King Kong

Ok, so I must begin with the encounter I had two nights ago with the biggest aracnoid I've even seen in my life.

I'm writing in my journal on my bed in the hotel, peacefully minding my own business in the room alone, when all of a sudden the most massive spider crawls out from under my roommate's bed. King Kong, as I later dubbed him, was surely not a normal spider, but a tarantula, no doubt. My heart stopped for a second because he was only like a foot from my face, which I had positioned on the bed while I was lazily scribing the day's events into my journal. I jumped up onto my knees, and this startled him so he scurried back under the bed and I sat there panting, shaken up like a 4 year old. I didn't know what to do since he was out of sight, so I proceeded to record his existence in my journal. I interupted the line about the places we visited that day by writing "HOLY SH*T THE BIGGEST SPIDER I'VE EVER SEEN JUST APPEARED IN MY ROOM" just because I felt the need to tell somebody. (It's like Tom Hanks having Wilson the volleyball in Castaway, I had my journal) Paniked but helpless, I tried to keep writing until my roommate got back.

King Kong came out again, probably trying to make a dash for the door, knowing that the big human he was sharing quarters with would soon get someone to smash him and end him forever. But he scurried back under the bed again because I jumped so much when he came out again. I can't tell you the fear that I was feeling in those 5 minutes, crazily thinking this was some rabid poisonous Vietnamese exotic breed of tarantual that could easily jump onto my face, latch on and kill me. (Okay, so slightly overreacting, but seriously, I was really perturbed)

Being the noble girl I am, I decided to lift my roommate's things off the floor to prevent King Kong from making his home in her backpack or blanket. (ALthough I'm not gonna lie, I contemplated not telling her he was even in our room because I didn't think I'd be able to get him out and I knew she'd freak out worse than me) But as I harmlessly pulled her backpack off the ground by the foot of her bed, THERE HE WAS! Just sitting there, taunting me. THis time he didn't scurry. I think he knew the end was in sight. I didn't, I thought I was going to die, but he knew. I picked up a paint tray we had in the room for the next day's activity, and slowly lifted it to try and capture him under it until I could find someone to kill him. I'm telling you, a normal swat wouldn't have even affected this guy, he was thicker than a short novel and his body was the size of an egg, with 8 disgusting hairy legs sticking out. EWWWWWWWW. So as I'm standing over him, my bouistrous, ex-cheerleader roommate comes in, making an entrance as usual with a story already unfolding out of her mouth and I'm just like "SHHHHH!!!" one finger poised to my lips, then I point to King Kong. Her eyes widen like cracked yolks in a frying egg and her hands cover a her mouth to prevent a scream. I'm like "I know!" with a horrified yet funny look on my face, trying to make light of the fact that ginormo-spider is our bedmate.

She turns and runs down the hall, searching for someone to end King Kong. Surprisingly, he stays put through all of this. Our friends come in, and soon we've got a plan. I provoke him just a little with the paint tray and he begins to run to an open area of the floor. I throw the tray down on top of him, thinking "VICTORY IS MINE!" when he uses his King Kong strength to just lift up the tray and continue running along! I SCREAM and everyone screams and he runs under a lounging chair. The fight isn't over. The professor comes in, wondering what all the fuss is about and we tell him in that way that little girls tell their dad's "There's a HUGE spider in here!" Except that usually huge constitues a tiny speck of a thing. I see the skepticism on his face. He decides to lift the chair while our other comrade holds a boot ready to smush King Kong to smitherines. "1, 2, 3..." Prof counts, then he lifts up the chair, and sees the massiveness that is this beast, and Rocky tries to kill it with his boot. When he misses, King Kong starts to scuttle, dancing around like he's drunk, crazily trying to escape certain death. Seeing that we weren't overestimating this thing's size, Professor Smith starts hopping around like he's on hot coals! trying to avoid King Kong's wrath! And my roommate and I are just screaming and screaming as this spider stalks around our room! We've jumped op onto my bed and are holding each other and screaming bloody murder! And then the spider starts climbing the drapes! It seems like King Kong will survive and spend the night in our room with us, and it's scary and funny and horrifying and ridicuolous all at the same time how freaked out we all are, when all of a sudden Prof grabs the drapes, exposes King Kong and Rocky lays out the boot, showing no mercy to this giant spider's terror. King Kong is dead, his remains smeared on our wall and curtain, Prof takes the rest to a letrine graveyard somewhere else in the hotel.

When all the madness is over, and rooms and I have calmed down, Professor returns. More like a father-figure friend on this trip than a faculty supervisor, he empathizes with our fright over the spider from planet enormous. Just as we're about to all go to bed, Professor offers some presumptively comforting words. He says to my roommate, "Kelly, if you went missing, what's the first thing that would happen?" Confused and not seeing where this is going, Kelly replies "I don't know?" And with an evil grin on his face, Prof. David Smith replies "Wouldn't your family come looking for you?"

The End.

Ha Long Bay

Our visit to Ha Long Bay can best be described as a trip to paradise. We rented out a big wooden boat, almost big enough to be considered a ship, all to ourselves. There were 17 of us with our guide, Truc included and the crew of the ship, with plenty of space to spread out and soak up the sun. Now I know this trip is technically an internship and we are going to be starting the work portion very soon, but Ha Long Bay is one of the most beautiful places in all of Viet Nam, so we decided to take a day and enjoy it.

We took off from the busy port around 11 after a 3 hour drive to get there. (I read "Born on the Fourth of July" on the busride, a short novel about an American veteran who gets wounded in Viet Nam. I really liked it, probably because the author writes as if he's writing in a journal, and that's how I write) The breeze smells like sea water and the weather couldn't have been more perfect. It was hot and sunny, but the gusts of sea breeze made everything okay. At first everyone is laying on the hot wooden deck, immediatley taking advantage of being able to tan themselves, but of course I'm slathering on sunscreen like it's my job (because it is my job when I lifeguard) and making sure my stuff is in the shade. (the Mom in me comes out while traveling sometimes too)

So as we're trekking out to the more scenic parts of the bay, we see other boats like ours, wooden with big dragon decorations carved into the front and colorful flags hanging on rope that's hung from the tallest parts of the boat all the way down becoming attached to the sides. The boats are filled with other Westerners like us; Vietnamese people don't rent huge ships to take them out to the bay, they ride in smaller boats full of treasures to sell to the silly tourists like us. While we're still moving forward at a fairly quick pace, a small boat we dubbed "Food Pirates" attached to the side of our boat and began advertising their booty. What's that? $2 dollars for a delicious, fresh peeled pineapple? I can get them for 30 cents on the streets, but alas, I'm stranded out here on this boat and I see no other means of obtaining a pineapple, so I'll pay your ridiculous toll. The pineapple is just as delicious. My friends buy some things too, scoffing at how they feel ripped off from the greedy Food Pirates. But as that small boat finished selling their lot and pulled away, we saw a small Vietnamese boy sleeping under the top deck. I didnt' feel so ripped off after that, knowing that my $2 would probably pay for the little boy's dinner that night. Their aggresive tactics worked pretty well anyhow, perhaps I should begin a food pirating business on Loon Lake when I return....

I moved up to the very front of the boat after that, and sat on the edge next to the wooden dragon carved into the deck. 'Ha Long' means descending dragon, and there's a proberb involving an ancient battle with the Chinese that explains why the huge rocks jut out of the Bay as they do. I feel so at home on that boat. I love the water so much and being so close to it without any barriers was one of the most awesome feelings I can describe. When we reach our destination in a very scenic area of the bay, our cameras go crazy capturing the awesomeness of the mountainous islands that seem to jump out of the sea like a tree growing out of the earth. (I'll have to show you my pictures later, I got some really good ones) Then we're served lunch. Fresh crab and shrimp that we crack and peel is served first, so good. Then there are the spring rolls, some french fries, fish and squid as well as the ever present bowl of rice. Pineapple is served for dessert, but my haul from the pirates tastes much better I think.

I can't wait to get out of the cabin after lunch and get back into the fresh sea air! We try to wait before we go swimming since we've all just stuffed our faces, but what the heck, we only have so long and the crew are urging us to "Swim, Swim! No sleep! No sit down! Swim!" with big smiles on their faces. They know how amazing this trip into the bay is and they don't want us to waste a second of it! So we perch off the side of the boat, which is maybe 15 feet out of the water at the highest point, and we leap off into the water, making faces and having our pictures taken by our friends still on the boat. Truc warns us the current is strong, so we swim like hell to get to the ladder as soon as we surface after our jumps, then haul ourselves up the ladder and climb back to the top of the deck to do it again. (I'm still sore from all this swimming and climbing, p.s. but it was so worth it) I, being in the lifeguard mentality, decide to untie one of the lifesaver rings from the side, just in case. As I undo the last knot, the damn thing falls off the side, but there just so happened to be a kid who was too busy saving his swimsuit from falling off to be swimming fast enough against the current, so we was struggling to get back to the ladder and he used the floaty happily. That's right Waterford Oaks Wavepool, I'm so vigilent I see potential swimming disasters before they even happen. Lifeguard skills put to good use.

We jumped until our muscles couldn't lift us anymore. Then we headed back to the port, savoring every minute of the beautiful scenery and tropical feel of the Bay that we possibly could. I was so sad to get off that boat, it's the place where I've felt most at home on this whole trip so far. But my paradise trip had to end sometime I suppose.

Warm wishes from VN, and hoping all is well at home :)

A few Americans in Viet Nam

Today we visited the American Embassy in Hanoi. Interesting experience. It reminded me a lot of visiting with the Border Patrol during my Mexico trip...so if you know me at all, I think you can understand how this visit felt. It's very interesting to talk to all kinds of people about the culture though, and the perspective I got today from the man at the embassy will contribute to my learning...or something I hope.

His job seems like the coolest thing in the world though. He's with the Foreign Service which is part of the State Department, so he gets to work in Embassies all over the world for a few years at a time. So he's lived in India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, all over the place! Sounds like my kind of gig. (except for the whole ethnocentrism thing; I think he had a little too much self-rightousness with his wheaties this morning) But yeah, I want his job.

Some friends from my program are traveling after our stint is over in Viet Nam. They're going to Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia, and I'm so jealous. I really couldn't afford to do it, but now that I'm here I wish I would've sold my plasma or something to pay for it because it sounds pretttttty amazing. They're going to ride elephants, explore jungles, and go bamboo rafting, just to name a few of the awesome things they've got planned out. I hope they send me a post card from the back of the elephant.

Tomorrow we're venturing off to Ha Long Bay, which I've been told is one of the most beautiful scenic areas in Viet Nam. You should look up pictures of it to get a feel, it seems pretty breath-taking. We get to go swimming there too! That'll be a great way to deal with the ridiculous heat over here. Seriously you step out of the bathroom after getting all cleaned off in the shower, and you're immediately drenched in sweat again. Cleanliness is impossible; bathing is obsolete.

That's all for now friends, Ciao as they say :)

Nightlife and such

Last night we officially discovered the bar scene in Hanoi. After a long day of lectures, Vietnamese language lessons and stuffing our faces with delicious cuisine, some of my friends and I ventured out into the "Old Quarter" to find a bar.

Obstacle 1: Getting there
We decided to take the bus. Turns out the bus doesn't run past 9 o'clock. It was 10:30. New plan. Take taxis. There were about 12 of us, so 3 of the compact-not-American-body-capacity-size taxis would do.

Obstacle 2: Telling the Taxi driver where we want to go
We don'k speak Vietnamese. The taxi drivers didn't speak English. Problem. Turns out one of my post cards had a picture of the lake near the old quarter, and my fabulous photographic memory served me well in remembering what the name of the lake was. However, in Vietnamese, the meaning of words changes if you say them in certain tones, and since we're so unsure of ourselves when we speak, we end every phrase in a higher note because that's what Americans naturally do when they're asking a question. So I'm sure I was probably saying something like "I want to eat the rusty fence" instead of "Take us to the lake", but apparently he understood. We got to the right place, in 3 separate taxis with 3 different foolish Americans trying to explain to 3 poor Vietnamese taxi drivers where to go. So go us!

Obstacle 3: Finding a bar
Most of the bars in the old quarter are in fancy restaurants that our starving-college-student budgets cannot accomadate. So alas, we're aimlessly walking farther away from the populous areas to find a cheap little place where we can drink. We find one finally, it's closed. (or maybe it just rejects Americans who travel in obnoxiously large groups and are really loud and annoying, who knows). People are getting restless. One of our own almost gives up and buys a beer on the street (you can do that here) We push on. We find a bar! It's called Salsa, and it's Spanish. I'm so in.

Obstacle 4: Not knowing what kind of Alcohol is in your drink
I orderd a Cuba Libre. I have never heard of this concoction, but when in Vietnam, do as the touristy travelers do. I also order a tequila shot, and I'm served a place with 3 tiny lime slices and plenty of salt. 3 limes? Incentive to order more tequila? I think so. And I did. The rest of my comrades ordered all kinds of things that we had never heard of (probably because none of us are 21 and don't go to bars back home, not so much because we're in Southeast Asia, but maybe a little of both) We do some Vietnamese cheers, some Spanish cheers, and sometimes we just slurp our drinks haphazardly while gawking around at the decorative elements in the tiny bar.

Obstacle 5: Not knowing what language the cute bartender speaks
The cute bartender was not particularly Asian looking, but not particularly Western looking, but I was determined to say hello. But how? Think, Jill, think...maybe Spanish? We are in a Spanish bar, it would be too good to be true. But it's worth a shot (especially after a few Cuba Libres) So I ask, in English, "what languages do you speak?" He rattles off like 4 or 5. Typical for anyone who doesn't live in the US. So dreamy. I continue on in but now in Spanish, "where are you from?" "Paris" he says. Super dreamy. Everyone's waiting outside. I say I have to go. We shake hands. La la, perfection.

Obstacle 6: Getting back to the guest house before the gate closes at midnight
Very Cinderella-esk. We cram 5 of us into a small-not-American-body-capacity-size taxi while others take the motorcylcle taxis home. (In Vietnamese, the word for moto taxis is "embrace" because you have to hold on for dear life when you ride with them through the crazy streets of Hanoi) I was not in the embrace mood, so I smashed my 5'7 frame into the back of the taxi, and proceeded to giggle at how awkardly close I was to all these people that I didn't know a week ago. Life is funny. We make it back alive. Turns out the gate doesn't close at midnight afterall. But it was much more climactic thinking it did. So no one really minds. We're "home".

Success: Having an awesome first night out on the town in Hanoi

:)

Exploring Hanoi

Today was a jam-packed day of touring the city of Hanoi. (And I apologize in advance for all the spelling mistakes I'm about to make while describing things) First I went to the Mosealeum that was constructed for Ho Chi Minh, the most well respected Vietnamese leader in the country's history. It reminded me of seeing something very intense in Washington D.C., like the tomb of the unknown soldier because there were guards with guns protecting the embalmed remains of Ho Chi Minh's body, and the dress code was strict, as well as behavior-this was a no nonsense kind of thing. A very intense start to the day at 8:30 am.

Then it was off to a Bhuddist temple, then a Daoist temple, then the Museum of Ethnology to learn about all the different ethnic groups that comprise the population. Very fascinating stuff, but back-to-back it can be a little overwhelming to see all of this stuff. I really enjoyed the religious temples; they were so ornate and and beautiful. Viet Nam doesn't really have one major religion; the people kind of take something from all different spiritual teachings and mix them together to form one big, metaphysical cornicopia of beliefs. Amen to tolerance. The temples seemed especially peaceful and calming too; I think it's the savory inscense that's burning outside each place. It was really neat when I heard a Vietnamese guide speaking in Spanish to some other travelers in one of the temples too; I had the guts to go up to them and ask where they were from, in Spanish (hooray!) and the man answered "Barthelona" with the lisp. :) It was a nice heartwarming Spanish accent that made me miss Granada. How cool that I got to use a little bit of Spanish on this trip too. That made my day.

I've got to say that the food here is a whole different ball game. Everything is new, the tastes, the smells, the textures, and especially the presentation of food. It's not everyday you get a fish served to you with the head still attached (unless you're in Viet Nam apparently). I've been attempting to try new things, but after getting so sick on the plane, it's hard not to be hesitant. My favorite dish has been crispy noodles with veggies and tofu, and another tastey one was pork cooked in a carmelized sauce, Mmmmm. Oh, and the coffe is AMAZING. It's like an espresso shot with sweetened condensed milk, iced. It tastes like something so fancy that it couldn't possibly have come from the little corner store that has plastic lawn furniture for chairs, but it did. This stuff is heavonly, I mean it-if you ever find yourself in a Vietnamese restaurant, try the Cafe Su Da. I've had at least one of these every day since discovering it on Sunday (okay so that's only 3 days...but so what) and I'll probably be a junkie by the time I have to leave.

And lastly for today, we got to have a little exchange with some Vietnamese University students today, which was WAY cool. You get to talk candidly, one on one with someone completely different than you about anything you want. This is the best way to learn about a different culture by far. I spoke to a 23 year old guy who goes to the University of Technology and we had quite the interesting conversation. All the Vietnamese students spoke English, and we Americanos attempted to peace together some discernable form of Vietnamese nonsense every few minutes, but mostly we stuck to English. According to my friend Phong (definately misspelled), Americans have bodies that are "beautiful, strong and good for sports", haha! And I was sure he'd say we're all fat since every Vietnamese person I've encountered is about a foot shorter than me and weighs 80 pounds. (Slight exsaguration...major misspelling of exsaguration) But seriously, Vietnamese women especially are so tiny, and some clothing stores only sell things in one size! And it's not Jill size, I'll tell you that much. But it was really neat to talk to this kid about normal 20-something stuff: free time, fun, dating, politics, education, travel, la la la. I came away from it realizing that maybe we're not so different after all. And that seemed like a pretty fitting end to the day.

As always I hope all is well at home and thanks for reading about my ridiculousness :) Ciao!

Jill

Arriving in Hanoi!

I just got in to Hanoi, VN last night! The travel time to get here was just over 24 hours, and I feel like I'm lost in some sort of space/time continuum with the time changes and jet lag and all. In true Jill-traveling fashion, things did not go perfectly smooth en route to Asia, (i.e. I lost my lunch on the plane...multiple times, oy vey) but alas I'm still here in one piece. :) I don't know if it was the bad Chinese food I ate at Chicago O'Hare or just the 12 1/2 hour flight time to from Chicago to Tokyo that did it, but whatever it was, my stomach didn't agree. At least I feel better now! And enough with gruesome details about air sickness..

We're staying at a guest house in Hanoi, which is like a cheap hotel. The weather is nice, it's low 80's and humid, but there's a nice breeze. The streets are a hustle/bustle of mopeds, bicyclists and cars and crossing from one side to the other is madness (there are no traffic signals or stoplights!) But at least I know I'm sure to have an adventure every single day, haha.

I had Pho Bo for breakfast this morning, which is a soup with rice noodles, green onion, chives and salty broth. Delicious! If anyone has any Vietnamese food recommendations - please let me know! I have no idea what anything is really since I only know how to say Hello, Thank you, and I'm sorry in Vietnamese. The bare essentials for survival, haha. I'm currently at an internet cafe typing this, and then I'm off to explore the city for the rest of the day! We're going to a beautiful lake this evening and then tomorrow I'll probably see some of the many museums. I'm so excited to be here! I hope everything is well back home. :)

I take off tomorrow for VN! I'm flying Detroit-->Chicago, Chicago-->Tokyo, Tokyo-->Hanoi. I'm scheduled to arrive in Hanoi at 9:50 pm on Friday, May 16th. Yes friends, that's 24+ hours of travel time, even with the time difference factored in. I'll write next from the other side :)