Temples, shopping, eels and sardines!

hey guys! Here we are in not too sunny but at least not raining Nha Trang! We arrived this morning around 6 a.m. after a brutal 12 hour bus ride from Hoi An. Travel agents are great at recommending the overnight sleeper bus, a bus crammed with seats that sort of recline. Unfortunately, they don't tell you that they overload the bus every time and pick up locals along the way, with some people who have to sleep on the floor. Sometimes, like last night, one of the locals kicks you out of your seat even though there are no assigned seats. So I ended up squished like a sardine in the space of about a tiny double bed between a swede who got kicked out of his seat and an american. we survived though, but on the way we were woken up around midnight for food. Nothing too interesting, though we did see a lot of snakes, seahorses and squids in jars of rice wine. apparently it's good for your health. I would rather eat salad thank-you-very-much.
Speaking of food, Yosha has been working hard to update her blog on more of our food adventures.

So to backtrack, on Boxing Day while you guys were out scooping up amazing bargains, we toured around the My Son (pronounced "mee son", which means "beautiful mountain") temples. My Son is a cluster of abandoned and partially ruined Hindu temples constructed between the 4th and the 14th century AD by the kings of Champa. Unfortunately a lot of it got bombed by the Americans in during the Vietnam War from 1955 to 1975. I thought the temples were cool, but it's really hard to beat the Angkor Temples in Cambodia! The Hindu influence was interesting though.

From there we returned to the tailor and shoe maker to finalize our shoes and clothes. So I now have a couple from-scratch bowties, a full suit so I am all grown up and workout shorts. I also asked them to adjust the Chinese dress that I bought in Beijing so that fits well. During the day there may have been more shopping and junk eating as well ;) I did try eels though! that was a random pick of the day of eels sautéed in lemongrass and chili. It was surprisingly tasty, minus the chunk of eel spine in each piece though.

On the 27th we walked around Old Town Hoi An, where we saw the Japanese bridge. Built sometime in the early 1600s, the Hoi An Japanese Bridge is a symbol of the town and a beautiful reminder of a time long ago, when Hoi An was an important trading port for Chinese, Dutch, Indian, and Japanese merchants up until the 17th century.

Today so far at 4 p.m. we have just being touring around, napping, eating fruit from the market (Yosha has introduced me to so many wonderful fruits! Today we tried jack fruit and lychee. Both very tasty!) and praying for sunshine. I don't think we will get much sun until Saigon though.

A few random observations about Vietnam...

- their hand gesture for "come here", like if they are personally calling you, is close to what we would use for "goodbye", kind of like the "ta ta" hand gesture where you keep your palm parallel to the ground and flap your wrist.
- ironically, in a country of 40 million motorbikes where traffic laws are only loosely obeyed and everything moves so quickly, the key to survival when crossing the crazy streets is to take your time. The slower you move, the easier it is for motorbikes to swerve around you. Just watch out for cars, because they don't done move too good ;)
- because I am sure you are curious! Toilets here are the exact same as back home, except that there is often the option for a half-flush vs. a full-flush, and you aren't supposed to put anything down the toilet including toilet paper so bins are provided. There have been a few squatters along the way but I think they have adapted well to tourism!

Anyways, those are my thoughts for the moment! We leave tomorrow night by overnight train for Saigon to hang out in Saigon for NYE, then off to Thailand until we leave on the 14th. I heard that you guys in Ottawa are going to get a good dumping of snow. Drive carefully!

M xoxo



Some random photos for you!

Top to bottom, left to right: an old house in Hoi An; the inside of the top row in a sleeper bus - sometimes, like what happened last night, you sleep in a spot where there is an extra bed in between and you get super crammed in between two strangers; the Japanese covered bridge in Hoi An; trying eels for the first time; my new super cool footwear; and weird stuff in jars at a random bus stop.