Travels Galore
This past Sunday we returned from a 10-day long trip around Vietnam’s north and central regions. It was the first major trip in the program and will be followed in another week by a short excursion to Cambodia. Instead of giving you a comprehensive rundown of the entire trip, I’m imparting short snapshots of each city to you:
Hue: After a long day of touring Hue, a city in central Vietnam that was once home to the legendary Nguyen dynasty, a group of us tracked down a Mexican restaurant on TripAdvisor called Jalapeno. To our surprise upon entering the restaurant we found a different group of Loyola students half-way through their meal – in the spirit of group travels we combined tables and took over half the restaurant. Happy hour at Jalapeno meant BOGO margaritas and free beer with any main entrée – an offer none of us could refuse. After receiving our chilled margaritas, we toasted to a happy day and to Emily’s last night as a 21-year-old. Pha, our waiter, overheard the birthday wishes and quickly rushed to the side of our table for more details: whose birthday was it, how old were they and how did you spell their name. Emily did the honors and for the next 30 minutes, as plates of enchiladas and nachos came and went, all of the staff snickered, giggled and whispered. Finally, the moment of truth came. The lights dimmed, the doors shut and a cake with numbered 22 candles and ‘Emily 29.9’ written in red frosting was delivered to the table (not one of us had the heart to tell Pha that Emily’s birthday was actually September 30th). What followed was Emily’s worse nightmare: 4 different renditions of happy birthday and an impromptu dance party in which Pha and her coworkers made us dance to, among other songs, Gangnam Style.
Hoi An: Hoi An, another city in Central Vietnam, is known for its quaint architecture and old style. It’s vaguely reminiscent of a small, peaceful Italian town which left Emily and I feeling very at home. After visiting My Son Cham ruins, Emily, Kelsey, Binu, Vien and I rented bicycles to visit a nearby beach. I have no words to explain how wonderful those few hours were. The weather was perfect, the water warm and the waves just enough to inspire the greatness of the ocean in you right before the water set you back down gently on the sandy ocean floor. At one point Emily instructed us to take a good long mental picture of the moment in our heads – it was something we would want to remember the next time we were dozing off in class.
Da Nang: Surprise! Da Nang is another city in central Vietnam. For most, Da Nang is known for modernity and cleanliness (apparently, it’s one of the best places to live in Vietnam). For me, Da Nang is known for the worst mango smoothie. By mango smoothie, I mean to say sugary milk, chunks of mango and a few ice cubes garnished with a random piece of mint. To be fair we only spent about an hour and a half in Da Nang and so please know that I am judging a book by its cover. So please do me a favor and return to Da Nang in order to write your own snapshot that does the city justice.
Hanoi: In Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital city, we were greeted by delicious northern delicacies such as bun cha and not so friendly Vietnamese northerners who lived up their reputation of being more closed off than their southern counterparts. We found a sweet little place called the Polite Pub where the majority of us Loyola students shared a few glasses of half price wine before a traditional water puppet show. I adore Hanoi for its small streets, large trees and old feel. I sincerely wish we had spent more time there.
Sa Pa: Sa Pa is a glorious small town up near Vietnam’s border with China. We spent only one full day here but it was a wonderful place to relax and its magnificent mountain views do make it worth visiting. The only catch is that to get there you must take a 6-hour bus ride in a sleeper bus. For those of you who haven’t yet encountered the world of sleeper buses, this means that the seats are essentially like beds. For those of you who have encountered the world of sleeper buses, you can probably relate to me when I say this is wonderful except when your seat is broken which leaves you lying flat for 6 hours. The ride up to Sa Pa was fine but it was the ride down that left me a little shaken. After loading up the bus in Sa Pa our driver proceeded to pick up hitchhikers along the highway, stopping (and I mean slamming on the breaks) every 20 minutes to pick up new folks or drop others off. He drove at the speed of light so we get could to Hanoi and drop off the other illegal passengers but still get us to our drop-off location early. This entire experience was made even more complete by the odor of urine and the stench of cigarettes that left my hair smelling as though I had spent the past 6 hours in some shady European discotheque. This was a wonderful experience and although I may not ever repeat it and I am sure I will cherish it for years to come.
At the end of all of this, I was so happy to return home to Ho Chi Minh City. It’s a curious and beautiful thing to feel that you are returning home after only having known a place for 7 weeks.