Good Morning Vietnam!
Xin chao (hello) from Vietnam! I’ve already been here for 14 days and time is FLYIN’- must mean I’m having fun! I flew into Hanoi, the capital, located way up in the north, relatively close to China. I spent my first day there learning some Vietnamese basics (I always try and learn “hello” and “thank you” as my passport is getting stamped) and tasting some local specialties- always my favorite part of getting to a new country. The coffee here is fantastic. They brew it fresh right in front of you on the table and add the most delicious sweetened condensed milk. I like it best over ice (made from bottled water, of course). I’m sure it’s terrible for you, which explains why it’s sooo good.
The day after arriving, I left on a tour to Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO world heritage site three hours north of Hanoi, filled with thousands of limestone islands jutting out from the ocean. I boarded my junk (my junk is you…inside joke for Spring Awakening nerds), which is really a wooden Chinese sailboat. There were six other people on my boat- all around my age and all backpacker types. We got along perfectly! We spent the day tanning on the sun-deck (we had gorgeous weather), exploring the ‘amazing’ cave, and swimming and kayaking around the little islands. Our guide told us some very interesting information about Vietnamese burial rituals. After a family member dies, the family will bury them. Sounds normal enough, right? Well, after 3 years, the oldest son in the family has to dig up the deceased and move their skeleton (with all the bones lined up correctly) to a new burial site. This is to give the person in heaven a new home. Sometimes, if the person had a lot of skin on their bones aka they’re a little chubby, there would be more than just skeleton left, but they’d have to move them anyway. This is because people rent their burial spots from the govt and they only give 3 year leases...
