Back Home And Ready To Go

I arrived back home on the morning of the 26th after a total of 15 hours on 2 planes. I'm finally starting to feel like my body is adjusting to US time and am beginning to get some motivation to actually do something with my day beyond lounge around and watch tv. I think my big project today is going to be to get my passport renewal application in the mail so I can actually leave the country again come February when I'm planning on heading to Central and South America.

It's funny the random things that you end up missing on a long trip. For me, drinking tap water was the biggest thing I missed. It got to the point that I started drinking half-glasses of tap water the last couple days in Saigon, just on principal. Screw you sketchy developing country water. It didn't backfire on me, luckily. Since I've been back I haven't touched a drop of bottled water and don't intend to for as long as I am home.

Other things I missed included cooking, hoppy beers, burritos, and the usual family and friends, blah blah blah. But especially burritos. Burritos are a staple of my diet (average consumption: 4 a week) and I was stuck by multiple cravings for them while on the road. Luckily I held out and didn't eat some crappy simulacrum of a delicious Cali Mexican food treat. Those first bites of a Taqueria Guadalajara carnitas super burrito made it all worthwhile...

I'll have a few posts up later on a few topics I wanted to write about but didn't find the time to while on my trip. Hope everyone has a good New Year!

P.S. I have my phone back and it is the same number I had before leaving. So I can be reached on that again.

Shave and a Haircut

Sometimes a bit of perspective and grooming is all you need.

Saigon is.... Saigon. It lacks the character of Hanoi, the bustle of Bangkok or the beggars of Phnom Pen. To arrive here at the end of a long vacations is a bit of both a relief and a let down. I was already kinda burnt out before Hoi An and being here hasn't done much to recharge/deplete me either way.

But onto weightier matters.

Earlier today I was feeling a bit low and missing my family. The funny thing was it was more due to being alone on Christmas Eve than anything else. As someone who has expressed his dislike for Christmas on multiple fourms and mediums, including this blog, I felt like I shouldn't be feeling this way. It just seemed like a repudiation of all the anti-scharine bullshit I've tried to reject. Then a few things happened to put things in perspective.

First, I talked with an excellent travelling companion who has had a much rougher time of it as of late than I have. To compare:
-Mild flu/cough < Very serious undetermined tropical illness
-Feeling a bit alone on the day before a holiday you have hated on < Being very sick then getting stuck in some worthless city-state on a technicality when you just want to see your family
This smacked me out of my self pity. So I resolved to go out and seize whatever this city gas to offer.

I first got a shave and a haircut. The buzz cut I had given myslef before leaving was looking quite shabby.

I asked the front desk people at the hotel I'm staying where to get a bit of a trim. They advised me not to go anywhere nearby as I would pay to much, but to walk about 8 blocks away and pay a lot less. Which I did. My head newly trimmed and my face freshly shaved by a straight razor of dubious origin, I'm now ready to seize the night. Or what is left of it as Saigon shuts down at 12. I'm now headed to dinner and who knows what else.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Hoi An

I arrived in Hoi An a couple days ago after riding the train from Sapa, with a half day stop in Hanoi. Hoi An is a little town in Central Vietnam that used to serve as a main trading post. The mix of influences has led to some pretty cool architecture, mainly Chinese, and a very scenic downtown.

It's been raining pretty steadily since I got here and beyond sightseeing there isn't too much to do. I mainly came here to take cooking classes, but my difficulty in actually getting to attend one has continued. So far the following has happened in my efforts to take classes both here and in Thailand:
• Thailand, Attempt 1: Skipped due to hangover from being out until 3:30 a.m the morning of the class
• Thailand, Attempt 2: Instructor never met me at the skytrain station due to him mixing up the dates
• Thailand, Attempt 3: Great success! Actually made it to one
• Vietnam, Attempt 1: Restaurant who had said they were having one the previous night reneged because I was the only person who wanted to take it. 4 other restaurants also were not holding them that day
• Vietnam, Attempt 2: Paid for class pushed back a day due to very heavy rain
• Vietnam, Attempt 3: Great class!

I took a day long class today that included a tour of a farm, a visit to a market and then the class itself at this restaurant down the river from downtown Hoi An. It was great. I now know how to make pho from scratch (including the rice noodles), clay pot fish, a Vietnamese salad and a shrimp in banana leaves. I doubt I will ever make the salad again as a main ingredient is banana flower which I seriously doubt I’ll be able to find in the US, but the three other dishes are definitely doable. The pho in particular, maybe minus the rice noodles as the results there didn’t differ enough from commercial made ones to go to the considerable extra effort.

Here are pics from the last couple of days:

This is what I arrived to

Hoi An specialty

Farm visit

Lettuce with seaweed in between to absorb then steadily release moisture

Cool dragon fly

Noodle maker

Veggies at market

Frogs. These poor guys were skinned alive and moving around under the net. Not a pleasant sight

Accompaniments to pho

Banana flower salad

Pho before addition of broth

Mise en place

Me making rice noodles

Gaining mass

Winnie

Winnie has come down ill. Wish her well!

Lots of Pictures and One Animal Cruelty Video

Here are some pictures from the last few days of the trip. I arrived in Hoi An today after and overnight train ride and it is pouring rain so I decided to get some uploading done. Also included at the bottom is a video of a cockfight Winnie and I saw in central Hanoi about a week ago. Photos are in chronological order, starting with the oldest.

Seth and commies all love Man U. Great victory for Villa the other day!

Bun Cha. So good

Umbrella roof at some random cafe in Hanoi

The Carnivore™ angry that I was documenting her heading down the road to ruin

School near Sapa

Terraced rice paddies

Waterfall near Sapa

Central lake in Sapa

Another view of the lake

Some government building

Mountainside being cut away to make a dam

Wider view of dam making activity

Ducks in paddy

Pig

Pigs being fattened up for slaughter for the Tet new year celebration

A batch of indigo dye made by the H'mong

Water buffalo in the mist in Sapa

Our guide Ban cooking over an open fire

Ban frying an egg. Ban was a great guide, but not the world's greatest cook. I guess that is why she works and her husband stays home and takes care of the kids

Me with our guides, and Ron and Deb

The Carnivore™ with guides and homestay friends

Flower vendor in Hanoi

The first commie flag of Vietnam

Rock on Buddah

Shiva/Buddha or who the hell knows. Cool looking though

The Hanoi Hilton! From the stories I'd heard, I expected it to be a much grimmer place...

Another view of the Hanoi Hilton

And another

Super-hot model girl posing in front of the Hanoi Hilton Cafe

Super-hot model girl again. Cause she was really hot

Tasty carambola

Catfish that kept brawling with each other

Stir-fried buffalo with carambola. Not the greatest thing ever, but I'd never had carambola in a savory dish

Hotel room in Hoi An

Cockfighting!!!!! I'm betting this violates Blogger's terms of use. Pretty tame though. I expected something more

Getting Woken Up By Commies

What could be more obnoxious than being woken up every morning by communist propaganda being blasted from loudspeaker? Not much I'd imagine. This morning was the first time I've been awoken by it and even though I didn't understand a word of it it was still pretty obnoxious.

The hotel I was previously at was far enough away from one of the scratchy-sounding loudspeakers that I slept through the broadcast and had no idea what Winnie was talking about when she mentioned being awoken by them. This moring I found out. Not knowing what was being said during the broadcasts, I did a little research and discovered that they are propaganda broadcasts and patriotic songs. There is a movmenet underway to ban the broadcasts:

http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/scotland-on-sunday-edinburgh/mi_7924/is_2009_May_24/clamour-grows-silence-communist-propaganda/ai_n35476298/

If I lived near a loudspeaker here, I would be up in arms. Not necessarily because of the content, but because I really like my sleep.

Along with the propaganda broadcasts, Facebook has mysteriously been unavailable for the last few days. Apparently this is due to a blackout by ISP's, enforced by the government because anti-government movements were using the site to organize. The block is pretty easy to get around, but is effective because a social networking site's usefulness is eliminated if most people can't get it to.

These two things brought home to me the differences at the margin living in a one-party communist state means.

Phu Quoc and More Pictures

I haven't posted in a while and have a lot to tell. Going back to Sunday, here is what I've been up to...

Last Sunday I departed Phnom Phen on a mosquito filled bus for a 7 hour bus ride to Saigon. It thankfully was less honk-filled than previous ones. I had to get to the airport for a 2 pm flight, and we got in a bit late. I caught a cab, drove to several ATM's looking for one that worked (ended up having to exchange some USD I had on me) and ended up barely making my flight after getting scammed by the cab driver and his rigged meter. Let's just say I was not enjoying Vietnam as my flight departed.

I flew into Phu Quoc, an island right of the Vietnam/Cambodia border, and was planing on staying at this place called Beach House that Eric had recommended to me but it was full. Lucky for me, there was a place that had just opened next to it called Paris Beach. It is a converted house that has a few bungalows next to it run by this Vietnamese-French lady. It ended up being a very good thing that my first choice was taken.

Paris Beach was awesome. It was cheap($15/night), had a great staff and awesome food. Which was also cheap. The room was so-so, but I could live with that. There I ate: a great squid curry, the best pho I have ever had (nearly every breakfast), steak frites with the first decent fried I've had since being in Asia, claypot fish, pate, ect. The seafood was super fresh and everything was cooked extremely well. I was very impressed by the food and execution, and if you know me at all I am generally pretty hard to please when it comes to things like that. I ended up eating most of my meals at the hotel looking out over the ocean. It was rough.

The owner of the hotel is Vietnamese, married to a Frenchman and has lived in Paris for the last 18 years after moving there from Hanoi. A former marketing professor, she just opened up this hotel on the beach 3 months ago. From what she told me, you aren't really allowed to build anymore right on the beach on Phu Quoc, but she was able to renovate a house she already owned there into a hotel.

During my stay on Phu Quoc I drove around most of the island on a little motorbike. I even managed to crash the motorbike going too fast on a rutted dirt road. I somehow managed to bail and stay on my feet doing 20km/hr, but the bike got a little banged up. Luckily my 150cc hog still ran fine.

Phu Quoc is a pretty big place with quite a varied terrain - you've got the beach, jungle, and forested mountains. During my motorbike treks I saw some cool little fishing villages, pepper plantations, a Vietnamese Navy base, ran into some random sights and ate some really good street food. My favorite was this sandwich of deep-fried pork belly with onions, carrots, cucumbers, sauce and chili. I don't think I've ever had deep fried pork belly before but it was a revelation. The outside is very crunchy and then you get into the creamy, fatty interior. It's quite a contrast, and heart healthy to boot! The sandwich was so good I had to get a second. I ended up getting sick that night, likely from the sandwiches but I think if given the choice again I would still eat them. They were that good. The island is famous for their fish sauce factories which manufacture some of the most sought-after fish sauce in Vietnam. I was going to tour one of them but the day I planned to do that was the day after I got sick and was unable to do much beyond lay on the beach and read.

Also of note was the market. It had amazing looking seafood (half of it still alive) and some great looking veggies. With raw materials like that, you can't help but make good food. Wandering through there I wished everywhere I ever live had a daily market like that. One stand had six different kind of eggs, all what in the US would be call free-range pastured organic or some such crap and cost $9 a dozen. And I'm not kidding, places at the Ferry Building Market sell them for that much. I really wanted to make some fresh pasta with a shrimp sauce or something, but unfortunately lacked kitchen facilities.

Did a little snorkeling (pictures below) and got a nice tan/sunburn. All in all a great few days. I was a little sad leaving as there are a TON of new resorts going up on the island and I figured if I make it back in 3 or 4 or 5 or 10 years the place will be unrecognizable. No more motorbiking on dirt roads or sand pits for me. If you can get here in the near future I highly recommend it.

Yesterday I flew out and headed to Hanoi. More about Hanoi later once I've had a bit more time to digest it all.

Pretty self explanatory

Some fish and cool tentacle things

Brain coral

18 different kind of eggs.

Cool looking bull