The amazing Holi- festival

I headed to Hanoi last weekend. I am traveling to China at the end of my contract and had to make a run to the Embassy so I took up the opportunity to spend some extra time in Hanoi. I arrived Saturday afternoon and checked into the Downtown Backpackers' Hostel. Most backpackers stay in the old quarter around the Ma May street. This is a great place to see some more western people and enjoy western food. I wouldn't enjoy staying there for a long time but it is a more than welcome option after being in Hai Phong for so long.

On Saturday night I headed to a rooftop trance/ house party. The party was outside with a view over Hanoi, it was filled with different kinds of fantastic art work.  My friends had helped to organise it so I got to meet a lot of new people through them. Seemed like a super European night out and I really enjoyed it. We headed back to the old quarter for a little after party. Stuffed four people on a motorbike and drive down to The Rastaman to dance some reggaeton.

The Holi-festival took place on Sunday in the Kinder park in Hanoi. Woke up, drank my coffee and put on my white shirt. Off we went. The festival was amazing. Indian music is really catching and the joy of the people was just wonderful to witness. I even learned some traditional dance moves. I was rather surprised how many Indian people were in Hanoi. With just the entry fee, you could access an open bar and buffet. Absolutely tasty, authentic Indian food. At first, I was little scared that I wouldn't get enough colour on me but I can assure you, that was not a problem at all. I received so many heartfelt blessings from the people (rubbing some colour powder on your cheeks), it was beautiful. The festival took place right next to an amusement park so we had to test out their roller coaster. It was such a joyful, free spirited morning and afternoon spent dancing and laughing with so many happy faces. There was so much colour and so many different colours, I looked a little bit like a clown at the end but it was all well worth it. I did gather loads of stares on my way to my hostel but mostly people were just laughing, I did manage to make one child jump when I got out of my taxi.

Sunday night was spent dancing away with my girls. Backpackers feel no weekdays. Monday morning I hit the Embassy. Note to travels; if you are looking to go to China, the Embassy requires you to inform them about all the hotels you are planning on staying in. I was hoping to do my trip in a road trip style but in order to get the visa, this was not possible. For me, (besides the hotels) there was nothing extraordinary in the visa application. I was often warned about the long procedure, which is why I am so early with my application, but I was promised my visa within four days. I would however, recommend  you to apply for the visa 3-1 months before your journey.

This week has been full of speaking tests and trying to catch up with sleep.

I hope you had a lovely week so far and enjoy your weekend !


Love,


M

Vietnamese habits

Dear readers,

As I mentioned before, I have given a plenty of travel advice lately. It has made me think a lot of Vietnamese habits as I have been trying to explain how this country really works. I have long gathered my thoughts and notes, trying my best to analyse this country. So here we go !

The Vietnamese people hate the sun. This is even laughed at in Laos and Cambodia, much darker Asians. The Vietnamese take covering themselves to a whole new level, it is truly funny. It is nearly impossible to find skin products in this country that don't contain bleach.

There is no question too bold to ask. Not many days have gone past when I wasn't asked about my relationship status or other similar invasive topics. They don't understand the concept of physical boundaries either. You can easily see boys cuddling at school, holding their hands on each other's bodies. As I was shopping for my Ao Dai, I felt absolutely violated by the shop keepers as they were huffing and puffing around me shouting 'tay' and poking me to places no shop keeper has business in. There is no shame in pointing and staring at people, especially western people.

The country is still extremely communist. ''Attention'' my primary school assistant shouts when I walk into the class and the 8-year-olds greet me with a Nazi salute. All schools have their own 'school exercises'. This is a series of weird hand waving all students partake once a day during their break time.  It is still forbidden to discuss politics and religion with anyone, and you really want to mind your words when discussing famous Vietnamese people.

Vietnam has no bins. All litter is literally thrown on the streets where a group of older ladies gather and sort it into wheelbarrows. It is truly bizarre, throwing trash out still bugs me. In the start, I would always walk around with my trash looking for bins.

There is no such thing as originality. I tell my students to come up with a free topic to discuss in the next class and they all 'come up' with the same one (also reeks of laziness). There are a certain amount of Vietnamese traditional dishes; they are all made the exact same way, they all cost the same, no matter what shop you got to. No clothing shop or restaurant advertises themselves as unique or even tries to have something unique. People eat in the same place everyday. And nothing wrong with that, Vietnam has some yummy food.

Of course, when discussing food I need to bring up the meat culture in this country. Now, I have been a vegetarian for four years but even if I wasn't before, I would have surely become one upon arrival to this country. Firstly, eating dogs and cats is delicacy. Dog meat is eaten with crab meat sauce which stinks miles away. They say that two bad things make a good combination. No part of any animal is wasted. The meat is not parted into different files or ribs or anything, the entire animal is chopped into chewy, bony pieces that simply make me sick.

In restaurants, all meals and drinks are ordered a few at a time for the whole table. One person ordering a meal for themselves is unheard of. You can just simply join a dinner party, dig in and then pay your share at the end. If the food runs out, you simply order another dish. Beers are sold in jugs so just bring your glass around and pay 10 p at the end per glass.

All waiters and waitresses wait right by you once you have requested a menu or your bill. The western habit of slowly thinking, reading the menu or collecting money in peace from all parties does not exist. I guess it is because all the food is the same so people are expected to know what they want. Also, I believe that it is a custom for friends to pay for the dinner in turns.

There is a two - two an a half hour lunch break every day. The Vietnamese take their lunch very seriously and all the men get drunk on daily basis during this break. After which, they nap for an hour and start their day again. Their alcohol tolerance is so low, they get drunk very easily.

Like in many other Southern Asian countries, all things, especially money, is passed from one person to another with two hands. The words 'thank you' and 'please' are rarely used, the locals often laugh how 'tays' overuse these words. The students still bow their head when they are passing you or apologising something.

Security is ridiculous. This is something that does really annoy me, it is so unnecessary. You are not allowed to take any of your own bags into shops, you must check them into lockers. In case your wallet is in a tiny bag, it will be wrapped and sealed into plastic as you enter the shop. In clothing stores the assistants follow you so closely they sometimes even bump into you. Most of the expensive goods in shops have an alarm, batteries and wine etc. Once you are through the till a security guard will check your receipt and bags before stamping the receipt and letting you go. Small shops will even staple the receipt onto the bag.

I have discovered that it is possible to transport anything on a motorbike. I have seen fridges and washing machines, families and pigs. It's a shame that I am always driving so it's hard to snap photos but I'll be driving around with my go pro and hopefully, I'll be able to evidence some of the best ones later. I have even managed to transport somethings that I never expected; two rice cookers and a bunch of people. Nothing compared to the genuine locals but getting there.

It's okay to pick and poke anything, especially in public places. Next to my friends' front door in a stall that cleans people's ears on the street. Disgusting. You can often face a person at a dinner table sitting with their legs on the seat, picking their toe and finger nails. Most people are constantly picking their teeth (dental care here is nasty). Poking other people is not uncommon either.

And finally, it's all about them squats. Street restaurants have these cool urban chairs that are plastic and made for midgets. Toilets are either holes on the ground or disgusting. Sometimes it's really hard to drink enough water because it seems to be as hard to find a toilet as it is to find a bin. Squat, squat, squat away.


Anyways ! I hope I have shed some light on a few interesting Vietnamese habits.

Love,

Mira

A night out with prostitutes

You know, sometimes your find yourself in a situation you never imagined being in. And it all kind of feels surreal and crazy. Well, this is a post about my night out with some prostitutes. It will be very honest, so my apologies for those more gentle readers.

I was lured out by a Vietnamese friend, begging me to go sing karaoke with him. I thought it might be nice to try something new so I agreed. As we were waiting for a taxi, it turned out that we are headed 10 km out of Hai Phong to his home town. We picked up some of his friends on the way there, no one speaks English. We arrived outside this dodgy karaoke place in the middle of nowhere and were escorted to our private room. The room has no windows, is furnished with massive black sofas and a drinks table. Turns out that the boys always gather here because it is a safe place to take drugs in. Which were plenty; right from the door platefuls of powder were circling around.

There were about ten Vietnamese boys and one girl in the room. No one really paid attention to me so I happily took over a corner to observe things. The karaoke, and the boys, lasted about 5 mins. After this the room was dimmed and the boys were so high they were busy taking naps after one another. Needless to say that I don't have the habit of snorting things. After the lights went out, the girl disappeared for a minute and came back with a lot less clothes, boobs three times the size they were before and three half naked friends.

I guess thanks to the amount of powder in the room, things escalated quite quickly. The bizarre drum and bass blasting was so loud the sofas were shaking. Some of the boys were still fast asleep while the others were busy taking their tops off. No one (but my friend) had said a word to me. Sitting in the corner feeling like a high class prostitute no one could afford occasionally getting blurred confessions from my friend about all things between the Earth and the sky.

Luckily, another friend of mine joined me so we could retire in our gossip corner in peace. Turned out that the girls were 18 and the boys were nearly 30. Four girls on ecstasy entertaining ten, mostly married, older men. Watching this grinding show was quite an experience. Eventually, we decided to leave them to it and left home.

Once in a lifetime.


More stories in the future !

Mira

Travel tips

Hello lovelies and happy mid-week,

Recently, I have been asked a lot of traveling advice. I would just like to tell you all not to be shy and ask away ! Share with your friends and family, I am more than happy to share my experiences and try and help everyone to have the best possible trip.

Mira 

Vietnamese celebrations

Happy women's day !! :)

I hope you all have a very blessed, beautiful day.


Time after the holidays has gone quickly balancing between work and different celebrations. I partook in my friend's wedding, staff retreat in Hanoi, recently celebrated two birthdays and today, women's day. In my opinion, Vietnamese people take their celebrations seriously, and I love how giving flowers in so common in this country.

The wedding was fun, though, it reminded me of a TV show. It was in a huge hall, filled with lights and flowers. The wedding couple spent most of their time on stage taking pictures while a (too) loud commentator was babbling away in Vietnamese. No one really paid attention to the couple or the show that was going on, everyone was busy eating and drinking vodka shots. The presentation on the stage was a bit weird and quite unclear (at least to us foreigners). The wedding couple starts taking their wedding pictures a month before the wedding in countless of different locations and dresses. The funniest part for us 'tays' is how common it is to take pictures outside shopping malls, in front of expensive fashion outlets.

The annual staff retreat took place in Hanoi this year. We performed a dance that I choreographed and enjoyed some drinks together. It was a beautiful, sunny day so we spent the rest of the afternoon drinking beers by the river. It was great to see the girls I worked with in Ha Long again!

Birthdays were absolute madness. My best friend turned 28 so we had a cake made, ordered some flowers and loads of drinks. We took her out for live music, followed by some dancing at a club. It was so much fun and she seemed to really enjoy it. We continued to the other birthday, which was a house party. My friends recently moved into a huge mansion so the party was quite crazy, but so much fun. The next day we took our bestie for a surprise amusement park day. There is a very random amusement park in central Hai Phong, with some equipment we didn't dare to try due to the lack of security measures. Regardless, the day was amazing, just what we all needed.

Sunday night was spent in a Vietnamese dance battle, which was amazing, and watching a football game. All in all, a perfect weekend.

Women's day is very popular in Vietnam. Yesterday I received flowers from my assistant and my students. I really had fun in my classes and do think that I have the best of students! I am now planning on popping by my assistants house, her mum just sent me some coffee. Such a sweet heart.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to fully defeat my flu so I am still snoring due to the inability to breath through my nose at all. Hopefully, the situation will be fixed soon... it is truly annoying to be constantly coughing and sneezing.


Anyways, enjoy your day !


Mira

Luang Prabang, Laos

Now, time to analyse Laos !

We flew to Luang Prabang from Siem Reap, quick ride to our hotel and straight into town. We found an amazing French place that had some lovely cheese platters with white wine.. Followed by the night market. I feel that the Laotian night market had more authentic stuff than any other I had been to, less of those fabulous touristy tops that say Laos. Laos, I think, is a slight bit more expensive than Cambodia. They also prefer to use their own currency, kip, instead of US dollars (which are also accepted in shops) unlike Cambodia, where US dollars are used more commonly than the local currency (riel).

We were upgraded to a very lovely room for our first night. In the morning we woke up to a fresh hotel breakfast. I was really upset that the hotel didn't serve coffee (what is that all about!) so we headed down to the Mekong river, less than a minute walk away, to enjoy 'second breakfast'. We rented out some bicycle for the day and enjoyed the day by just driving around the city and along the river, occasionally stopping for more food and drinks. Luang Prabang is a breathtaking, peaceful small city filled with flowers, temples and amazing food. The Mekong river definitely makes the city more attractive and fun, there are a few bamboo bridges over it providing the possibility to see the side of the city most locals live on.

We had the most fabulous dinner by the river before we headed for a Mekong river sunset cruise. We spent two hours roaming around the river, ending the day with the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. Sun falling into the river in all the colours of the spectrum.

The next day we rented a motorbike to drive to the Kuang Si waterfalls. The road took us past local villages, rice fields and mountain vales. There is a small tourist village by the waterfalls where you can buy food and little souvenirs. At the entrance to the waterfalls is a bear sanctuary. The bears have been saved from the wild after an injury. One of the cuties was missing a pawn and another had had a brain surgery. The place was quite fascinating and the bears were messing around, enjoying the sun. The waterfalls were turquoise. Just turquoise. It was beautiful, unfortunately, so cold that I only dipped myself in and got out. For lunch we had a whole grilled fish with some vegetable skewers.

We found a lovely place at the end of the market street that has some sunbeds and books on the rooftop so I spent the next day there just reading classics and drinking beer Lao. Such a relaxing day, true holiday feeling. The trip was all about them sunsets so we climbed to mount Phousi to see the sunset that night. There are steps all the way up and a fee of 2,5 dollars. Views were incredible yet again. We also discovered a yummy street food buffet for two dollars so we feasted that night. I met some great people in the city so I spent two evenings playing cards against humanity at the local night club; Utopia.

For our final day, we had booked a 'rice is life' tour to go see a local rice farm; Living Land Farm, and to try some farming! The tour allowed us to get to know all the 14 steps rice farming has. They include, picking the right grains, planting them, turning over the field with a water buffalo, harvesting, peeling the grains and grinding it. The experience was one of a kind and so much fun. I will personally never buy Uncle Ben's again, rice farming is such hard work, and it requires plenty of skills. From a grain to plate is a four-month process. At the end of the tour, we made our own sugarcane juice and had a tasting of various rice products.

All in all, I am very blessed, my holiday was absolutely fantastic and I would highly recommend it to anyone. #onceinalifetime


Haha bye,


Mira

Cambodia

Happy weekend everyone !


Last two weeks I have been busy trying to avoid processing the fact that it's back to work again and another two months to go ! 45 work days to be accurate.

Friday, first day of tet. We had a car ordered to drive us from Hai Phong to the airport in Hanoi. There were four of us so the private car was worth the money, about 1 million VND. The ride was actually fun, and we got to use the new highway between Hai Phong and Hanoi so it was really quick as well.

Happily to Cambodia, greeted by a heatwave at the entrance of the airport, along with our tuk tuk. We dumped our bags into the room and headed out to explore the pub street. First taste of traditional Cambodia curry; amok. Super yummy.

Next morning we united with some more friends at the national history museum and continued our way towards the Angkor Thom temple group. A three day pass to the Angkor temples costs 40 USD. Monkeys, ancient temples, go pro, pictures. Afterwards super yummy food, some drinks, card games and united with a few more of our friends ! Don't want to bore you with further details, everything was amazing, I love Cambodian food and the city, all the temples, are so worth seeing with your own eyes! The night market was awesome, Cambodian people are nice to haggle with.

I ate a scorpion. It was indeed crunchy like everyone keeps on saying! Then I ate a snake. It was very chewy and tasted quite odd. Definitely had more flavour than the scorpion. My friends ate some tarantulas as well but I didn't dare. Until the final night, when I feasted one after all - it was disgusting. The torso was huge and tasted like a pate gone off, there were some nasty white eggs inside it. Took a long island ice tea to flush that taste out of my mouth.

Second day of temples started at 4.30 am when we headed to the Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise raise behind its towers. It was rather chilly and pitch black dark. A crowd of people on the path to the inner temple lighting the way with torches. It was magical, making me feel like I was part of an ancient religious ritual. The sunrise was worth waking up at 4.30. We explored the temple before heading back to town for a nap.

Side note: the word 'wat' means a temple. All the temples together are called Angkor, Angkor Wat is the name for the main temple which appears in most of the tourist pictures.

The six of us headed for the temples together on our final day. We had planned a day trip to two temples that were nearly an hour drive away from the city; Pre rup and Banteay Srei. This was my favourite day of the holiday. The weather and company were amazing ! The temples were stunning and the scenery on the tuk tuk ride there was fabulous. The ride was rather long but we entertained ourselves with silly games. Precisely what I would describe as a perfect day.

Good dinner and some wine on our last night, final run through the markets and then a pleasant sleep. In the morning, we had our first proper breakfast, purchased some art and met up for a good bye lunch. Cambodian food is the best I have tried in South East Asia, the flavours and spices suit my taste perfectly, and finding vegetarian food was not tricky at all.

Then off to Laos! More about that in the next post, on Monday I think haha.

Love,


Mira

Sitting on the wall of Angkor Wat. Happy life !