First and foremost, anyone who has any desire to travel to Vietnam should go at the drop of a hat. I’ve just returned to Hanoi after spending 2 days in Halong Bay.  Everyone here has been so incredibly nice and the landscape is simply awesome.  The last time I emailed you I was about to leave for Ninh Binh to meet up with my friend from college, a Mr. Jeffrey Schwab. So, here’s how the story unfolds…

I wake up at 6:45 a.m. on my own, which is a pretty rare task on my part.  Nonetheless, I head downstairs for a breakfast that consists of the smallest bananas in the world and a portion of butter that you would drool for Chief! Ha, my new-found Vietnamese friend, calls my tour guide Khanh, but his phone is off. Strike one on meeting up with Jeffrey. Ha then calls the driver who is to take me to Ninh Binh at 8:00 am, which is a two hour drive, but it’s not the right number. Strike two. I decide to go with the original plan of meeting the driver at 8:00 at 35 Hang Bo street (the address of my original hotel reservation). I pack up my bag, strap it on my back and start walkin’.

Every two steps a motorbike taxi driver offers me a ride, “Hello!  Motorbike?!”  I say why the hell not and hop on for 20.000 dong which is just over a dollar. We tear through the very crowded streets of Hanoi, coming within inches of other motorbikes. I arrive at 35 Hang Bo Street and ask the employees behind the front desk if they know anything about a driver from Ethnic Travel who is supposed to meet me here and take me to Khanh and Jeffrey in Ninh Binh.  They look at me like I am crazy, which I take as a “no.”

It’s now 8:10.  No sign of getting to Ninh Binh in sight.  I hop on another motorbike, which is basically a moped on steroids, not really knowing if its a taxi or not, and head to Khan’s office of Ethnic Travel.   The straps on my backpack are pulled extra tight so that I don’t go flying off the back as we weave in and out amongst tiny crowded streets at blazing speeds.  Horns qre beeping left and right.  One horn continues to sound behind us.  I take a look over my shoulder and who else but my friend Ha is flagging me down.

Ha has zoomed up behind us amongst thousands of pedestrians and motorbikes and informs me that I forgot to pay for the taxi from the airport. I thought it was included in the price of the hotel.   I switch driver’s and Ha now takes me to the Ethnic Travel office.  Bam, strike three…it’s closed.

We decide to kill some time by heading to an ATM. Zooming along, Ha accidentally hits a parked motorbike and knocks it over. We scramble off the bike to pick it up and dust it off (as if wiping it with our hands will remove any damage). Fortunately, there isn’t any visual damage and we keep on trucking. I am laughing hysterically as we speed through the busy streets. We make it to the ATM and head back to Ethnic Travel. I hop off, say my goodbyes and thanks to Ha and wait out front for someone to open the office for the day. While tapping my toes anxiously, a very inconspicuous Vietnamese man strolls around the corner and stops just in front of me. He fiddles around in his jacket pocke, searching for something.  He takes out a small yellow post-it note and shows it to me. I squint in order to read the one tiny word written on it.  It says, “Brandon.” I embrace him with a huge handshake and praise him for “saving my life” (a bit dramatic I know).  After thanking him a hundred times more, I find out he doesn’t speak a lick of English. Not one.  I simply try confirming the situation with, “Jeffrey?”  I get nuthin.  Considering the circumstances, I get into his Toyota CRV look-alike without hesitation.  We immediately drive out of the city and onto the highway.  Now…I think I’m done counting strikes.

The smile on my face gets bigger as I realize that everything is falling into place. The anticipation of meeting up with Jeff halfway around the world gets my adrenaline pumping.  We pass rice patty after rice patty with Vietnamese women wearing stereotypical cone shaped straw hats minding the fields.  Large rock formations that could be viewed as mini-mountains surround the area. It is all very surreal. The driver is listening to a CD with an eclectic mix of traditional Vietnamese music, Ace of Base, and Mariah Carey. The driver and I do not speak a word to each other, only the occasional glance when I look at him in amazement of the country.

We pull off the highway.  After about 3 hours together in the car, we exchange our first words when I say, “Ninh Binh?” and he says, “Ninh Binh.” We arrive at a small hotel to pick up an Englishman named Chris.  He and his girlfriend Kim are on the same small guided tour of the area. Chris tells me that we are heading to Khan’s parents’ house, in the village where Khanh grew up. The village is called Yen Mo, which is a farming village of about 2000 people.  Once again, the anticipation builds.

The roads get smaller and bumpier.  They change from pavement, to gravel, to dirt.  Finally, the car comes to a stop and there on the side of the road in a remote village off the coast of Vietnam stands the one and only Jeffrey Schwab. Talk about a rendezvous! I’ve done it!!

The village of Yen Mo is absolutely amazing. Khanh is a very quirky man of who I learn is very educated and loves learning English idioms. He speaks great English and can speak fluent French too.  We all walk towards his house and Jeffrey’s catches me up on what I yesterday.  I can’t take my eyes off of the rock formations in the distance.

Upon arrival, we start picking vegetables out of the family garden for lunch. Basil, mint, cabbage, and a Vietnamese vegetable, guc.  We head to the kitchen and start slicing and dicing the veggies as Khanh cooks the meat. We get to know his entire family from grandmother to mother to brother to sister-in-law and niece and nephew. Everyone is bubbling with laughter as Jeffrey and I practice the Vietnamese language. Khanh teaches us sayings like, “you are the angel of my dreams,” and “I’m head over heels in love,” and “He’s an old goat”.  This group of people mixes quite well, and so does the food. It is some of the best food that I have ever had, except of course for mom’s sausage casserole and dad’s famous pork.

We take a 10 km bike ride through the entire village. I can’t tell you how welcomed we are in this village. People yell “Hello!” from all directions, happy to see visitors in their village since it only happens every once in a while.  We yell “Xin Chow!” (pronounced “sin chow”) back to everyone, which is always returned with a giggle. It’s great! The landscape is beautiful. It feels as if I’m in a movie. It’s so incredibly green, with the hard edging of rocks for the backdrop. It’s hard to explain the beauty of it all, so the pictures will have to do.

We meet the locals and try to speak Vietnamese to them. A group of brick makers take a break from hard manual labor to shoot the shit with us tourists.  Jeffrey really gets them going with the Vietnamese phrases he’s been writing in his book (which never leaves his side).  It never fails that every time we point at Khanh and say “He is an old goat” in Vietnamese they burst out laughing.

We ride by an elementary school and you would have thought that all the children playing outside had just seen the biggest celebrity in the world by the way they wave to us and yell “Hello!!” Even 2 year old children say hello to us. It really makes you feel welcome.  Countless fields of farm land are sectioned off by small trails just big enough for a bike to fit through.  Small bamboo shacks with tin roofs serve as booths for the market.  People stop what they’re doing to look at the foreigners.  They stare as their heads turn slowly at the same rate we stroll by.

We head back to Khanh’s home.  His home is one of the nicer homes in the village.  They have many pieces to their home, all sectioned off into small, different sized buildings.  There’s a building for the kitchen, one for manufacturing the rice noodles, one for the pigs, the toilet/shower, and a larger building for the living room and bedrooms.  They also have a nice garden out front and a rice patty in the back.

We assist in their home business of making rice noodles.  The family shows us the method and crack up at our attempts to speak their language. Long, thin noodles made from rice are twirled into ying-yang-like circles. They dry, then dog meat is placed on top of them for flavor. Yes, dog meat. No more than 24 hours of being in Vietnam and I’m already eating dog meat. The meat is tender, and the flavor shoots right out  through your nose. It’s a little strong, but nonetheless, it’s an experience.

After dinner we head back to the nearest hotel which is a half an hour away. Khanh, Jeffrey, and I take a walk through the “residential” neighborhood of Bich Bong, which is filled with rice patties and mountains. People actually live on the water in little shanties. We follow Khanh closely along the dirt path because it’s pitch dark.  A light drizzle comes down.  I feel safe…..until about a mile down the road. All of a sudden, a vicious sounding dog barks.  Then another.  The sounds multiply into a chorus of woofs and snarls.  It sounds like there are hundreds of them surrounding us. Khanh tells us that there probably are hundreds of them surrounding us. Families actually raise dogs here for their meat. Khanh speaks as if the dogs barking were birds chirping.  My head whips left and right anticipating a dog sinking his teeth into my leg. Nothing happens of course. We return safely to the hotel after a nice 2 mile walk and prepare the luggage for our departure to Halong Bay City tomorrow morning at 7:30 am.

A simple breakfast of jam and hard bread is served. Halong Bay City is 4 hours away, and worth every single minute.  It is honestly the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen in my life. I haven’t seen King Kong yet, but Kim and Chris, who work on special effects for movies, tell me that the landscape looks exactly like King Kong country in the new version. Those rock formations I keep telling you about spout up out of the water.  The photos will help paint a picture.

Khanh is such a great tour guide because he takes us off the beaten path. The boat he reserved is huge and we have it all to ourselves. We sip Ha Noi beer and soak in the scenery. Khanh challenges the skipper of the boat to a battle of Vietnamese checkers.  After a 2 hour ride we make it to land and take a motorbike tuk-tuk-like taxi to a guesthouse. A group of kids around the age of 13, whose family runs the guest house, are hanging out in the lobby. I head downstairs equipped with my iPod and show them a couple episodes of Mr. Bean. We are all cracking up together huddled around the small screen.  The kids tell me that I look like Mr. Bean. I start to act like him and we have a ball. We eat a delicious dinner and head to sleep under the protection of mosquito nets…which I hope will also protect me from the lizard on the wall jumping on my face in the middle of the night.

That takes us to this morning. We hop on bicycles bright and early and take a ride along the north eastern coast of Vietnam. We ride along the ocean and nobody, and I mean nobody is on the beach.  Wild dogs chase us, as do large groups of children wanting their picture to be taken.  Cattle with horns through their nose walk in a line through the marsh.  Everyone’s ringing their bells having a blast.

We park our bikes and hop on a smaller boat that once again, we have all to ourselves.  The same mountain/rock formations cruise by during our 4 hour trip to the port where our driver is to meet us.  Our boat doesn’t cross that of another boat the entire trip.  The driver pulls into a nice little cove where we have a hot lunch off the small portable gas stove.  After eating, we dive into the water…there’s no way that rule of waiting a half-hour is going to stop me!

After the boat trip, the post-it note driver takes us back to Hanoi.  We say our goodbyes and thank yous to Khanh and the driver. Kim, Chris, Jeffrey and I all have dinner in the old town together.  They tell us about their travels and some of their favorite destinations. Chris raves about Istanbul, Turkey and Kim raves about Blue Lagoon, Iceland.  I think to myself that Arizona is the most exotic place I have ever been.  We exchange email addresses, hoping that our paths will cross again in the future. What a great couple.  They fade away into the mix of the bustling streets and I remind myself there is a chance of seeing them again in England. 3 days into it and I have made my first international contacts.

If you are still reading at this point, I apologize for the length.

I am going to buy a guitar tomorrow. They have quality guitars downtown for 150.000 dong, which is roughly $10. $10!!!! I plan on playing in front of the hotel where Ha works and gathering a crowd. I also plan on getting my hair cut on the street for 15.000 dong, which is $1. A $1 haircut ain’t bad at all. We will be staying in Vietnam until the first week of February.

All is well and I miss you all.

Brow (this is how Khanh pronounces my name)