UPDATE 7/1/2014: I've been a little behind on the blog posts due to the lack of WiFi, and because we just arrived in Nha Trang. I finally have reliable WiFi access, so I will try to post up Day 11 and 12 by tomorrow. As a quick update, my mosquito bite has been fully recovered, and all of my sicknesses have been removed. I put some Than Ky on it, a magical ointment created by my great grandpa, to treat the bite, and it has since disappeared. Thank you to everyone who was concerned about me. I appreciate your constant email responses to my blog posts! :)
Greetings.
I'm back again for another two day blog post, since the past two days have also been quite small in terms of events. I will also be making this post decently short since I must get some sleep for tomorrow's big trip. We'll be heading down to Mui Ne at 600 tomorrow morning, and it's a six hour bus drive down there, so I must prepare.
For Day 9, our destination was back out to the countryside, and we visited even more relatives in Long An, another area that was about an hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City. Skipping breakfast this time, we went onto the Mercedes van to begin our journey over there. Our primary reason for visiting Long An was to pay our respects to my grandpa, who had just passed away last year. We were celebrating his anniversary of passing away by heading over there.
I’m starting to get used to the scenery, but I still haven’t gotten used to the motorbikes, and the massive amount of them. I think that’s a distinguishing feature of countries in Southeast Asia. You really don’t see traffic like this anywhere else in the world, and that’s pretty cool. Though as a foreigner, you have to leave the driving to the professionals, or at least the people who live there. There’s way too high of a risk of crashing due to inexperience if you were to attempt anything here. Another distinguishing feature of Vietnam are the high amount of businesses across the area. You can literally find anything you need and want within a one mile radius in Ho Chi Minh City, and at a decently cheap price as well. Most dishes only cost about two to three US dollars, so paying for large feasts with many family members isn’t as much of a problem. And this business abundance isn’t just in Ho Chi Minh City. Literally wherever you are, even if it looks like you’re in the middle of nowhere, there are still little huts and shacks that sell food and other items. It is nearly impossible to run out of things to do and see here. Another thing I’ve noticed in Vietnam are that there are lots of people that you can hire to accomplish certain tasks. At the house we stay at, they’ve hired a person to care for the children, cook for the family, and clean. There are also other instances like hiring people who specialize in hosting and feeding people for large parties, or people who can drive you to any location. I probably didn’t mention the taxis, which are present throughout Ho Chi Minh City, and can be called within a moment’s notice. Services like these are available in America, but I don’t see these services being utilized as often. There’s a bunch of other little things I’ve noticed in Vietnam, things that differ from the norm in America, but I digress.
When we arrived in Long An at the house, we were once again greeted with many family members, and I was escorted to an upstairs room with air conditioning, where the other children were hanging out. I awkwardly entered, sat down, and saw people around my age or a little older.
There’s one disadvantage with not having the best communication skills in Vietnam. You can understand what they’re saying, and you can reply somewhat without creating an awkward situation, but you can’t really continue on with any meaningful conversation. It really makes you feel less intelligent, and you can’t do much about it. Thus, I actually prefer talking to those younger than me. People my age talk conversationally with a higher vocabulary than I understand, so I can’t really reply or anything. Yeah, it is a slightly unfortunate fate. On the other hand, they can’t understand what I’m saying in English. Even when I’m speaking a basic sentence like, “Baby, how you like the food,” I sometimes hear others saying, “Can you understand what they’re saying?” with replies like, “Nope. I hear gibberish.”
For lunch we had the usual excessive amount of food: noodles, hot pot, meat, vegetables, eggrolls, chao, seafood, and more. I seriously wonder what happens to the leftovers, because I’m guessing there’s a lot of it after big parties like these. Afterward, we explored the market that was right next to the house. It was a general seafood market, with lots of fish, assorted seafood, and dried items. To the side there was also fruit, vegetables, and one place that looked to sell some kind of jelly. I took a picture of the jelly since there were lots of bees flying around and landing on it. Such sanitary. After our short journey, we head back to the house and I sat in the upstairs room to cool down until we had to leave.
My dad and other relatives dropped us off at the hotel, and proceeded to visit a temple to pray for my grandfather. Before leaving, a saw a jar of his ashes, and a picture of my grandfather being held by Bac Son. I snapped a picture, which you can see in the collage. For the rest of the evening, we simply ate dinner and relaxed at the house. Many family members came by to visit, and we ate, once again, a large amount of food. Good thing my metabolism rate is off the charts, so I’m fine. Still a good 50kg (the conversion is real). Anyway, that concluded Day 9. Let’s move on to Day 10 now, shall we?
Day 10 was filled with even less events, and comprised of one thing. Eating. We didn’t have anything planned for this day, as we were heading off to another location the next day. This day was simply for relaxing.
In the morning to begin our events, we went and visited yet another family member. This time, however, it was someone from my mom’s side of the family. We stopped at the house of my grandpa’s sister, and caught up on things. The house was located within Ho Chi Minh City, and it took a bit of time locating it since it was hidden in several alleyways.
We were able to meet her, as well as her children, and their children (never quite noticed until now that there were three generations in the house). She was around my grandpa’s age, and she had a bandage wrapped around her knee. It was evident that the knee was giving her trouble since it took her awhile to get up from her bed. We talked for about an hour, and exchanged phone numbers and Skype usernames so we could contact each other again. Skype is a decently popular application used in Vietnam for communication, and is downloaded on many mobile devices and computers. Another application that they use is one called Viber, where international calling is free across people who use it.
After the meet, it was around 1100, and we met up with the family for lunch. We piled into the van and headed for a restaurant. This one was fairly nice, and looked a little more like a regular restaurant in the US, with a Vietnam theme to it. There was practically every Vietnamese dish you could imagine there. They had the whole shebang, and we ordered the whole shebang. I shall list all of the entrees we ate that day, and I probably won’t even list them all. Banh bao, banh xeo, bun bo hue, chao ca, chao ga, eggrolls, spring rolls, bun rieu. So we pretty much had a nine course meal for breakfast. It was quite nice indeed.
After lunch we rested in the hotel for a couple of hours, and pretty much had free time until dinner. Mom and I decided to head over to the An Dong shopping center again to take a look at all of the “high quality” goods again. The shopping center was actually fairly large, and had four floors that you could go to. We were overwhelmed by the high amount of shirts, and even more overwhelmed when we stopped to take a look at a product. Whenever we stopped and examined something, we were immediately surrounded by three to four people, and they asked us if we wanted anything specific. It’s a pretty intimidating experience actually, which is why I avoid touching anything or making eye contact with an item, because they’ll hand that item to you and make you feel obligated to buy it.
We toured around the place for nearly an hour and a half, but we ended up buying nothing. The clothing there was fine, but it wasn’t really of high quality at all. They all came from large plastic bags with Vietnamese and Chinese writing on them, so already that’s a warning sign that the items are exports from some shady place. It’s wearable, but you can see that the stitching is messy, or the material isn’t great, so you’ll see that it won’t last long. There are items with brand names on them, but it’s obvious that they don’t actually belong to the real manufacturer. It simply looks like they’ve sewn a logo onto a cheap looking shirt. Some of the shirts have tags from different brands too. To top it all off, the clothing wasn’t exactly cheap by any means, as it cost almost 60 US dollars for a cheap-looking dress from China. We concluded the shopping session by stopping at a store that sold different candies. Mom bought several types of candies (I think it’s called keo me) that had different distinctive tastes. Some were sweet, and some had some a spicy aftertaste to them. We got the candies and then headed back to the hotel. The hotel was only a street away, and I had gotten used to crossing in the city, so it was fine.
For our last event, we ate dinner at a restaurant that specialized in making Mi Vit Thim (duck soup if I spelled that correctly). This was the first time we ate at a roadside restaurant, as we ate outside on small tables. Luckily there were coverings above us, because it was raining as we were eating.
I never thought I’d miss this, but I actually miss the fact that Sriracha and Hoisin sauce don’t exist here. You’d think that since these two items are used so much in pretty much all Asian restaurants in the US, and the fact that there’s Vietnamese written on the labels, it would exist in Vietnam. Well, nope. That is not the case. Nonetheless, the Mi Vit Thim was decent, and that pretty much concluded our day for Day 10.
Tomorrow we’ll be heading over to Muy Ne, so I may or may not have internet access for a couple of days, depending on the situation. Afterward, we’re going to Nha Trang. So I will be heading out now. Until next time!
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