our hostel was a palace amongst the nearby hotels ran by locals. Hanoi Backpacker's hostel is run by Australians and has many young tourist willing to provide good travel advice. It was very expensive relatively ($9 a night), but we figured it was worth the extra money to get off to the right start. They even have their own free Internet cafe and rooftop bar. Everyone I've met so far is really nice and they can't wait to share their cool travel stories. We couldn't have chose a better hotel to start at.



After a refreshing shower, I walked down to the main TV room to find that Ari had already made friends with a Texas dude and a couple girls from Ireland. The Irish girls had been in Vietnam a while so they provided many tips to send our trip in the right direction. We went to dinner with them and enjoyed discussing our many cultural differences and how they perceive Americans. They have real funny accents and expressions (actually much different than in Boondock Saints. Hollywood...) It's really quite easy to make friends in this type of environment. Our two new friends took off that night on a sleeper train. Meeting cool people and saying bye, knowing you will never see them again, seems like it will be one of the harder parts of our trip.



I better get off the computer and go wake up Ari. Tonight we head off to Yom Kippur services at "Big Man Beer." Ari contacted the Israeli consulate who was able to point us in the right direction for some Hanoi Judaism. Should be interesting...



By the way, I just set up a Picasa web album and updated a few pictures. Click on the picture on the top left of the page to see them. I think it should work. Let me know if it doesn't.



Email me, and I'll get back to you with the best stories! Also, share some cool places to go, if you've been anywhere I'm going. Thanks.

samfranklin08@comcast.net



Miss you guys,

Sam

Leaving on a JET PLANE....

I picked Ari up from the airport yesterday.  Last night, my parents took us to the Met for some delicious steaks.  Had my last good sleep.  Took my last last warm shower this morning.  We head to the airport in about an hour for the beginning of this long anticipated adventure.  Wow!

We spend the night in Bangkok.  

Then, we head to Hanoi the next day.

Some good stories and pictures to come in the next few days...........

I'll miss all you guys and gals.  Especially you Mom!  Thanks for letting me go,

Sam