Nature and History

We've done a couple of cool things the last couple days.
Naturally the food will come first:
We met up with a couple friends who just graduated from Coe who live in Hanoi, Ming and Mahn. They took us to their favorite restaurant where we just sat and ordered dish after dish of food and shared until we were content, about two and a half hours later. We ate some traditional normal Vietnamese food, but also branched out and ate some crazy stuff that even they hadn't tried: Crickets, Horse, Crocodile and drank some "corn water." We then went to another rooftop bar (this one overlooking the lake where John McCain got shot down while flying a bombing run) and being still a little dehydrated from our night of drinking before (its almost impossible to get rehydrated in the heat and humidity) I had a juice smmothie, which was amazing because the tropical friut is always in season here, and always very fresh.

Another day we took a day-trip to Halong Bay, a can't miss for tourists to Vietnam. We took a quite long, uncomfortable and scary bus ride to the bay, but the payoff was amazing. We ate some fresh seafood on board (Andrew even bought us a fresh Snail from some of the local fisherman), went kayaking in the probably the most beautiful place I have ever seen and took a walking tour of some caves. I'd try to describe to you how beautiful this place was, and I took a ton of pictures, but words and pictures just can't do it. We then had some delicious Indian food and were exhausted from a great day of sun and the ocean and went to bed early.

Today we got back on the history track and visited Ho Chi Minh's Mosaleum. Ho has been dead for over 30 years now, so seeing that old of a body looks a a little strange, but its kind of neat to see the man I have read so much about, and frankly, become very interested in. Yesterday was his birthday, but unfortunately we were on the bay and didn't get to stay in the city to see the celebration. I'm trying to compare him to a figure most people would recognize but I think he's probably a mix between Lennin and George Washington. A communist and a nationalist, he is idolized all over the country like Lennin with posters, money and in every magazine and door I open, although he was humble and a visionary leader like Washington. A very interesting man that I want to learn more about, especially after seeing his masaleum and his home this morning.

After seeing Ho Ming and Mahn took us to another Vietnamese buffet that was, again, amazing. I feel like all I write about on here is food, but its competing for my favorite part of this trip so far. After that we went to the Hoa Boa Prision, or the "Hanoi Hilton" as it is known in the U.S. This is a prision the French built to hold political prisioners during its time in power, then the Vietnamese took over and housed American POWs during the war. This is where John McCain was held and tortured for six years (they still have his flight suit on display). This was another frustrating dispay of propoganda, as the Vietnamese who were held there under the French were, of course, tourtured and treated very badly, but the Americans were treated with the most respect and held under the best conditions... oh well, such is a communist government, I suppose.

I'm off to our second class meeting of the trip to discuss one of the books we are reading and then to one of the city's best French restaurants... more food!