Exploring Macau and Saying Goodbye to Hong Kong

On Friday, we went to Macau. We had gone back and forth on whether to go, but in the end decided that we wanted to complete our trifecta of Not China while we were in the area. Macau is…very odd. It was a Portugese colony starting in the 1500s, and now it’s the gambling capital of Asia, with an annual gaming revenue seven times larger than Vegas. Many of the Vegas casinos were also there - we took a shuttle from the ferry to the Venetian, just to see what it was like. It was exactly the same as Vegas, just…more. We spent a very surreal hour finding a place to sell us egg tarts and eating them along the canal, and then took several more minutes to find a way out of the casino.

The Grand Canal in the Venetian (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A quick note about egg tarts - they are traditionally Portugese, and Macau and Hong Kong adopted them from the Portugese settlers. They are absolutely wonderful - eggy custard inside a flaky, buttery pie dough. I determined during our time there that even a bad egg tart was good, but the good ones are really amazing. I am excited to keep trying them in Portugal.

Egg Tarts from Lord Stow’s (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Portugese colonization of of Macau created a city with a curious combination of traditionally Chinese and Portugese architecture and religious buildings. There are a lot of temples, and a lot of churches. There are a lot of colorful European buildings with ornate balconies, and a lot of narrow streets with Chinese neon signs. This melding created some of the first recognized fusion food, as well as some interesting fusion architecture. Parts of the city are very charming. Then, when you get near the casinos, it just all gets very weird.

Covered escalators taking visitors between a foodie neighborhood and the casinos (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Colorful buildings (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A canopy-covered set of stairs that I absolutely loved (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A moderately creepy metal man on the porch of an old house (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We next went to Senado Square, which was decorated for the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). We also got some free beer for World Tourism Day, which was pretty great.

Decorations for the 70th anniversary of the PRC (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Large chunks of Macau are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. There’s an entire historical walk of buildings from Macau’s past, and one of them is the Ruins of St. Paul’s, which is the facade of a 17th century Portugese church. The church was destroyed twice between the 1600s and 1800s, and eventually they stopped rebuilding it. There are giant colorful bunnies out front, and I have no idea why. Macau seems to have a thing for rabbits?

Approaching the Ruins of St. Paul’s (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Yes, the bunnies were as weird and surreal as this picture appears (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Looking down on (and through) the Ruins of St. Paul’s (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A piano in a clear glass box that was drawing all kinds of musically talented tourists (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Grand Lisboa from the 17th century Fortaleza do Monte (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Walking under decorations for the 70th anniversary (Photo/Jason Rafal)

If you go to Macau, I highly recommend walking around and getting a feel of each distinct, yet somewhat blended area - the casinos, the historical sites, and the “normal” streets where people live.

Views of Macau (Photo/Jason Rafal)

More views of Macau (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Looking up at the Grand Lisboa casino (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After we got back from Macau, we spent some more time wandering the city and waterfront in Hong Kong.

Heading to the metro in Hong Kong (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We’ve decided to start taking self portraits on trips (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Looking out at the waterfront (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Saturday was our last day in Hong Kong, and we spent it eating, walking around, and generally appreciating the city.

A majestic heron (Photo/Jason Rafal)

For breakfast we went to Australia Dairy Company, which has very little to do with Australia except that the founder may have started it when he got back from traveling there. It’s a traditional cha chaan teng, which is a type of restaurant in Hong Kong that’s focused on efficiency - they get you in, seat you at a table with strangers, give you a menu, take your order (in our case, look at which things we pointed to), bring you food, bring you a check, and expect you to leave basically immediately. The entire process takes about 15 minutes, and is rather overwhelming for westerners who don’t know what’s going on. My general advice, if you don’t want to get yelled at in a language you probably don’t know, is to not ask questions or impede the process at all. Just order something, and it will be delicious.

Australia Dairy Company is famous for their scrambled eggs (because apparently Hong Kong is really into fluffy scrambled eggs for some reason). We walked in and were immediately handed English menus, because we’re giant white people, and sat down. The normal crowd orders off of Chinese menus that are under the table glass, and that menu is a lot larger, but we were happy to get the #1 and see what we got (we expected the scrambled eggs and toast, and got that but also macaroni).

After we were seated, five friends who had worked together in Hong Kong and were having a reunion were sat at our table. They were great - they asked to take pictures of our English menus, which had a cover they had never seen, and when we got the macaroni we weren’t expecting, they told us that it was indeed part of what we had ordered. They also asked how we heard about the restaurant, which I consider to be a good sign from locals, and took a picture of us under the disapproving glare of an employee.

Our breakfast (and a disapproving waiter) (Photo/Random Guy at Australia Dairy Company)

The scrambled eggs and thick white bread toast were delicious, and although I wasn’t expecting macaroni soup with ham for breakfast, that was delicious as well. Add in the milk tea at the end of the meal, and we walked away impressed, happy, and very full of liquid.

After breakfast, we took a walk to see the flamingos who apparently lived in the park next to our hotel. They were there, along with some turtles.

Flamingos doing those super weird things they do with their legs (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Sunbathing turtles (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We decided to risk taking the train to the airport, since the protest activity had so far matched what Ed had told us. Hong Kong and Taipei both have a great feature where you can check into your flight and check your bags from the downtown train station, but we decided to keep our bags with us in case. In a somewhat amusing turn of events, this made things somewhat more difficult - we didn’t have our real tickets yet, and the airport security was tightly controlling who got off the train and was allowed into the airport terminal. I only had a flight confirmation on my phone, and was getting worried that it wouldn’t be enough, but eventually they decided we were clearly just Americans going home and let us through.

I think I have to close by saying that we feel incredibly lucky to have been able to visit Hong Kong when we did. The protests started again the day after we left, and the first protester was shot with live ammunition as the clashes with police escalated. From a logical point of view, it will be very interesting to see what happens to the region, but from an emotional place, we’re heartbroken to see the violence that’s tearing the city apart.

The Calm Between Storms in Hong Kong

We picked a difficult time to visit Hong Kong.

We had booked this trip several months ago, before protests picked up in June, and as the trip grew closer we watched the news carefully and with increasing alarm, especially when the western news stopped covering the protests and it became increasingly difficult to find accurate information about what was going on in the city. But, the entire reason we had wanted to go to Hong Kong in 2019 was to experience the city before it just became the same as the rest of China, which was now threatening an escalated timeline. We decided to go, and we were very glad that we did.

Similarly to all of the places we visited, Hong Kong’s politics are very complicated. The city was a British colony from 1842 to 1997, when it was transferred to the People’s Republic of China. Part of the transfer was the promise of a high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong, as well as leaving the current social and economic systems of the city intact until 2047. Early in 2019, the Hong Kong government introduced a bill that would allow certain fugitives caught in Hong Kong to be extradited to China, and the protests kicked off as a reaction. Since the protest movement grew, it has increased its message to five demands of the Hong Kong and Chinese governments that center around maintaining the Hong Kong Basic Law, which grants the city’s autonomy. Regardless of how you feel about Hong Kong’s protest movement, it’s incredibly important for establishing how China will treat its territories as it moves forward with the One China policy.

In the end, we got incredibly lucky with our timing of visiting Hong Kong. Our entire time in the city was between protests, which were generally slowing in preparation for a “big one” for China’s 70th anniversary, which was three days after we left. When we arrived in the city and met up with a local, he let us know that we didn’t have to worry about working around protests, so we were able to visit whatever areas of the city we wanted.

Okay, history lesson over for a minute so that I can talk about what makes Hong Kong special.

Hong Kong is a paradox of a city. It’s a world finance capital, with all the money, glitz, and glamor that comes along with that. It’s a former British colony, and it has the UK’s street signs and buses, as well as a lot of residents with British accents. It has areas where residents live in 100 square foot apartments and shop for everything at their local night markets. It has a younger generation who considers themselves Hong Kongers, and an aging generation who just wants the stability of being Chinese. It has Michelin-rated meals under $2, or over $50.

Our first morning in Hong Kong, we hiked up to Lion Rock. This was a bold move at 11 am - it was about 85 degrees and sunny with high humidity. Like the Elephant Mountain hike we did, and really all the hikes we did in Not China, it was basically just stairs the whole way up. Taiwan had been humid and rainy but not hot, so we were completely unacclimated and struggling. No one else seemed to be sweating on our way up, which just seems ridiculous considering the amount of water we were losing.

Signs to Lion Rock (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Part way up we saw some people who had brought hammocks and were laying down for a nap in the shade, which seemed rather appealing at the time. Finally, though, we made it to the top, and the view was really really stunning. Lion Rock is on the mainland side of Hong Kong, and you look out over the city, Hong Kong Island, and the water. I would highly recommend the hike, but maybe don’t do it during the middle of the day in September. Lots of people hike it in the evening, and there are some great pictures online of the night that the protesters lit up the entire hike.

Hammocks in the shade beside the Lion Rock trail (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Jason got this cool picture with butterflies and dragonflies that I didn’t even notice (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view from the top of Lion Rock (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A school scene on our walk back from the hike (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Hong Kong also has some good coffee culture (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our local guide took us on a tour to experience the different sides of Hong Kong that afternoon. We started in Sham Shui Po, where the original men’s market was (this appeared to mean that it was full of electronics, from tables selling all colors of light strips, to someone selling every remote you’ve ever seen). We walked around for a few minutes before Ed, our guide, stopped us to eat some cheung fun (steamed rice noodle rolls) from a cart. They’re made by steaming a very thin rice batter with toppings, rolling it up, and putting it on a plate with some sauce. We tried BBQ pork and minced beef with cilantro, and both were delicious.

The traditional men’s market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Making cheung fun (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A shop filled with various types of noodles (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Ed and Nicole walk through the streets of Sham Shui Po (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After finishing our food, we took the metro to the Central area, where all the banks are headquartered. The metro in Hong Kong is famous for being so good, and after spending a fair amount of time on it, I have to agree.

Also, Hong Kong escalators are very fast - getting on and off them is tricky. I kept wondering why they wanted people to hold onto the handrail until I tried it a few times, and then it made sense.

One of the many escalators we rode down to the metro (Photo/Jason Rafal)

At the HSBC headquarters, Ed introduced us to Stitt and Stephen, the bronze lions at the entrance who were named after two of the bank’s early leaders. They’re sculpted in a fairly western style, and are massive - slightly larger than actual male lions. They were commissioned in 1923 and then taken by Japan for scrap metal during the 1940s, when the island occupied Hong Kong. When the war ended before they had been melted down, some random American sailor somehow recognized the lions from pictures and alerted HSBC that their lions were in Japan, safe except for some bullet holes (there is some debate about when the bullet holes were from). Now, they sit in front of the HSBC building again, watching the world go by.

Stitt stands guard (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We also rode on a double decker narrow trolley, nicknamed a ding ding for its distinctive and rather British sound, to the other side of the Central district. I would definitely recommend riding one, on the second story if you can - they are adorable and hilariously narrow and going around corners is an adventure.

A ding ding in the Central district (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We wandered through the trendy expat area for a bit, trying food and talking about Hong Kong. The area is a charming mix of fancy and homey. There are a lot of shops selling paper versions of everything - houses, clothes, food - that can be burned for the dead to provide them with what they need in the afterlife. We also tried some more food, including fish balls, sugar cane juice, and a new kind of soup dumpling. We had to wait for fresh soup dumplings, which put us behind on time, so we took a taxi to the waterfront to get on the ferry back to the mainland side of Hong Kong before the light show.

Colorful apartment buildings (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Residents heading home in the dusk (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A mural along one of the many staircases between streets (Photo/Jason Rafal)

PMQ, which is an old police building turned into a mixed-use art and design space (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A pedestrian street lit up at night (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Some less traditional lucky cat statues (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Hong Kong waterfront has a nightly light show. I was a little confused about what to expect, and kind of anticipated fireworks, but it turns out that many of the buildings along the waterfront have screens, colored lights, and lasers, and every night there is a city-managed light show over the water. If you’re on a ferry, it will slow down to let you watch from the boat for longer, and if you’re on the mainland side of the city, you can watch from the dock. It’s quite a pretty show.

The waterfront light show (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Protest art in a metro station (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The next day we got up and took the tram to Victoria Peak. It’s a cable car up an incredibly steep hill, and it’s pretty fun to look at the crazy angle of the tram in comparison to the nearby buildings. At the top, we struggled for several minutes to get out of the weird mall building (it’s difficult to find exits), and then I led Jason on a bit of a wild goose chase up to the top of the mountain (he was not pleased). It’s a beautiful view, despite the slightly hazy day.

Riding up in the tram (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A tram approaching the station (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view from the Victoria Peak station (Photo/Jason Rafal)

When we got back down to the city, we went to the Central-Mid-Levels escalator (Hong Kong loves escalators). It’s a covered elevated walkway, with one side as an upward escalator and one side as stairs, that goes above several streets. It’s weird and awesome. We also got some dim sum in the basement of a mall (surprising amounts of good food in mall basements on our trip).

The Central-Mid-Levels escalator (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Thursday evening was our fancy evening - we went to a classic restaurant to eat roast goose and suckling pig, and then we went to Quinary, which is on someone’s The World’s 50 Best Bars list. The roast goose was excellent - crispy skin, flavorful, great dipping sauce. We immediately wondered why people don’t eat geese in the US, which led us down an entire rabbit hole.

Suckling pig, with roast goose in the background (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Quinary was a funny experience because everything was in English - the menu was English, the people sitting around us spoke English, and our waiter had an Australian accent. The drinks were really delicious - we tried several. One of mine was supposed to be like drinking a pie, and they nailed it.

A very fancy drink at Quinary (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Adventures in Northern Taiwan

On Sunday, we had an entire day on our own to explore the city. We started with coffee, of course, before heading to the weekend jade and flower markets. The jade market was a set of stalls selling wood, jade, and other stone jewelry and sculptures. The flower market had a lot of flowers, but also tea sets and trinkets and lawn ornaments. There was also an animal rescue represented, and we got to pet some adorable dogs.

A wall covered with motherboards (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Shopping at the jade market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The flower market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole made some new friends at the humane society adoption area (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After the markets we took the metro to the Maokong Gondola, where we had heard that you could ride a glass-bottomed gondola up the mountain. Every five or six gondolas is a glass-bottomed one, so the wait is a little longer, but I highly recommend getting one of the glassy ones if you won’t be too freaked out. It’s such a unique viewpoint to see the jungle from above, and it’s really fun to take pictures around your feet.

The animal(?) mascots at the gondola (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The canopy from the gondola (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view from the gondola (Jason was tall enough to take pictures through the top windows) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Maokong, at the top of the gondola, is a cute little village with a beautiful view of Taipei. There are a few main roads lined with restaurants and tea houses, and we stopped at a random one to have a delicious lunch. After lunch we walked to a city viewpoint at a temple, then decided that we had walked far enough from the gondola that we could just walk back to the city. We then proceeded to walk down stairs for at least an hour. If you’re going to walk one of the ways to and from Maokong, I’d recommend taking the gondola up and walking down. There were far too many stairs, and I was very glad we weren’t walking up.

Fancy lunch drinks (Photo/Jason Rafal)

For sunset, we joined the crowd in the hike up Elephant Mountain, which has a couple of platforms and rocks that have a great view of the city and Taipei 101, which was the tallest building in the world until 2010 , when it was surpassed by the Burj Khalifa. The hike was rather humid, and we were incredibly sweaty, and I kept being amazed that there were so many people at the top who weren’t sweating through their clothes.

We walked by a puppet show on the way to the hike (Photo/Jason Rafal)

There was quite a line to take pictures on the rocks part way up Elephant Mountain (Photo/Jason Rafal)

I’m not sure words can express how sweaty we were when this picture was taken (Photo/Some Random American Dude)

The view of Taipei 101 from the third platform (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The crazy Times Square-like area of Taipei (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Monday, we hired someone to take us to the old mining towns to the east of Taipei. We started in Jiufen, which was a gold mining town from the 1400s to the mid 1900s. The town is built into the hillside next to the coast, and it’s an incredibly picturesque area with ocean, jungle, tea houses, and temples. We took a walk through the adorable old street before stopping to have tea at the famous A Mei Tea House, which locals all claim inspired the bathhouse in Spirited Away (there’s a rumor that Miyazaki visited Jiufen and liked it so much that he put it into the movie, but he has claimed this is incorrect). It’s a beautiful tea house that’s still owned by the same family, and they have a nice outside deck for sitting down to have tea and snacks with a view of the ocean.

The coast from a temple in Jiufen (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Much like all of the cats we met in Taiwan, this one did not care about us at all (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The beautiful A Mei Tea House (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Tea at the A Mei Tea House (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After tea, we visited the first movie theater in New Taipei, which is right across the street. The theater was started as a form of entertainment for the miners, and was rebuilt and restored over time. It had a very cool old projector, as well as some old movie memorabilia.

The old film projector at the Shengping Theater (Photo/Jason Rafal)

From Jiufen we went to Shifen, home to the annual lantern festival and the biggest waterfall in Taiwan. The parking area was a bit of a mess, so I was a little concerned about the crowds, but there were several places to view the waterfall, so it didn’t feel too crazy. The waterfall was beautiful, and the sun even came out for the first time during our trip.

The bridge to the waterfall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Shifen waterfall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

There was also an area between the parking and the waterfall that had food, Taoist religious symbols, and places to hang out. We some had sausage, I got a large container of mango slices, and we hung out for a bit.

In which Nicole finds a completely appropriately sized horse (Photo/Jason Rafal)

From the top of the falls (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A ridiculously tasty sausage (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The lantern festival had originally begun in Pingxi, which was our next stop, but the town was too small to support the crowds, so the festival was relocated to nearby Shifen. The lanterns were originally released for safety, to let everyone know that the bombing had ended during WWII. Now, a giant lantern festival occurs after the Chinese New Year, but people still visit Shifen and Pingxi to write their dreams and hopes on a large paper lantern and then watch it float up to the heavens (or however close the wind will let it get on that particular day).

Repainting a mural in Pingxi (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our day trip included a lantern, but we were not expecting quite the scale of the project when the shopkeeper produced a four-foot-tall, four-sided sky lantern and invited us to write and draw on all four sides. Our guide mocked us gently for not immediately knowing our hopes and dreams.

Drawing on the lantern (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After several minutes discussing and painting on the lantern, the shopkeeper put the paper “money” at the bottom of the lantern, brought us outside to the old railroad tracks, and lit the bottom of the lantern. After taking some pictures, we released the lantern into the sky and watched it rise. I have to admit, since I have no cultural connection to paper lanterns, I wasn’t expecting it to mean much to me. But…there’s something about writing and drawing well wishes on a big piece of paper and sending it up into the air that’s pretty cathartic.

Adding the “money” to burn (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We also stopped for a traditional snack of shaved ice cream, peanut candy shavings, and cilantro in a rice wrap. It was weirdly delicious, even as someone who’s not a huge fan of peanuts.

A man shaving a block of peanut candy for the ice cream (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Three guesses as to how much this cat cared about our existence (Photo/Jason Rafal)

When we got back to Taipei, we headed over to Pier 5 to see dusk settle over the river. There are a few container restaurants along the river, and it’s a nice place to sit and watch the sunset. As it got dark, we headed to one last Taiwanese night market for dinner.

Jason insists that this is the last cool camera trick that the robots can’t do (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A lovely scene at Pier 5 (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Huaxi Street Night Market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Tuesday, we had some more coffee, tried another fantastic beef noodle soup establishment, and got on a plane for Hong Kong.

We stayed on camera street in Taipei (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our Not China Trip Begins

A quick disclaimer about this collection of blogs - during this trip we visited three regions that, while China considers them to be part of China, consider themselves varying degrees of…not China. Hong Kong and Macau are Special Administrative Regions of China, and Taiwan doesn’t have an official status because no one can agree on what it should be. The politics of these regions are all very complex, and while we tried to fact check everything in this blog, I can’t guarantee that we got everything right. If you want to learn more about these fascinating areas, there’s a ton of great information out there.

Taiwan has a pretty bizarre status at the moment. Originally Taiwan had been a part of China, but when the Qing dynasty needed an offering while losing a conflict with Japan, they offered up Taiwan in 1895. For fifty years, Japan occupied the island, which already had some European influences due to Dutch and Spanish mining. In 1945, Japan gave up the island during its post-WWII retreat. Then, in 1949, the Republic of China government fled to Taiwan when the People’s Republic of China (PRC) took took control of mainland China. For decades, the two governments, each considering themselves the true Chinese government, existed in an uneasy status quo. Now, under the One China campaign, the PRC wants Taiwan to be officially part of China. Taiwan, which feels like it hasn’t been part of China for 125 years, generally does not agree. Taiwan has some support from the western world, but China is a force to be reckoned with. It’ll be an interesting next few decades for the island.

After an insanely busy six months of moving across the country, starting new jobs, and missing a European vacation due to a freak blizzard, Taipei felt like a gift. It’s different from the U.S., so it fed my need for new experiences, but it’s also just amazingly easy. The food is amazing, the people are wonderful, and the scenery is spectacular. The city is safe and clean, and the public transit is cheap and useful. To our surprise, there’s even a ton of great coffee available from adorable local shops. Many people speak at least some English, and everyone else was happy to interact with us and figure it out.

Our first day was spent being jet lagged, wandering the city, and eating Din Tai Fung. I had been skeptical that we should visit the original, since we have one in Seattle, but I’m glad Jason convinced me to go. Din Tai Fung is amazing everywhere, but in Taipei the menu is bigger and all the flavors are just a bit better. It’s also just a very fun experience.

One of Taiwan’s fantastic birds (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A temple in the 2/28 Peace Park (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Taipei 101 through the fog (Photo/Jason Rafal)

At the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

At the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

At the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A white fluffy bird (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Another fun bird in the rain (Photo/Jason Rafal)

An ornate cup at a wonderful coffee shop with a wonderful cat (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We stopped by the Huashan Creative Park, which is a great collection of shops and exhibits.

A Pocky…exhibit? At the Huashan 1914 Creative Park (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Overgrown apartment decks (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Waiting in the crowd at Din Tai Fung (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A sign-filled street near our hotel (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We went back to the hotel for a bit, then rallied for a rainy (but warm) walk in the dark through some of the city. We headed to a nearby Taoist temple, then to the Ningxia Night Market. The Taoist temples have really incredible carvings on the roof, and they are very brightly colored.

Nighttime street wandering in the rain (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Night at the Dalongdong Baoan Temple (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Everyone in Taiwan uses umbrellas instead of raincoats, so we got a lot of stares for wearing our Seattle second skins. Or, you know, maybe they were just staring because we’re giant white people.

Nicole follows the lines and orders a scallion pancake (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The heavy umbrella use is very challenging at crowded night markets (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Saturday we took a tour to learn a bit more about Taiwan and tea. We realized while on the tour that for all our coffee tours, we had never done a tea tour, and it was time. We only had two other people on our tour, a young couple from Manila, so it ended up being a small group. It was very rainy, with occasional gusting winds.

Our first stop was a view of Thousand Island Lakes, which is a beautiful area to the southeast of Taipei. The lakes are a water source for the city, and all of the land around them are protected with the exception of families who have been there for generations. We stopped at one such family’s farm to take a look at the lakes. It was incredibly beautiful in the rain and fog.

The beautiful view at Thousand Island Lakes (Photo/Jason Rafal)

From there we went to another view and tea plantation area, where we learned some more about tea. Taiwan only grows small amounts of tea, which is mostly oolong - they have a lot of regulations about quality and everything has to be organic, so they end up importing a lot as well. Taiwanese tea is considered pretty special.

Our next stop was a traditional tea shop in Pinglin, where a tea master made three types of tea for us and our guide translated. The first was green tea that had 10-12% fermentation, the second was a black tea with 100% fermentation, and the third was a green tea with 25% fermentation. Green tea is delicate, while black tea doesn’t care how long you steep it or at what temperature.

We were taught to use the sniffer glass to smell the tea and warm our hands (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our guide explained that the honey black tea that we were drinking had become popular because of a bug, the green cicada. Every late summer, the green cicada would bite the tea leaves and ruin them - the flavor of those leaves, when made into green tea, was apparently not appealing to anyone. At some point, though, some tea farmer thought to make them into black tea, and there the cicada saliva (?), or oxidation of the leaves, or something, could really shine. It created a smooth, slightly sweet flavor that added a lovely complexity. We promptly bought some after trying it.

Our instructional tea ceremony (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A cat who didn’t care about us at all (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Finally, we went to a tea museum, where we learned about all of the steps in tea processing. Tea processing takes quite a while, and requires either a few different machines or a lot of manual labor. The tea has to be dried, fermented to the desired amount, and kneaded. The type of kneading depends on what type of tea is desired - kneading back and forth results in long strings of tea leaves, while kneading in a circle produces round beads. We also learned a bit about the different tea roads - not just the traditional European one I learned about in school, but also the Russian tea road and the common practice of trading horses for tea.

An old circular tea kneading machine (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Teas with their relevant details (we had to put them on a sensor to see the translation) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

…I have no explanation for this bowl of bubbles (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After our tour, we wandered around in the rain in Taipei and ate a ton of great food. We started with one of the popular places for beef noodle soup, which was the type of hole in the wall that had a 20-person line at minimum (but you only had to wait about 20 minutes to get cycled in). Taiwanese beef noodle soup, when done right, is incredibly delicious - rich brown broth, thick homemade noodles, and tender chunks of beef. The traditional toppings include a sort of pickled vegetable mix, vinegar, soy sauce, and hot oil. It’s amazing.

Waiting in line for beef noodle soup (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After lunch we wandered across the city to try a coffee shop that was on our list (we never quite figured out who had recommended it). Taipei is very walkable, and also has an outstanding metro system - cheap, clean, convenient, well-used.

Let’s get into coffee for a minute - as I mentioned before, we were a bit shocked at the amount of quality coffee in Taipei. Much of Asia is not especially into coffee, and when we were in Vietnam, when there was no Vietnamese coffee available, there was often only instant coffee. From what we can glean from people we talked to and the internet, Starbucks brought reasonably good coffee to Taiwan, and then Taiwan attached to coffee and took it from there. Every specialty coffee shop we tried was between somewhat and incredibly good.

A lot of the coffee shops are also hang out spots that serve beer, snacks, and even full meals. I tried a craft beer, which was really solid. All of the desserts were amazing, as expected.

The delightful trilogy of coffee, dessert, and beer (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After some more walking through the rain we stopped by Raohe Night Market, which I highly recommend. Taiwanese night markets are evening markets that feature street stalls selling all sorts of things, depending on which market you’re at. My favorite night markets have a lot of street food to try, but it’s also pretty common to see clothes, toys, and gadgets. We tried some pork pepper buns from a stall - ground pork is mixed with spices and a whole lot of pepper, then wrapped with a lot of scallions in a thin dough bun, then stuck on the side of an oven (very similar to a tandoori oven) to cook. When it’s golden brown, it’s scraped off of the side of the oven and handed to you in a paper bag. It’s as mouth scalding and delicious as it sounds.

The Rainbow Bridge (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Making the pork pepper bun (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Buns in the oven (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Owls guarding the Raohe Night Market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

There were a ton of mopeds in Taipei (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Hanoi

We spent our last two days in Vietnam wandering around Hanoi, the capital city. Our hotel was located about a mile from the Old Quarter, which, as the name suggests, is where the original city was located. We spent most of Saturday on a tour with Dang around the city. In contrast to the south, Hanoi was cold. It was rainy all day on Saturday, but we spent some time walking around the city anyway.

First, we went to the statue of Lý Thái Tổ, the king who moved the capital of Vietnam to Hanoi.

Bikers ride by the statue of Lý Thái Tổ (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Next, we walked around Hoàn Kiếm Lake, which is in the heart of the old quarter. Giant turtles live in the lake, and according to lore, it was where the emperor Lê Lợi restored a precious sword to the Golden Turtle God in the 15th century and erected the Tháp Rùa temple in the middle of the lake. We visited the Temple of the Jade Mountain, which is on a small island on one end of the lake accessible by a bright red bridge. The temple, like the other temples we visited in Vietnam, had food offerings for the gods. We noticed that there were a lot of crackers and asked Dang if that was normal. He said that people usually put fruit and non-perishables, and that sometimes the quality of the food is questionable (he made a joke about giving the gods diabetes with all the cookies and cola, which was pretty great). The temple also has a giant turtle, about 250 kg in weight and 2.10 meters long, that the citizens of Hanoi found in the lake and mummified.

Offerings in the Temple of the Jade Mountain (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Us in front of the Temple of the Jade Mountain (Photo/Dang Vu)

After walking around the lake, we visited the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology. There are 54 ethnic minorities in Vietnam—the Viet, who make up 86% of the population, and the 53 minorities that mostly live in the mountainous areas along the borders of Laos and Cambodia. Across all of these ethnic groups, there are 8,000 festivals celebrated in Vietnam each year. The museum is very nice. It uses a combination of artifacts with descriptions, videos, dioramas, and an outside part of the museum that has sample housing and ceremonial structures from some of the ethnic groups.

Nicole climbs down the stairs leading up to a house in the outdoor portion of the Museum of Ethnology (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Next, we walked around the French Quarter and visited the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. The French Quarter is full of beautiful buildings with architecture that is either French or a combination of French and Vietnamese style. French officials lived there originally, but now the buildings are occupied by members of the Vietnamese government.

A house in the French Quarter combines French and Vietnamese influence (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is a large, impressive structure that was not endorsed at all by the man for which it was built. It’s only open for a couple of hours each morning, so we just visited the outside.

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We were on our own for lunch, and we went and found a French fusion restaurant that was recommended by our hotel. They had an amazing soup—it was two soups, pumpkin and coriander, poured into a yin yang shape. Absolutely delicious.

Two happy diners have their picture taken in front of Green Tangerine (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Delicious yin yang soup (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After lunch, we did some wandering.

Dominos delivery, Vietnam style (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole meets a tiny puppy (Photo/Jason Rafal)

In the afternoon, we went to a traditional Vietnamese water puppet show in the Old Quarter. Water puppet shows happen on a special stage that has a pool of water, in this case about two and a half feet deep, in the center. Instead of having strings, the puppets are controlled with bamboo sticks along the bottom that are hidden under the surface of the water. The music at our show was provided by six people who played instruments and sang during each act. The performance was really interesting, and I wish I had been able to understand the dialogue and songs. It’s a really great form of puppetry.

The dance of the unicorns (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Farmers chase a fox away from the flock of ducks (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The puppeteers come out after the show (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Sunday, we wandered the city by ourselves. We went to the Chợ Đồng Xuân, which is the big central market in Hanoi. It’s really huge—three levels of shopping. Unlike the market in Ho Chi Minh City, no one was actively trying to sell us stuff. We even found something that we wanted to buy and couldn’t find anyone to take our money, so we bought from another stall.

A man carries a giant sack of something through the market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The three floors of Chợ Đồng Xuân (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We also visited the Temple of Literature, which is a temple of Confucius that was Vietnam’s first national university, was originally built in 1070 and reconstructed in the 13th and14th centuries. The temple is now more of a museum, but apparently graduations still take place there, as was happening on this Sunday.

Graduates throw their caps at the Temple of Literature (Photo/Jason Rafal)

That evening, we had our farewell dinner with our tour group. We had several courses and drank shots of Vietnamese whiskey, which tasted more like strong rice wine. Early on Monday morning, we said goodbye to Dang and started our very long journey back to the United States.

I hope it’s clear how amazing this trip was. We learned a ton about the politics and culture of Vietnam, which was very interesting, but we were completely drawn in by the beautiful landscape and incredibly kind people. It’s really a remarkable place, and we would highly recommend a visit.

Delicious Vietnamese food (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Engagement pictures on Hoàn Kiếm Lake (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A tangle of communication and/or power lines (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A man takes a break on his bike (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Hạ Long Bay

On Thursday, we flew to Hanoi and drove to Hạ Long. While we were on the bus (it was almost a 4-hour drive from Hanoi to Hạ Long), Dang started telling us about the attitude toward Americans in the north. He told us a story about a tour group he had last year that included two Americans who were Vietnam War veterans. He said that while they were going through one of the villages, an old lady invited the group in for tea. While they had tea, she explained that she had five sons; all of them went to the front and none of them came back. Her tiny house was built by the government, and she received a government pension every month. Someone in the group asked what she thought about Americans, and she said that her sons were killed by the American military, not the American people. When Dang told her that two of the men in his group had fought in the war, she hugged them and said that she was so thankful that they were able to return home to their families when he sons were not. Dang said this is characteristic of the Vietnamese people. They see the American military and the American people as two different things, and they like the American people. It’s not even forgiveness; there was never anything to forgive. It’s an astonishing and humbling outlook.

Rice fields (currently being used for rotational crops) (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The highways continue to be madness. Tour buses passing semi trucks. Tour buses passing other tour buses. It’s also very slow to drive long distances if you don’t have a road with a large shoulder and do have a vehicle too large to carhop in. There are lots of large trucks that clog up the roadways. In my experience, honking can mean an assortment of things in Vietnam, depending on the context. These include:

• Go faster

• Get out of my way

• I’m crossing the street even though my light is red because I feel like it, get out of my way

• The light is about to turn green and you’re still sitting here, what is your problem

• I’m merging, make room

• I’m turning, make room

• I’m about to pass you

• I’m passing you

• Oncoming traffic, I am in your lane because I’m passing this slowpoke

• Oncoming traffic, move to the outside edge of your lane so I can make a new lane in the middle to pass this slowpoke

• Bus who is passing a semi, you are in my lane instead of yours, please stop

• White person on a bicycle who I am passing, you look ridiculous.

Hạ Long Bay out of our hotel room window (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Friday morning, we took a boat ride out onto Hạ Long Bay in a traditional wooden junk. There are no words for Hạ Long Bay. There are almost 2000 naturally occurring islands jutting out of the water, and each one has caves inside. Sometimes there are villages of a couple hundred people, who often live completely on boats and floating structures without ever touching the shore. I’ll let Jason’s photos speak for themselves.

Boats cruising Hạ Long Bay (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Dang shows us where the picture on the 200,000 VND note came from (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Us in Hạ Long Bay (Photo/Jason Rafal)

One of the almost 2,000 islands (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A floating village in Hạ Long Bay (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A floating village in Hạ Long Bay (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Part way through the boat ride, we joined the cluster of boats trying to get close to the Trong Mai Islet, or fighting cock rocks, which Dang says is the only definite distinguishing characteristic between Hạ Long Bay and similar bays in China and Thailand. Apparently it’s a huge deal for Asian tourists. There were about 15 boats trying to get close at the same time, and one of them kept hitting the other boats. It was a total mess.

Boats jostling for space at the Fighting Cock Rocks (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We visited one cave, Động Thiên Cung, which was massive and had lights highlighting the various caverns.

Động Thiên Cung (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Động Thiên Cung (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On the boat ride back to the shore, we were served a seafood lunch. Most things were very tasty, including a really good pumpkin soup.

Delicious pumpkin soup during lunch on the boat (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After our boat ride, we drove back to Hanoi and Dang told us more about life in Vietnam. Dang’s wife’s family is Buddhist, and she had to convert to Catholicism to marry him. His father was also Buddhist, and converted for his mother. This is a requirement of the Catholic Church. When Dang was getting married, he went with his wife to the fortune teller to get a date picked, as is custom. The fortune teller picked December 25th, but the priest said this would not work because it is Jesus’s birthday. They went back to the fortune teller and got a new date in February, and Dang booked a restaurant for the wedding, since this needs to be done six months in advance of the date. Then, the bride’s mother got upset because if they got married on that date, they wouldn’t have children, and demanded that they change it. Dang was upset because he had already paid the $100 USD deposit on the restaurant and would lose it if they changed the date. The mother-in-law insisted, so they went and got a new date. Then, Dang’s grandmother died, and no one can get married the same year a relative dies. So they got a fourth date, and finally got married two years after they had initially started trying. Dang says that 90-95% of marriages in Vietnam are love marriages, and this helps the couple stay together “like sticky rice.” He said Americans have love marriages as well, but they get divorced because they don’t go to a fortune teller and pay attention to compatibility.

The average person in Vietnam earns a little over $2000 USD per year. They only have to pay taxes if they earn over $450 USD per month, which is a small amount of the population. Dang says a lot of these people don’t pay, though; they just take $400 a month and then get the rest as a lump sum bonus at the end of the year, which is untaxed. Farmers are 70% of the population and earn a very small amount of money, so many of them want their kids to be educated to get out of farming. Secondary school costs money, but the rural farmers only have to pay 20% of tuition.

Public kindergarten is government subsidized and costs about $40/month. There isn’t room for everyone, so once a year, parents have to get up at 1 a.m. and wait in line to get their kid enrolled. There is a lot of under the table money involved. Private kindergarten costs about $90/month. International kindergarten is the top tier and costs about $1000/month. It offers kids more opportunities and has more activities, like field trips.

When someone needs to see the doctor, they go to the nearest hospital, sign in, and wait. There are three levels of patient. The first knows the doctor, and these people get seen first. The second level gives the doctor money under the table in order to get seen next. Everyone else gets seen afterward.

On Friday evening we arrived in Hanoi and finally had the amazing pho we had been waiting for. It was at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that only served one thing—beef phở—for a set price. There were no white people there, and the food was absolutely amazing.

Phở Thìn (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Putting together the phở (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Our Bicycling Adventure

As I sat on a bicycle and was towed up a hill in the Hué countryside by a Vietnamese woman on a moped, it occurred to me that even if we had just been scammed out of $12, this experience was probably worth it.

We started the morning with a quiet walk to the Citadel. We really didn’t have plans for the morning at all, except to try to find pretty things and get more of a feel for the city. We spent a lot of time walking on the street, since the sidewalk ends up being used mostly as moped parking. We were starting to feel more comfortable with trusting the drivers to not hit us, though, so it wasn’t too concerning.

School children were always very excited to see us. They loved it when Jason took pictures of them. I said hi to a boy who was around 12 as we walked by, and after he responded hello, asked how he was. His face went completely blank, but his friend excitedly broke in with “good, how are you?” When Jason responded that we were great, there was a lot of whooping and excited chatter.

School children exercising in a park (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After walking a few miles (we quickly decided that the Citadel was too confusing and headed out to the rest of the city for a while), we stopped and had coffee and ginger tea at the coffee shop of another hotel (since we have weak American stomachs, we have to be careful where we stop for cold drinks). After the drinks, we walked a little more and stopped for lunch at an odd place that served both Vietnamese and Italian food, which was actually pretty good. After lunch, we headed back to the hotel to get bikes.

The Perfume River (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We had decided not to do the optional tour to go out into the countryside and visit some tombs and villages, and opted for the cheaper option of taking ourselves out to visit a couple of the tombs by bike. Our hotel rented us the bikes, which were very old, very squeaky, and tiny because no one here is as big of us. We both spent a lot of time pedaling as fast as we could on tiny fixies. For some reason our hotel is in a Bermuda triangle of sorts and we can never find the right way to get in or out of that block, so we were a little flustered. Between being lost and trying not to die in the insane Vietnamese traffic, it took us about 15 minutes to get on the right road out of the city. I said we should turn left at the major intersection and then started second guessing myself so we stopped to look at the phone. While we were doing that a Vietnamese woman on a red moped stopped and asked us where we were going in fairly good English. We said Khai Den’s tomb, and she said we were going the wrong way, but also that we didn’t want to go there because there was no shade and it wasn’t that great, but over by where she lived there was a really pretty tomb and we should go there instead. She introduced herself as Roi and said she’d love the chance to practice her English with foreigners. She said she’d ride slow so we could follow her and we thanked her and followed her out into the countryside.

Roi leading us through the countryside (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On the way out Roi told us that she’s a farmer who grows rice and peanuts, among other things. We biked along the river, which was gorgeous. Lots of rice paddies and water buffalo and ducks and boats on the river. When we were going uphill, she told me to grab onto her arm and stop pedaling so she could tow me. She took us into the highway in order to cross the river on a big bridge, which she said was new, and then we turned off the bridge and started riding down an alley of sorts that had at one time been paved in concrete but was so broken up that it was basically off-roading. We rode between the river and a village that had dogs and chickens in front of all of the tiny houses. Everyone stared at us (white people don’t bike down the tiny secret alley) but most of them smiled back at me when I smiled at them. Eventually, we got to the tomb. Roi pulled her bike over to a parking area, and we locked our bikes together there. Roi told us that we could pay to go in and she would wait outside, and then afterward we could come to her house for a couple of minutes if we had time.

The tomb was Minh Mạng’s tomb, and it was really stunning. Minh Mạng started building the tomb, which consists of three gates and several associated structures, it in 1840. When he died in 1841, his son took up the construction and completed it. There were lots of beautiful walls and gates, and there were symmetrical twin lakes on either side. Everything was in various levels of restoration, with the main gates shining from restoration in the 1980s and 1990s. There were also many moss-covered, crumbling stone walls that had never been restored and were propped up in the meantime. The whole thing was shaded and green and incredibly quiet and peaceful.

One of the gates at Minh Mạng’s tomb (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A red door in a crumbling wall at Minh Mạng’s tomb (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Minh Mạng’s tomb (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Minh Mạng’s tomb (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We spent about half an hour there, mildly worried that the hotel’s bikes would be stolen, and headed out the gate again. Roi came out to meet us and we got on our bikes, which were not stolen. As we were leaving, a man motioned to our bikes delightedly and asked if we were Polish. Roi led us through a small herd of water buffalo and back along the off-roading alleyway and back across the big new bridge, and then we turned off into another small road and went through two more tiny villages along the water.

Roi towing Nicole up a bridge (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Nicole in Roi’s home (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Roi in her home (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Outside of Roi’s home (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Then Roi took us to her house, which was a tiny structure with a bed and a table, and served us tea, which we maybe should not have drank but did because it was with hot water that we thought had been boiled at some point. We stayed about 10 minutes and talked to her about her life and family. She lives there with her husband and two children, and she has never left the Hué area. She said her two children were both in high school so they wouldn’t have to be farmers like her and her husband, but that high school cost a lot of money. She said she normally works all day in the farm, but that day she has gone to town to talk to the teachers instead, which is how she found us. We talked a little about her village of 500 people and whether she likes her neighbors. She said she doesn’t have a tv, so sometimes she goes over to the neighbor’s houses to use theirs. Then, in a very hesitant and embarrassed way, she asked for money for her childrens’ tuition. We gave her some of what we had, which was about $12 USD. We thought she was asking to follow us to our hotel so we could give her more, but she was just telling us that she would take us back to the city so that she could take the money to the teacher. She was embarrassed that we thought she was going to follow us to get more. So, we rode back to the city with her. She dropped us off where she had found us, along the big road that went into the city.

Heading back along the Perfume River (Photo/Jason Rafal)

In the end, we’re not sure if we were scammed or not, but we don’t think it really matters. $12 is a lot less than we would have paid for any “authentic” group experience, and we got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity out of it. We’re glad she found us.

Jason here. I don’t usually write on this blog. I leave that to Nicole, since I am a much better photographer than a writer, but I thought it might be interesting to give my side of this adventure. When we initially rode off with Roi toward Minh Mạng’s tomb, it was exhilarating. This is what it is to have an adventure in a foreign country. I was already excited to get out of the city. We both were not as enthused about visiting Hue when we arrived, compared to other cities we had already visited. It was depressing to see a city so ravaged by war, and not kept up by the state. So getting out and seeing a bit of the countryside was going to be a wonderful reprieve. Riding off with Roi was an exciting moment. Seeing the beautiful Perfume River to the side as we rode was breathtaking.

One thing to note about this adventure is that it took hours. The bikes were rickety and slow as we rode more than 12 kilometers each way. After the first several kilometers ticked by I began to overthink the situation, as one tends to do with that much quiet. I thought through how glad I was I had not brought my wallet or passport. How perhaps I would beg to keep my memory card, to keep the photos on my camera, if things were to take a turn for the worst. But those thoughts mostly passed after a few more kilometers. The sound of my rickety bike went from being a nuisance to a calming sound in the background. Then I began to really take in the sights and do the most dangerous thing I had done this whole trip: taking photographs with my camera while riding along the winding roads. I couldn’t help myself. I saw Nicole up ahead talking with Roi. Roi helping Nicole up the hills. I needed to document this – to remember this all. Nicole mentioned as we biked that we had nothing to give her, and wondered if we should get her something at Minh Mạng’s tomb. It was a touristy place, there were stalls selling little trinkets, water, and ice cream. I figured she probably didn’t want anything from there. So when we followed her to her modest home, we really had nothing to give other than conversation and a few dollars. When Roi timidly asked if we could perhaps help with some money – I really did not have a problem taking out a few hundred thousand VMD (worth about $12 USD, as Nicole mentioned). It was the least we could do for letting us learn about her life and having her guide us through the countryside where she lived. I have no clue if she did this often, or if she really did need the money for her children’s education. What I do know is that school does cost money, and that we will always have this memory exploring Vietnam.

More Bánh Xèo, Please

On Monday morning, 17 of us (a much more manageable number) took a boat ride on the Thu Bồn River to the Kim Bồng traditional carpentry village. It was lovely and cool with a nice breeze. Along the way, we learned a little more about Dang and he taught us about traditional ways of life in the central Vietnamese countryside. We boated by fishermen while Dang (our tour guide) explained what they were doing and why. He bribed one fisherman with a box of cookies to let us take the boat up close so that we could take pictures of him throwing the net. We also rode near the shore to see the farmers working in their fields. Dang explained to us that there are three main life goals for men in the Vietnamese countryside: get married, build a house, and own water buffalo. The water buffalo have a few uses. Besides supplying labor, the buffalo serves as a chalkboard so that children can learn to draw and write on its skin. When the buffalo dies, its skin is used to make traditional drums.

A fisherman on the Thu Bồn River (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A fisherman casts his net on the Thu Bồn River (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A bird flies off the top of a fishing net (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A few minutes into the boat trip, Dang shared a jar of lemon slices pickled in honey. He explained that once a year, when lemons are in season, he buys 20 kilograms of lemons and 10 liters of honey and pickles all of it for two months. The result is a very odd textured, sweet, slightly lemony snack that is apparently wonderful for sore throats.

We docked the boat at the carpentry village and got off to take a look around. We stopped at the market area and Dang bought us some local fruit to try. Milky apple is green, but the inside is closer to the consistently of an overripe tomato. It has a subtle, sweet taste. We ate these by cutting off the top and putting a spoon in the fruit. We also ate a bumpy apple, which had a lumpy external skin that crumbled away from the smooth white inner fruit. After our snack, we walked around and looked at the various wood carving workshops. Dang bribed some of the wood carvers with cigarettes to let us come take a closer look at what they were working on. We also visited a boat builder who received cigarettes to let us ask questions about building boats and take some pictures. It takes a couple of weeks to make one of the wood and metal rowboats, and they cost about $1000 and last around 15 years. The all-wood boats take longer and are more expensive. Dang also bargained with a woman to bring her shoulder pole basket of fruit over so that we could take the most touristy picture ever (a white person with a listening device and conical hat holding a shoulder pole basket). As Dang explained, there are four functions of the conical hat: it keeps your head dry in heavy rain, you can use it to fan yourself, you can use it to carry vegetables at the market, and in the old days, farmers in the field could use it to take a drink. At least 6 people in our group have bought them at this point.

A carpenter carves out a pattern with a tool resembling a jigsaw (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A milky apple (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Jason selling fruit (Photo/Nicole Harrison)

After wandering around the carpentry village, we went to an organic farm to learn how to make bánh xèo, which is a Vietnamese pancake made from rice powder, water, egg, turmeric, and spring onion (bean sprouts and meat and/or seafood are usually included inside). The chef was very animated. After he gave the initial demonstration, he asked for two volunteers from the audience that we’re going to catch the pancakes that he was tossing from the pans. One of the guys lost the pancake as it slid across the plate and fell onto the ground. The other managed to lose the plate as well as the pancake, which both smashed into the floor, but he was very proud of having caught a small bit of the pancake in his hand in the process. After that, he brought us up in threes and taught us to make the pancakes while good naturedly berating us about our cooking skills. It was a lot of fun, and bánh xèo is delicious. We’re going to make it at home frequently. When everyone had learned how to cook, we sat down to eat a delicious four-course lunch from ingredients made at the organic farm. They integrate a lot of mint, which doesn’t usually occur to me when I’m cooking. It’s delicious, though. Dang explained to us that Vietnamese food is all about the yin and yang; instead of making it spicy, they use complimentary combinations of different flavors. They also try to balance crunchy and smooth with every dish, which is very nice.

Jason catching bánh xèo on his plate (Photo/Nicole Harrison)

Nicole fails at flipping bánh xèo (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Boats on the water near the Tra Que village (Photo/Jason Rafal)

For dinner, we visited Morning Glory, which appears to be a restaurant catering to foreigners who want to try southern Vietnamese comfort food. It was excellent. We got an assortment based on Dang’s recommendations and what sounded good, including white rose, three best friends spring rolls, tofu and garlic chive soup, and cao lau. At the end of the meal, I had frozen yogurt with fruit. Even this had some crunch, though, in the form of roasted coconut shavings and peanuts.

Cao lau (Photo/Nicole Harrison)

Rickshaws in Hội An (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Lights on the Thu Bồn River in Hội An (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On Tuesday we left for Huế. We stopped for a few minutes at a marble carving workshop and store at the foot of the Marble Mountain, which was where Vietnamese marble was originally sourced from (at this point, they want to retain the mountain’s structural integrity, so they source the marble from the mountains in northern Vietnam and ship it over land to the workshops). There was an enormous number of sculptures of all sizes. I was impressed by the amount of color; some statues were the traditional all-white, but many had marbled color or a few different color variations within each piece. I especially liked when they used white marble for skin and colored marble for clothes on the statues of people.

Marble carvings at the workshop near Hội An (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Because the weather was good (it rained in the wee hours of the morning, but we still haven’t seen rain on this trip) we were able to go over the mountain pass to Huế instead of using the Hải Vân tunnel. The pass is a stunningly beautiful and somewhat treacherous twisty mountain road between Da Nang and the area of Huế. While I never felt afraid for my life, our driver took corners quicker than bus drivers in the United States, and we did pass a work truck on a two-lane road while going up a pass. Motorbiking on the pass looked fun, but the drivers also had to deal with the tour buses taking up all of the space. Dang said that before the tunnel was completed in 2005, there was a lot of traffic on the pas and accidents were frequent. There were many small shrines along the side of the road.

Hai Van Pass (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The view from Hai Van Pass (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On the bus, Dang taught us about Vietnamese letters and sounds. Mostly, I learned that I should never try to say anything in Vietnamese, because the same two letter pair can mean six different things depending on the slight change in intonation causes by adding one of the accents above the vowels. He said one of the sounds is impossible for foreigners and told us a story about a foreigner who wanted to ask his girlfriend’s dad for permission to marry her but ended up just asking to become one of the man’s goats (the man responded that he had many goats already and did not need more).

If I could pronounce it, the Vietnamese alphabet does make some sense. Instead of vowels arbitrarily making different sounds in different words, like in English, each vowel with each accent has a set sound. The accent line that goes up means that you add an upward lilt at the end of the sound, and down means that you drop your voice at the end of the sound. It’s impossible to speak Vietnamese in a monotone.

We arrived in Huế in the early afternoon, had lunch, and headed out to the Imperial City for a tour. Dang walked us around the former royal quarters and then let us walk through the Forbidden Purple City, where the kind, eunuchs, and concubines lived, at our own pace. The Imperial City fell into disrepair over the past century and is in the process of being restored, so it was an interesting mix of crumbling ruins and rebuilt structures.

At the Imperial City (Photo/Jason Rafal)

At the Imperial City (Photo/Jason Rafal)

At the Imperial City (Photo/Jason Rafal)

At the Forbidden Purple City (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We had dinner at a restaurant called Banana Mango, which ended up being delicious Vietnamese comfort food (we had spring rolls and stir fry). We have both decided that we really like how Huế feels as a city—it’s bustling, but it’s not as insane as Ho Chi Minh City. We have also decided that we want to come back some time and ride motor bikes—the traffic is still a little insane, but it’s growing on us, and the bike seems like a natural way to get around in Vietnam. It definitely makes a whole lot more sense than a car.

Evening traffic in Huế (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Central Coast

On Sunday morning, I spent sunrise walking along the Saigon River. This was a brilliant idea I had at 5 in the morning when I couldn’t go back to sleep. It was slightly less hot and humid, and there was less traffic, which helped with crossing the busy streets to get to the dock. The groups of people sitting by the water smiled at me. It was a nice last moment in Saigon.Sunrise on the Saigon River (Photo/Nicole Harrison)

We spent a while at the breakfast buffet since we weren’t going to have time to have a proper lunch. I had two breakfast realizations: I love passion fruit, and I have become competent enough with chopsticks that it was easier to eat my noodle soup with them (this was a nice congratulatory moment).

After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and got on a bus to the airport. Our tour manager, Dang, had the stressful job of getting 36 foreigners and their luggage through check in and security. Amusingly, the lady at security told me that she was going to run a test with my bin, and then placed a screwdriver under my phone. They seemed satisfied, so I’m guessing it worked.

After a short plane ride, we landed in Da Nang, which is on the central coast. We all got on the bus and went to China Beach, where Dang gave us Vietnamese beer and peanuts and let us have a few minutes on the beach. China Beach was given that name by the Americans, who sent soldiers there from the bases for R&R. We are not beach people, as a general rule, but we enjoyed walking along the water (which was surprisingly warm) and taking pictures of the water against the green mountains. There was a giant white status of the female Buddha, or Guan Yin, visible against the mountains, which added some nice color contrast against the green jungle and blue waves.China Beach (Photo/Jason Rafal)Us at China Beach (Photo/Dang)China Beach (Photo/Jason Rafal)

From the beach we drove to Hoi An, which Dang told us means “peaceful meeting place.” Along the beach in Dan Nang there were lots of upscale resorts and condos, and there was new construction happening everywhere along with advertisements for luxury living. As we drove south down the coast, these condos gave way to small houses where normal Vietnamese people lived.

Hoi An is absolutely adorable. The original part of the city has a lot of Chinese and Japanese influence and is a UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Across the Thu Bon River there is the newer part of town, which has a big less of the historical charm. Everything is beautiful. The buildings are colorful and cute architecturally, and the shops sell beautiful custom clothing, shoes, and other handmade goods.Hoi An (Photo/Jason Rafal)Hoi An (Photo/Jason Rafal)Hoi An (Photo/Jason Rafal)The Japanese Bridge (Photo/Jason Rafal)A dog wanders through the tourists (Photo/Jason Rafal)Light switches (Photo/Jason Rafal)Incense (Photo/Jason Rafal)Fukian Assembly Hall (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Hoi An is famous for its custom clothing and shoes, and Jason had been dreaming of a custom suit since we booked the trip, so we took a trip to a tailor that Dang recommended. When we were there, a busy and slightly frazzled woman walked us through picking fabric and styles between telling us about her 9-month old baby and laughing about our height (she said she would have tried to give me a deal, but my legs required too much fabric and she couldn’t do it). She was obviously very used to women bringing their significant others there to get them fitted, because she kept asking me for my approval on Jason’s choices on things like fabric and jacket length. I just nodded a lot, since it seemed easier than explaining my total lack of fashion sense. Jason ended up getting a suit and two shirts, and I got two dresses. She set a time for us to come in the next day to try them on, and then we wandered back into Hoi An.

After dark, Hoi An lights up. Each store front and restaurant has paper lanterns that are lit at sunset. There are many people wandering around selling lit candles in paper boxes, which purchasers can hold or lower into the river. There were also a few couples getting their pictures taken in small wooden boats full of the boxes of light.

A couple posing for photographs in front of the Japanese Bridge (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Selling snacks along the river (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Tomorrow, we leave in a boat for the countryside.

Arriving on the Other Side of the World

When we told people that we were vacationing in Vietnam, we inevitably got one of two answers: an excited “wow, that’s awesome!” Or a confused and slightly alarmed “why?” The probability of getting each answer had a generational skew; people who had solid memories of the Vietnam war were much more likely to question our choice. People our age were more likely to think of the beautiful country featured in the Top Gear season 12 special or the occasional travel show episode. Regardless of the response we received, we told everyone the same thing: it had been on our list of places to go, we had gotten a great deal, and we were very excited.

We flew Japan Airlines from L.A. to Tokyo and from Tokyo to Ho Chi Minh City (the locals use Ho Chi Minh City and Saigon interchangeably, so I will as well). I had been told that Asian airlines would spoil me for flying on U.S. airlines, and I can’t disagree. For the 12-hour flight to Tokyo, we opted to purchase premium economy seats, mostly so that our knees wouldn’t be completely ruined. There were some lovely perks; not only could I stretch out my legs completely, but we also got tons of snacks and free alcoholic drinks. At one point we were served hot broth, which was wonderful. There were also slippers to wear during the flight, which provided a welcome change from our hiking boots. A meal on Japan Airlines (Photo/Nicole Harrison)

The new 787s succeeded in feeling more airy with their curved, high baggage bins, but they are really not built for easy access by short people. The flight attendants couldn’t reach the baggage bins in the center of the plane to close them, so they apologized profusely while standing on the edge of passengers’ seats in order to reach. When we were deplaning in Vietnam, we noticed another issue with the American-made planes: people couldn’t reach their luggage to get it out of the bins. A few people around us asked Jason to take their bags down.

After deplaning and waiting about 45 minutes for our visa on arrival, we got our bag and stepped out into the tremendously hot and very hectic city at midnight local time. We were not sure whether there would be someone waiting for us still, since the flight had been late and our visas had taken a while, but found a man holding up the sign for our tour company and waved at him excitedly. Outside the airport (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The half hour drive through Ho Chi Minh City was slightly alarming at the very least. Our tour manager calls Saigon traffic chaos, which is pretty accurate. There is very little regard for lanes or right of way, and everyone weaves through traffic as much as is allowed by the size of their vehicle. The bikes are everywhere. While there is a bike helmet law in Vietnam, it does not apply to children under five, so many parents ride with unprotected children in front of them. Walking around in the city and crossing streets is actually not as scary as I expected–the general advice is to walk very slow and let the bikes figure out how best to go around you. It feels like a terrible trust game, but it seems to work for the most part.

Bikes (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Speeding bikes (Photo/Jason Rafal)

In the morning, we had a buffet breakfast at the hotel before meeting with our tour guide. The buffet was massive–there was an omelet station with pancakes and crepes, a soup station, American-style buffet including fried potatoes, sausage, and bacon, fried rice and noodles, chicken curry, a full salad bar for some reason, fruit, yogurt, toast and pastries, juice, coffee and tea, and probably some other stuff that I missed.

After breakfast we started being sheep with the rest of our tour group (about 35 people). At least half of them had already been in Thailand and Cambodia for the past week, and we joined up with their tour in Ho Chi Minh City. After our briefing, we headed out into the city in a bus. Our first stop was the Notre Dame cathedral, which was completely created in France and then shipped to Vietnam, and the Buu Dien central post office, which was one of the first buildings built by the French in the 1800s. There were at least 4 couples taking wedding pictures during our 15 minute stay. Next, we went to a lacquer shop and watched workers go through the various processes involved in putting art and 17 coats of lacquer over pieces of wood. The result is gorgeous. We then went to the Ben Thanh market, where I far overpaid for an orange and was generally very overwhelmed by the huge number of people trying to get me to buy things. A fire truck races to a practice fire (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The post office building (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Outside the Cathedral (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Inside the Cathedral (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Learning about lacquer layers (Photo/Jason Rafal)Crushing duck shells into lacquer (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Crushing duck shells into lacquer (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The Ben Thanh market (Photo/Jason Rafal)Mystery food in the Ben Thanh market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Shrimp at the Ben Thanh market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Fruit at the Ben Thanh market (Photo/Jason Rafal)

After taking the bus back to the hotel, we shared an omelet banh mi that we got from our tour manager (delicious, and surprisingly spicy at the end) and struck out on our own. After going to see the opera house and failing to find a pho place that our tour manager recommended, we decided to try to find another place he had recommended. While we were wandering back and forth on the street looking lost, a local took pity on us and pointed us into a courtyard full of restaurants, including the English-friendly one we were looking for. After a tasty meal in which we debated several times about eating the sprouts and lettuce included with our meal (generally not recommended for weak American stomachs) we headed out for a long walk.

Vietnamese coffee (Photo/Jason Rafal)

Saigon is very hot and muggy. After less than an hour, we were dripping sweat pretty constantly. We made a large circle around District 1, visiting the history museum and walking by the war remnants museum. We both enjoyed reading the Vietnamese communist spin on the historical artifacts and time periods. Our walk also took us away from the tourist areas, which was a nice change. Here, locals watched us walk by with no real interest and shops became specialized instead of devoted to chachskies, and we frequently stepped off the sidewalk to avoid a group of people squatting beside a bike they were fixing.

The history museum (Photo/Jason Rafal)

The history museum (Photo/Jason Rafal)

On the walk back to the hotel we went through the Tao Dan Park, which was a lovely surprise. In the midst of the loud, hectic city, the large polygon of green space was a welcome retreat. There was an exercise area where people used common equipment, and there were several groups of dancers, drummers, and other performers practicing. There were also art pieces scattered through the park to provide visual interest. It was surprisingly peaceful.

Public exercise equipment in Tao Dan Park (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A castle in the Tao Dan Park (Photo/Jason Rafal)

We were going to do some more wandering tonight, but it’s not even 8:00 p.m. local and we are both struggling to keep our eyes open. Tomorrow, we fly to Da Nang. 

City Hall against the backdrop of a modern building (Photo/Jason Rafal)

A tangle of cables (Photo/Jason Rafal)