Hanoi - A beautiful synthesis of past and future

While Megan and I really enjoyed Ho Chi Minh City, all the travelers we spoke to emphasized that Hanoi was much better.  Hanoi is a beautiful and grand old city (a few years past a 1000 years old).  Hanoi still has many of the cultural elements from its history and combines that with the hustle and bustle of a modern dynamic city.  It is a beautiful synthesis of past and future that creates an amazing present experience for tourists and residents alike.

Hostel

While in Hanoi we stayed near Hoan Kiem Lake near the old city center.  It was a great base of operations from which to investigate the city.  Hanoi's streets were quite narrow with plenty of sidewalks so it is an extremely walkable city (if you can cross the street through traffic).  We spent hours on foot exploring the parks, shops, alleys, cafes and street vendors.  We chose Central Backpackers as our hostel in order to experience dorm living for our first time in SE Asia.  Unfortunately we don't have crazy stories about violent cocaine addicts, inappropriate public sex acts, or dramatic cheating scenarios (things I ran into during my backpacker times in Australia).  We did however meet a number of interesting folks from the US, England, Germany and Dubai.

By Hoan Kiam Lake - gorgeous setting in the city center

I'm excited to be by one of the few still existing Lenin statues
#nerdy

Fun Nights

The hostel had a free beer happy hour which helped facilitate the meeting of the cool people.  The most interesting character was a middle aged blue color guy from the US who was amazingly well traveled and spoken for his socioeconomic status.  After the free beer ran dry, Megan, myself, and our new friends decided to try authentic Vietnamese snake wine.  This particular jug of wine had seven snakes and multiple spiders in it.  The taste was surprisingly likeable, better than house whiskey or vodka.  The hangover however did leave a bit to be desired.

The bar nightlife scene in Hanoi is amusing.  There are many regulations on the bars and nightclubs but there's a wink-wink nod-nod culture and lots of blind eye turning by the police.  For example, we had to clear out of a bar multiple times when the police came by but then we resumed our merry festivities as normal after they passed.  We capped off our most exciting night by going to one of the underground clubs.  The part of town was so quiet, I had Megan hold the cab until I could verify the place actually had a nightclub.  Inside it was a rager of a party and we enjoyed letting loose with our new friends.

Our Jug of snake wine

The Sights

One of the most interesting sights we visited was the Temple of Literature which is Vietnam's oldest University.  At the front gate is an amusing sign commanding each visitor to dismount their horse before entering.  The temples inside were ornate and the grounds were immaculately landscaped.  Across that street was a quiet oasis-like park juxtaposed to the busy neighborhood and packed apartments.  Here Megan and I stumbled upon an illicit cock fighting ring.  Quite shocking seeing the poor animals wickedly hurt each other.  Another interesting sight was the Hanoi Hilton.  Famous for having hosted John McCain and other American POWs.  The Vietnamese propoganda about prisoner conditions is quite humorous.  It wouldn't fool many people except maybe for Jane Fonda. The one attraction we were able to see was the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.  Uncle Ho, the still revered leader of Vietnam's independence, was in Russia for repair.  The respect they pay him to this stay is impressive.

Entrance to the Temple of Literature - hold your horses

John McCain's flight suit

Water Puppets!!

Another cool cultural experience was seeing a performance of traditional Vietnamese Water Puppetry.  This artform originates from the rice paddy fields in Vietnam's villages.  The music, puppets and lights display were entertaining: sometimes informative, sometimes funny and sometimes confusing.  It is definitely worth checking out.  We even had a blooper moment where one of the hosts forgot her lines, had to excuse herself and came back later with a printed script and red face.  The other hosts had to stifle their laughter.  The video doesn't quite do it justice so check out youtube.

The puppets

Street Food that Rocks

And lastly we really enjoyed the food.  We raved about the food in Ho Chi Minh City and again Vietnam delivered awesome food for cheap.  The pho was fragrant and flavorful.  Amazingly the ingredients (including the meat) were high quality given the bargain prices.  The bun cha was amazing with the really tasty Vietnamese fish sauce.  And the spring rolls were excellent.  We ate the majority of our meals on short stools  on the sidewalks.  Nothing fussy or pretentious, just really good food.

Bun Cha - my new favorite Vietnamese food

Enjoying some relaxation in the gorgeous cafes by the streets

Conclusion:

• Hanoi has a great blend of authentic and dynamic
• It's a city that is friendly for on-foot exploration
• There weren't any killer sights to see (maybe Halong Bay)
• The nightlife was fun and the food tasty
• Go visit Hanoi!

Cool Travel Tools

Megan and I have used two cool tools for booking travel that we want to share with everyone.  The first is Flocations.  It’s a search engine that has you input a starting point, dates, and flight costs and returns a map of destinations with flights that meet your criteria.  This tool is absolutely perfect for comparing multiple travel options for a particular weekend.   We choose our flights to Kuching and Penang using this tool.  

Flocations results for round trip flights from Singapore for $260 or less

Flocations is Southeast Asia specific but don’t fret because Kayak has an unknown feature that’s similar and available globally.  The Kayak feature I’m talking about is Explore.  It’s hidden away but you can get to it by clicking on More in the top tool bar and then Explore in the Find Travel options at the bottom of the next page.  Alternatively, here's the link.  Like Flocations, Kayak will let return different flight options that meet your budget from a particular destination.  Kayak doesn’t quite have as much date input specificity as Flocations, but it’s still a great tool for researching trip options.

Kayak Explore shows there are plenty of flight options from Chicago to some place warm this winter

Knowledge is power, so go forth and travel to some place cool in the next couple months.  All we ask is a simple thanks on a postcard J.

Singapore Fun with Guests

I’ve been living in Singapore almost three months now, and it’s easy to find myself habituating to the city.  Interesting peculiarities like the MRT (the subway system), the funny signs and even the diversity of the city are no longer top of mind.  And interesting places have been put on the back burner in order to focus on weekend travel and work.  So it was great when two groups of friends came to visit the past two weeks.  It provided a reminder of Singapore’s uniqueness, a chance to share our knowledge, and an excuse to knock off a few items on our Singapore bucket list.

Mr. & Mrs. Blevins come to Singapore

  

Mr. Jim Blevins and Mrs. Michelle Blevins, parents of our friend Eric, came into town for work.  I was so excited to hear that they were coming that I excitedly wrote up a Singapore’s greatest hits list as a guide.  The list ended up being a bit too long but it was good starting point. Here are the highlights:

Eat - the food in Singapore is phenomenal, whether it's a fancy restaurant or a cheap meal, you can find tons of interesting experiences that rival New Orleans food.

• Hawker Centers - you need to stop by one of these places just to check it out.   They are food courts on steroids and offer extremely cheap foods of very diverse varieties.  You can't go wrong with the Indian food or Chicken Rice.  Look to go wherever has the longest line.
• Chilli Crab - this is a Singapore delicacy and absolutely phenomenal
• Char Kway Teow - a fried noodle dish that is really tasty, can be found in the Hawker stands
• Laksa - a spicy coconut noodle soup, can be found in the Hawker stands

See - there are plenty of cool attractions in Singapore given the cultural diversity and the country's desire to become a tourist hub

• Chinatown - lots of cool shops and souvenir shops.  A bit touristy but the shop house architecture is cool and the Chinatown museum is fascinating.  I'm sure you could find Eric lots of Hello Kitty souvenirs to bring back :)
• Little India - the aroma, the pace, the people - it's like being in India but without having to get sick!  I recommend coming here at night.  There are beautiful Chinese, Hindu and Muslim temples
• Museums - the Asian Civilizations Museum is great.  It shows the history of the major cultures here in Singapore.  Really well done.  The Art museums are pretty cool as well.  Fort Canning is nearby and is a good spot to see the city and to get some wild life.
• Orchard Road shopping - this one is for you Mrs. Blevins.  Singapore's national past time is shopping, and Orchard Road is the most popular place to do so.  Things are not necessarily cheap, but there's tons of places and selection.

Megan and I were able to catch up with Jim and Michelle for dinner at Indochine before they left.  We traded stories of travels, mishaps and ironies.  As the adventurous semi-locals, Megan and I took responsibility for widening Jim and Michelle's food experience.  We had some very tasty cuisine at Indochine (a Southeast Asian fusion restaurant) including scallops, shrimp, black pepper beef and fried rice.  When desert came, we tried our best to sell them on ice cream sandwiches with real bread; but that was just too out there for them.  It was a great dinner and it was special talking to folks from back in the US. 

Jesse McGannon Rolls in

Our friend Jesse came in town as part of his Asian/US vacation tour.  We showed him some of the best Singapore has to offer, as well as the island resort jewel of Rawa (to be covered in the next post).  Friday night we went out to One Altitude at the world’s highest al fresco bar.  The views of the city skyline and Marina Bay were inspiring at night.  We then ventured from there to Clark Quay for some socializing and dancing at China One.  The melting pot of cultures makes the nightlife scene especially interesting.  It’s quite easy to meet really nice people and bond with them despite the fact that they are completely different.  We got a ride back from the most Singaporean cab driver ever.  See was bragging about how her night was going really well because she was hitting all of her KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators).  I tried to convince her that excessive honking should be one of her KPI’s but she was unconvinced.  On Monday night, Jesse tackled the Marina Bay Sands casino and found good luck at Blackjack.  The casino is outrageous in its annual profitability so we expected extravagance.  The experience was better than Midwest casinos but not quite as nice as Vegas.  The games at MBS were quite kooky and strange like Sic Bo and Lucky 8.  The blackjack table even allowed gamblers to bet on other people’s hands; a lot more pressure to make the right call to hit or stay!

Jesse clearly enjoying the Boantic Gardens

During the day we’ve been able to visit some of the cultural attractions with Jesse.  One example is the Singapore Botanic Gardens.  This is a majestically maintained park that has a diverse set of fauna and the world’s largest Orchid garden.  A really nice and relaxing place in the middle of the bustling city.  Another attraction we visited was the National Museum of Singapore.  Here we learned about Singapore's  history through a tablet and headphones that provided an interactive element to the exhibits.  Top-notch museum.

No visit to Singapore would be complete without trying some of the interesting foods.  We took Jesse to the hawker stalls to sample authentic Singaporean cuisine and atmosphere.  La Pau Sat is quite the experience for visitors.  We visited Little India Sunday night to try some excellent Indian cuisine and to experience the hustle and bustle of the area.  Sunday night is an active night in the community and the neighborhood was packed with people doing business and socializing.   Interestingly it was extremely male dominated in the streets and social areas.   We ate at the Banana Leaf Apollo and had butter chicken, garlic naan, bryiani rice, and fish head curry.  The fish head curry was something I wouldn't normally order but since it was on the Singapore must try list, I ventured out.  The tastiness of the curry sauce and sweetly flavored meat trumped the ugly looks and fish bone logistics.  Megan even enjoyed eating the eyeball after losing a rock-paper-scissors battle.  We also had Chili Crab one night which is another Singapore must.

Fish head curry - a real delicacy

Singapore is such a unique and interesting place.  It’s enjoyable to share our knowledge and experiences here with others.  There’s still a few more things on our bucket list, so if anyone is interested in visiting Singapore, feel free to come in the next two months.

Vietname Weekend Part 3: Tourist Cruise and Discovery of Banh Mi

This post will conclude the recap of the Vietnam trip (here are the links to posts one and two).  Our last night in Ho Chi Minh City we went on a dinner boat cruise on the Saigon River.  This isn't the type of activity I would normally do but Trip Advisor rated it strongly and Megan loved the idea.

Bonsai Boat Cruise

The Bonsai Boat was modeled after an old fashioned Vietnamese style boat with a sweet Dragon as the front and lots of ornamentation.  When we arrived at the dock they asked if we wanted our picture taken with the King and Queen, which definitely set the cheesiness tone.  On the boat they put us up into a private area at the front.  We met the magician, who was really fun to talk to and he showed us his skills.  Being a magic skeptic I watched intently at his allusions but he was pretty darn good at fooling me.

Right around when our private magic show ended we were able to go the buffet.  It was all you can eat, with different Asian and Western style foods.  Honestly, none of it was amazing just overall decent food.  During and after the meal there was live musical entertainment.  It varied from traditional dancers to current pop music to 60s and 70s classics.  The highlight had to be the old white westerners from Greece who had no shame in dancing and at one point started a Congo line during an Abba song.

Megan "I think they are doing a Congo Line"
Me "Oh God"

So to recap, our Bonsai boat tour had magic, an all you can eat buffet, "authentic" Vietnamese experiences and old people dancing.  Yep it was pretty much like being on a Carnival cruise ship.  This was by far the most touristy event we'd done.... and yet, Megan and I enjoyed it.  The Saigon skyline pretty at night and the service on the ship made the evening relaxing. 

The Parks of Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnam is a developing economy so when I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City I expected an overcrowded urban concrete jungle.  Instead I was pleasantly surprised to see numerous large parks in the heart of the city.  HCM could give Chicago, San Francisco and New York a run for their money in terms of recreational space.

A man playing the violin in one of HCM's may parks

Megan and I enjoyed strolling through the parks during our sightseeing breaks.  They provided a serene peacefulness from the traffic and bustle of the city, as well as great spots for reflection.  The parks enhanced the walk-ability of Ho Chi Minh City.  There were a number of cool sights in them as well, from Tiger statues to War monuments to funny workout eqiupment.

Banh Mi - Our favorite street food

Out of all the street food we sampled (and we sampled alot) our favorite dish was Banh Mi.  Banh Mi is a fusion dish that combines a French Baguette with Vietnamese style food (pickled vegetables, sauces and meat).  The baguette has delightful light texture due to the use of rice flour.  The flavor of the sandwhich is a delicious mix of spicy chilli, mayo and liver pate for sauce.  The substance of the sandwhich is fresh/tasty vegetables (lettuce, cucumbers, pickled carrots and daizon) and fatty meats (ham, bacon, pork sausage etc).  The street vendors can make one of these fresh in 10 minutes and amazingly they cost only 20,000 Dong (roughly $1US)*.

Awesome Banh Mi

Megan and I liked Banh Mi so much they we went about searching for places where you could find them in Singapore.  We found this website that did our request one better; it provides Banh Mi locations worldwide.

Conclusions:

• Overall the trip to Ho Chi Minh City was great
• The street food was delicious
• The sights were interesting and informative
• The people were friendly and helpful
• We enjoyed the trip so much there's a good chance we'll come back to Vietnam to visit Hanoi and Halong Bay

*The conversion rate is crazy.  One of the funniest moments was at the ATM trying to figure out how much to take out and seeing an account balance that looks quite nice (then realizing it's in Dong not USD)