Ha Noi!

SO after a short day in Saigon, we jumped back on a plane yesterday and flew north to Hanoi (we're eventually working our way south and will end up back in Saigon). We took multiple cabs and my cab went to the wrong terminal and we almost missed our flight, but eventually got to the right place. It was fairly terrifying when we figured out we were in the wrong place and the first three people we talked to didn't speak English.

Ha Noi is great, one of my guide books said if Saigon is New York, then Hanoi is Boston. Not quite the booming industry and Westernism that exists in Saigon, but more of an intimate Eastern feel. The streets are bustling and busy here in a whole new way. The sidewalks turn into store fronts every day with people running their own businesses out the front of they very small storefront/home that spills out into the street. So to add to the mix of crazy motor-bikes, "cyclos", trucks and occasional car, we now add regular pedestrians to the mix. We sat on a rooftop bar last night at a busy intersection just to watch the traffic, we're fascinated.

As soon as we got into town yesterday we did a quick tour, went to an island pagoda (temple) and then the professors turned us loose. The four guys broke off and immediately found "Little Hanoi"a great little Vietnamese resturaunt chain for some more amazing food. We then walked a little more, did some shopping at the weekend night market and had a few drinks at a rooftop bar by the lake to watch the sunset over the city. We then ventured back out and found a little street corner where we literally sat in a plastic chair on the street and had some locally made beer out of a shady keg for 3000 Dong a glass (17,000 Dong = $1). We then decided to eat again (we're eating our way across Vietnam) and wandered out of the tourist area and found another place where we sat on the street and cooked our own food at our table with a plate and burner. Scott and Andrew are both not feeling well today, but I think it was worth it (because I didn't get sick, of course). The night ended with meeting up with the girls at a bar where we got free shisha (hookah) and stayed up way to late.

Today we got up and did a lot of walking. We walked to the temple to literature, which is over a thousand years old, and dedicated to Confucian principles of scholarship. We then went to West Lake (the place where John McCain crash landed on a bombing run during the war) and a couple other museums that I had pretty much lost interest in after a long day walking in the heat and humidity.

The highlight of the day was definitely meeting up with Ming and Mahn (two Vietnamese students who just graduated from Coe). They took us to a great resturaunt where we hung out for over two hours trying as many things as we could think of (crickets, crocodile, horse and corn water to name a few). Then it was back to 0ne of the city's many rooftop bars for some awesome fruit juice with the ever-prevelant fresh fruits that are all over this country.

Anyway, I'm having a great time, love this country and have already spent way too much money enjoying it. Tomorrow we're going to Halong Bay and leaving at 7:45 so I need to get to bed!

Someday I'm going to try to get some pictures up to...