Pho - Like Hamburgers in the U.S. - If all the U.S. was burgers!

Alright, I have to be honest.  I’ve never had Pho before I came to Vietnam. 

I can still remember asking my sister what pho was a couple of years ago and her look of disbelief as she replied, “you’ve never had pho?  It’s sooooo good.”  I’m sorry, I’m just some uncultured Cretan that doesn’t get out much.  If you’ve never had Pho, don’t worry, it’s just Rice noodle soup and truth be told, I had much better rice noodle soup in Laos.

Well, Karina, I’m happy to report that I have now had just about every type of Pho known to man.  I ate pho breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I had pho for dessert.  I had pho dreams.  Pho Ga (chicken pho) Pho Bo (beef) Pho Tái (beef) Pho Nam (beef) Pho Bo Vien (more Beef)

PHO SHO!

Unfortunately for the pho vendors, Pho and Kate squared off and Pho Won.  So no pho for Kate.  However I was impressed by Kate’s diligence in trying to communicate the No meat, No soy diet to the roadside soup vendors.  To further complicate things, Vietnamese really love their meat, so when they finally understood that Kate didn’t want any meat in her food they would retort with “but, WHY?”  Haha, I could have helped, but I think I would have amplified the confusion.

Below are a few of the pictures of some pho I ate along the way.

 

Just a bowl of turtles at a Vietnamese Market

 This bowl is actually a boat.

A sidenote from Kate: 

The bakeries in Vietnam were incredible. Most days we were able to find bread or sweets on the street sides. The bigger cities had larger bakeries with croissants, donuts, cakes, cookies and any other desserts you can think of - open extra early to late at night, some of the most delicious I have ever had. Our stopping at the bakeries turned into a pretty sweet routine (pun intended). This made my daily noodle battle a little less taxing. I mean, it's hard to get worked up over noodles with a muffin in your hand, right?

My favorite Viet cookie (:

GETTING WORN DOWN BY THE WEATHER

Riding motorcycles is one of the best means of travel invented.  Bicycling allows you to enjoying the sights, sounds, smells, smiles, potholes.  Now add little motor to that baby and you’re rocketing through the open road on hyperdrive.  Not to mention you look like a badass when you're on two wheels.

However, when you picture yourself scooting down a nice curvy road on any two wheeled mode of transportation I will wager a bet that your backdrop includes a nice sunny day.  Not the shitty weather we endured on our trek south through Vietnam.

When we first arrive in Hanoi the weather was moderate.  Sunshine filled days were soon replaced by intermittent showers. These preluded the overcast dark days and pouring rain.  Luckily we were prepared with ponchos and covering for our bags, however the weather really started to wear us down.  Long distance touring is not fun when your feet are wet, your fingers are icicles, and  your vision is blurry at best.  Making it worse, was the fact that all these symptoms occurred at the first 2-3 hours of an 8 hour day of riding. 

We spent a few days waiting out a storm in Hoi An, a small little town marking the midway point through Vietnam.  Our plan was to head back up north to Danang where we would load our bikes up on the train and head south to Nha Trang to try and split up the ride down Vietnam. However when we got to the train station a quick decision was made to push past Nha Trang and head straight to Saigon on an overnight train.  I think this was the breaking point for us in our foul weather riding.  We were fed up with the last couple weeks of riding through storms.  I think we had a total of only 3 days where the weather held out and stayed clear for us.  The cheap ticket price and the sunny southern forecast for the further destination also enticed us in the decision.

South to Saigon we went!

 Kate's luggage rack tried to jump off the bike and ended up carving her tire in two.  This turned to an all day event fixing the bike, and doing some additional maintenance.

 Fixing flat tires because a regular occurance during our trip :)

 Oh the wonderful weather while riding :)

 Sending these lovely ladies off on the train to Siagon.

 Our Train Bunk mates

Goodmorning, Vietnam!

It has been over a month since we’ve posted anything and for that I’m sorry.

Lucky for you, I’ve got an excellent memory… For the most part. Lets see…

We arrived in Hanoi after a short flight from Luang Prabang bleary eyed and ready to track down our new digs for the night.  I had the bright idea to book a hostel ahead of time which is infamous in the area for copious amounts of partying.

I’d done a little research on Vietnam to get our bearing on what to expect and felt like I was prepared for the worst – which never came.  We split a cab with a couple of Irish guys to lessen the $20 price tag (yikes! Backpacker budget – remember guys) and careened down one of Vietnams freeways.  Now, I’ve driven in Mexico City, endured traffic in Manila, and skirted through gridlock traffic in Taiwan, but nothing prepares your for the craziness that is the Vietnam roadway.

There’s a constant Morse code of horns relaying all types of messages.  There’s some type of unspoken understanding with Vietnamese people that you are required to drive with a phone in hand, especially the motorbike riders.  Painted lines for lanes on the roadway are not acknowledged.  And somehow it always seems that your first ride in a new country you are always blessed with the lunatic taxi driver.  This was no exception.

After enduring the blunt introduction for about 45 minutes while we got to know our travel companions we pulled off the road right next to a garbage truck.  Some broken English about how our hostel is ”two streets over cannot drive there” and we were sent walking.  Gathering our things, we started walking in the direction our taxi driver instructed and found ourselves walking down a street with hundreds of Vietnamese people sitting in little tiny plastic chairs on the sides of the street and sidewalk eating peanuts and drinking tons of beer.  I hadn’t read about this while researching this country, but I think I’m going to like it!

We stayed at Hanoi Backpackers – A top notch party hostel, not exactly the best choice for Kate and I, but if you are single and looking to meet people. Game on.

The next couple of days we spent touring the area around Hanoi.  They’ve got a great system for their shopping.  Entire streets are dedicated to one item, it’s actually pretty cool.  Need some rope/twine/lace/thread/chain?  No problem, go to street XYZ.  The entire street will have vendors on both sides selling spools of any type of securement needed.  Examples of other streets: baby clothes, helmets, sunglasses, shoes, winter clothes, buttons, kitchen wares.

We also spent these few days looking on line for bikes to purchase for our trip down to Saigon. (Ho Chi Minh City)  Eventually we settled on a pair of bikes from a couple of guys travelling together that made the journey up from Saigon.  I was pretty surprised to find out that one of the guys had never ridden a motorcycle before riding one for the first time in Laos 4 weeks earlier.  Honestly, looking back now I feel like we should have inspected the bikes a little more thoroughly, but all in all they got us all the way down to Saigon.  It’s not an adventure unless something goes wrong, right?

Check out the video I took on the side of a street - Looks a little crazy doesn't it?
Well we proceeded to buy motorbikes so we could become a part of the swarm!

Seven Days in Laos

To be completely honest, our trip to Laos is probably more exciting to hear about to our time spent in Laos. So I'll start there. We left Thailand through Chiang Khong in the north where we bussed it to Huay Xiao, Laos to take the aptly named slow boat down the Mekong river into Luang Prabang. It takes two full travel days on the boat to get to Luang Prabang, with an overnight stop in a tiny town called Pak Beng. Truth be told, I think the tourism coming through the little town is where it gets most of its income. The second you dock, you're swarmed with people selling everything from lodging for the night to three meals for the next day. Oh, and beerlao of course! The people have a knack for emptying your pockets here. The trip put our patience (with humanity) to the test. It was frustrating to wait two to three hours each day before our boat left the dock but admissible because we were eager to continue. However, when we were dropped on the shore outside of town presented with a highly overpriced taxi as our only option to go the final 10 km, we seriously considered walking the distance with all our gear fueled by pure American tenacity. Eventually we set our pride aside and joined all the other exasperated travelers in the back of the truck. I can proudly say that when we finally arrived in Luang Prabang, after two long days sitting in our loosely bolted seats which no doubt were reclaimed from some airline in the past, we arrived happy with each other and with some faith remaining for our time in the country. Nothing can bring us down! 

Wrong. Something can bring me down. And that thing is Laos food poisoning. Being sick is crummy. Being sick in a bathroom with your oh-so-handsome travelling partner on the other side of the half-door in the teeny tiny guest house bedroom is even worse. The fact that he didn't catch the next plane off the continent still surprises me. What a lucky, lucky, girl I am. Needless to say, I spent the rest of those 24 hours in bed. 

The rest of our time in Laos was mellow. Luang Prabang is full of retirees, so we fit right in. We walked through the markets, frequented a noodle soup place that Nate fell in love with, watched the beautiful sunset over the Mekong River, and spent an afternoon at some mega-hippy bar where Nate assured me that the people were not hippies but just travelers like us. He enjoyed it, so that was great. I went straight to our room and showered. We found a bookstore/cafe in town where we spent some mornings catching up online and we laid poolside at a resort in town for one afternoon where you ordered one drink and they brought you two. How fun! 

We took a day trip to the gorgeous Kuang Si waterfall, about an hour outside of town. The water carried calcium carbonate which made it the same blue-green shade that we couldn't get enough of in Havasupai. The falls fed into a wide stream that had multiple swimming holes. Unfortunately it was pretty chilly outside so we only swam for a little while but we made our way under one of the cascades and Nate found a tree to flip off of while I sat in the sun.

The trail to the falls passed through a bear sanctuary. It was feeding time on our way out so we stopped to watch the bears feast for a while. At the base of the trail there was a tiny town with lots of food where we ate our own whole fish. I usually have a hard time eating food that is looking at me but I guess the bears rubbed off on me because I stuck my head right into the water and grabbed that thing out with my own teeth. Talk about fresh! Just kidding, it was already cooked but it did taste pretty good.

And that pretty much sums up our time in Laos! We considered but ultimately decided against spending another week or so in Vang Vieng (to the south) because Nate had already been, Laos was fairly cold, and we were getting antsy to get into Vietnam.