Vacation in Vietnam

It is unbelievable how the situation has changed all the time. I finally managed to come to Europe but H had to stay in Vietnam because he found out at Hanoi airport that his transfer flight had been cancelled. And it had been only two days since he booked it! Additionally there were no other flights coming to Europe anymore. I was that time already at home in France and we realized that we will have to stay in different countries until the whole situation gets better. It was clear for me that if H couldn't come to me, I would fly to my family in Finland. Therefore I booked a flight for the next morning and luckily that was not cancelled like half of the flights from CDG on Monday. Now I am safe and relaxed at my parents' home and I finally have time to write about my vacation in Vietnam before we ended up quarantined. (You can read that story here: https://luksusmuijapariisissa.blogspot.com/2020/03/quarantined-in-vietnam.html)

Day 1: heat & scooters

On Sunday 8th of March I took a Qatar Airways plane from Paris CDG to Doha. The flight went well even though sleeping on the plane is always difficult. But the time passed by watching movies and eating the best airplane food I have ever had. From Doha I flew to Hanoi international airport and we were given health check documents already during the flight. Because the corona virus had started to spread more and more in the world and Vietnam also had got positive cases after 3 weeks of having none, every passenger was asked whether they had had any symptoms within the last 2 weeks. We also had to fill information about our residence in Vietnam and our seat number on the flight in order for them to contact us or other passenger in case they later find out someone there had the virus. At the airport we handed the filled documents but there were no questions asked at that time. Because my family was to arrive 3 days after me and my parents had had a flu during the previous week, I asked the staff if it will be a problem when they come. The person I talked to didn't understand what I was saying and she thought I am waiting for a friend and advised me to step aside to wait. When there were no passenger in the line anymore, I asked again and had to explain several times - both in slow English and my bad Vietnamese - and finally she asked something from her colleague and told me it is all fine. I was not sure still if they understood my question but I couldn't do much more. So interesting that they don't really speak English at the airport.

After getting my luggage I was greeted by H who flew to Vietnam a few days before me and then we went to pick his sister up from the domestic airport where she had arrived to almost at the same time as me. I started to sweat the moment I stepped outdoors. It was a bit over 30 degrees but I was wearing long pants and a long-sleeved shirt. We took a taxi to the downtown to their parents' home. They live a few kilometers away from the center but it is very dense everywhere in Hanoi. The houses are side-by-side and nobody has a yard. Therefore everyone takes advantages of the land they own and houses have many floors - also our residence there had 5 floors.

The view from the 5th floor. The width of this room is also the
width of the whole house.

It is good exercise to go up and down
these stairs several times a day.

I was a millionaire in Vietnam!

After a little rest I and H took a scooter to go around a bit. The amount of bikes ans scooters is almost scary for me and the whole landscape is so different and exotic. As is the culture and the way of living. Many houses have their own small business, selling food or clothes, or having a hair-dresser etc. People don't only go to the big supermarkets as in Finland or in many other Western countries. Not being used to this, I kept wondering if all of them really have enough customers since there are so many places to go to. Our destination was a shop selling traditional Vietnamese dresses, áo dài. The idea was that I could wear it for our second wedding party we were about to have on the weekend. Since it would be difficult for me to find one of my size - I am huge on their standards - we had decided to get it done with my measures. When we entered the store, the person there asked where I am from. Later H told me it is because of corona, not out of interest. H answered that I am from Finland because Finland still didn't have many cases. We found a nice fabric, my measures were taken and we were promised the dress is ready in 3 days. It cost 2,000,000 vnd which is roughly 80 euros. Not so bad when it is made of fine silk and specifically for you.

In the traffic lights

Day 2: shrines & freshly cut bananas

On my first full day in Vietnam we had an early morning. We left with the whole family (us, H's sister and their parents) towards South-East to visit the towns where the parents or their families are originally from. We had a big van coming to get us and a driver who was somehow familiar to H's parents. On our way we stopped by at a couple of shrines or temples and then we ended up to a smaller town surrounded by fields and among others we visited a graveyard where many of H's father's side family is buried. I really started to understand the stereotypical Asian tourists in Europe who walk around with their cameras taking photos of everything. I constantly had a big urge to take photos of things that are normal for Vietnamese people: everything in the temple areas, all the food we ate, the rice fields with workers wearing the traditional conical hats... 

A temple for "mother", a daughter of a god in a famous story.

There are colorful flowers and
fruits in front of the altars.

These trees with small orange fruits
are very common at shrines and homes
at the time of tet, the new year.

A pagoda

The graves at the graveyard looked quite different to
the ones in Europe.

There was a cow chilling out at the graveyard, too.

One of the cultural differences between Vietnam and Europe was highlighted in a smaller town: everyone was going around with whatever they had. Most of the vehicles were old and a bit rusty, people rode scooters with Crocs or such on their feet... The surrounding gives no pressure to be certain kind and the whole atmosphere seemed rather relaxed because of it. I know there are of course also other reasons behind this view, such as poverty. Farmers are not rich and cannot afford latest trend or machines. In a way I felt like going back in time a few decades. You cannot find this kind of a place in Finland anymore. Also the way that Vietnamese use the scooters is very different. In Finland I am used to see just teenager who just turned 15 riding those, and even in other Europe scooters are used by one person going from place A to place B. But in Vietnam they have more ways to utilize this vehicle. It could take a whole family somewhere (parents and one kid), they also take dogs with them, they can carry a lot of stuff either on the back or on the side while riding... It is just so different!

In the village there is also a small shrine that belongs to the family of H's father. It was the first time for me to see a shrine belonging to one family. There were pictures of H's grandparents and a few other relatives on the walls and altars in front of them. Vietnamese people have altars also at home where they have photos of their deceased parents or grandparents or other relatives. I don't yet understand the meaning of having many places for one person but maybe they will explain to me one day. The yard of this family shrine building had some banana trees on it. And to my excitement H's father and second cousin (who takes care of the shrine) cut down one tree and we got big bunch of freshly cut bananas with us to take home. That was so cool for me who is happy to only see banana trees!

Banana trees!

In the evening we reached the sea and checked-in to a hotel nearby it. Again the receptionist looked at me suspiciously and thought for a while if "Finland" is a good answer enough to have peace of mind. Vietnamese people had started to avoid Western people because of the fear of corona. It is so interesting because when the pandemic started, many Western people looked at Asian people with bad eye, but now the situation had turned the other way around. Anyway we got in to our hotel rooms and I called with my parents to discuss with them that cancelling their trip to Vietnam is the best solution after Vietnam banned Europeans entering the country visa-free on that morning. Then we headed out with everyone to see the sea that unfortunately was very dark already at that time of the day. There was also a small beach but possibly the water was still a bit cold for swimming. We enjoyed a hot pot dinner at one of the empty restaurants of the town before getting to bed. There were not many tourists travelling these days anymore.

These trees were so fascinating.
The brown trunk did not continue all the way up.

Our hot pot dinner with beef, squid, cabbage, herbs...

Day 3: from an agriculture town to a textile town

We started the day by going for breakfast next to the sea. The water level had risen up during the night and the beach was gone. So there really was no chance to go and swim on this trip. But my breakfast was an experience for me. H had told me many times about "rice soup" that would be like porridge according to him. I got a dish that really was rice soup! It is not like porridge and it is not just cooked rice. It really is soup, so strange... And another new thing for me is that we could just bring our own snacks in the restaurant, too, and they even heated up the eggs we had brought. 

The sea had risen up during the night and covered the whole beach.

My breakfast: rice soup with sea shells and onion.

After eating we packed our stuff into the van again and headed to the hometown of H's mother's family. While the previous town made its living mostly by farming, this one concentrated on fabric manufacture. Here and there I could hear the sound of the machines making fabrics and I saw many people selling clothes on the streets. The practice of selling everything on the streets without even tables necessarily, is unfamiliar for me. I bet many of those sellers would not be even allowed to sell things like that in Europe. You can find for example meat there. I don't know how my Western stomach would handle meat that has been outdoors in a warm weather tempting flies for the whole day. Luckily we had our own lunch with us. As a Westerner I am a rare sight even in H's parents' neighborhood in Hanoi because all the tourists stay in the very center. You can imagine how long some people looked at me in these rural site towns far away from cities. Some 10-year-old boys even started to say "hello" when they saw me. It was also very interesting for me that in between the old colorless houses there were some recently built colorful shrines. The contrast between these two kind of buildings was something extraordinary to watch.

The neighbors had a textile machinery.

In this town we visited the graves of H's grandparents and their relatives in a very different grave yard than we had visited on the previous day. This time the graveyard had no certain structure or shape but each family's area was pointing to different directions. We walked on small meandering paths under banana trees to find the right places. It was so authentic! I mean how could even a graveyard visit be such an experience!

The graveyard was next to ponds and banana trees.

Our lunch we had brought with us.
Vietnamese people often eat many
kind of things during one meal.

On our way back to Hanoi we stopped by at a big temple. That was probably the most impressive temple or shrine I visited in Vietnam. The yard was large, including several buildings, gardens etc.

This turtle holding a tower on its back
was huge and impressive.

There were colorful flags and lots
of other decoration also outdoors.

I like the way they make the trees grow.

Buddha statues inside the biggest building.

On the yard there were big pots
for burning the offering "money".

Day 4: the center of Hanoi

We had returned back to Hanoi in the evening after visiting the home towns of the family. In the morning I was woken up by H's 5-year-old nephew who had arrived to see us, too. We spent some time with him in the morning and played with his new soap bubble machine at the front door. Seemingly it is not only children who are excited to see a foreigner because a couple of times there were adults passing by our place with a scooter and they also shouted enthusiastically "hello, hello". I find it so funny. 

In the afternoon we took a scooter and rode to get my áo dài and see the center area. We walked around the Hoàn Kiếm lake on the streets much less crowded than normally but there were some tourists still, so much more Western people than I had seen anywhere else in Vietnam. Until we ended up to the quarters that are favored by tourists. There was one street where all the restaurants seemed to have only tourists as their customers. it was such a big difference to the streets even a bit outside the main center area. Also the restaurant furniture was different compared to the usual chairs and tables you see in Vietnam. The first time I saw the small chairs and tables Vietnamese restaurants offer to their customers, I could only think that those are for kids. But everyone really sits almost in a squat position when they enjoy food on the streets. We also saw people playing a popular sport that is like volleyball but it is played with a small foot-bag.

Hoàn Kiếm lake in the center of Hanoi.

An entrance to a shrine at the lake. The place was closed.

The small chairs and tables are used in most of the restaurants.

We ordered beef salad for a snack.

Day 5: crossing the river among lots of scooter

When H went to fix his computer, his sister worked from home and the parents went somewhere, I looked after H's nephew. He has been learning English for a couple of years already so we had no problems communicating. I got some spiced rice wrapped in a big leaf for breakfast from H's mother. The rice in Vietnam surely is better than in Europe and they have all this kind of interesting versions, too. But sometimes I started to feel I am eating it too often...

This rice is very yummy!

In the afternoon H wanted to show me around the center again. So we hopped on the scooter again and rode through the city nearby the Hoàn Kiếm lake. This time we went to see St. Joseph's Cathedral that is also called Notre Dame of Hanoi because it resembles the original Notre Dame in Paris. Because of the virus it was of course closed but it was nice to see it even from outside. It looks so strange to see a catholic church in the middle of the Vietnamese city. We ordered a little snack to try dry phở that I had heard of. I liked it a lot. The video below also shows the street scene well: lots of small stores, buildings are old and scooters are used to carry things.

St. Joseph's Cathedral

"Determined to die for the country to live."

Dry phở and some meat batch.

Afterwards H wanted to take me to the river so we rode with the scooter to an old bridge that looked like it desperately needs renovation. The framework was rusty and the road very bumpy. But the bridge is still in big use, having scooters and bikes riding through its ~2 km length. Next to the bridge I saw a poor neighborhood: houses in very bad condition, banana tree fields and other "fields". When we reached the other side of the river, we decided to take another bridge to come back. This other bridge was newer but also busier. We really had to stop and nose very slowly and later we saw it was greatly due to the cars that didn't take the car lane but had pushed themselves to the bike lane.

Day 6: grilled food & conveyor belt restaurant

We started the Saturday morning by a run. Running at streets is not the best thing in Hanoi because we have to stop for the traffic constantly and because the streets are not always in good shape. But there was also one nice park nearby where we could run without needing to stop every once in a while. We could see all the tops of the high building around the park very clearly and H said he doesn't remember when the air had been so clean in Hanoi. Even though the virus was not spreading fast in Vietnam, it had affected the traffic already so much that there was less pollution. 

Before the lunch time we got visitors. The brother of H's father came to see us with his wife because our wedding party had been cancelled and we wouldn't meet there. Vietnamese people always gather around food and also when they don't have a meal together, there is always seeds, nuts, fruits etc. small things to eat while talking with everyone. We also met the sister of H's father but all the other relatives and friends we had to leave until the next time because some were home-quarantined and some were afraid of the virus and didn't want to meet us these days.

Nuts, corn and fruits to eat
when talking with the guests.

H's brother-in-law had also arrived to the home of H's parents and we had a nice barbecue lunch at home with everyone. Afterwards we all dressed up in áo dài and dresses we would have been wearing in our wedding party and took some family portraits. (Sorry for not adding them in my blog even though they ended up to be quite nice.) Later in the evening we walked around the neighborhood with H and went to a conveyor belt restaurant to have dinner. I had only been in Japanese conveyor belt restaurants before so it was interesting for me to experience a dinner in one that has individual hot pots where I can cook my food that I choose from the belt.

Grilling prawns, tofu, pork and vegetables.

The way to eat the barbecue is to wrap it in the herbal leaves.

At Kichi-Kichi conveyor belt restaurant where we can boil
our food in the spicy hot pot.

I felt homey seeing a K-market.

Last days in the exotic country

Vietnam has many delicious foods and things that are harder to find in Europe. I wanted to buy some dried jack fruits and other stuff to bring to France so we went to a supermarket in a nearby shopping mall. By this time we were used to get disinfection liquid when entering a restaurant or a shop but also our temperature was checked at the supermarket door. Inside the store I found some things quite interesting:

Hot chili squid, spicy lobster...
The flavors of chips are quite different in Vietnam.

I found also Moomin biscuits! And the koala biscuits I liked
a lot when I lived in Japan.

Peanuts brought from Japan and the katakana-English is written
with alphabets. Wouldn't it be better to write it "peanuts" again?

After being in Vietnam for a week I had to decline the offer of H's mother to have rice on the breakfast. They really eat rice on every meal: breakfast, lunch and dinner. And if there is no rice, then they have rice noodles or such. I also had rice on 95% of the meals I had on my trip which I could imagine getting a bit boring if I continued it for a longer time. Or maybe I would get totally used to it. Who knows. At least I also had many many different kind of food experiences otherwise. H's mother cooked also dog meat for us one day because they knew I had never tasted it before but that agreed to taste if offered. The meat is rich in protein and having a taste of its own (I don't really know what to compare it to), but I prefer other meats.

Dog meat grilled, boiled and in a stew plus some liver.

H's mother taught me how to make
great spring rolls.

We also visited a graveyard where they bury important people.
This looked so different to the graveyards we visited before.

A few days before H got a fever and we ended up to the hospital, we started to spend more and more time at home because of the corona virus and its consequences. We usually just went for a run and occasionally out to buy some food. And then we had the adventure that I will never forget. Being quarantined in an isolation hospital was not so nice at the moment we were there but afterwards it surely feels like an interesting experience. I would not say my trip was bad even though it ended up to be quite different from the original plan for those two weeks I spent in Vietnam.

As the last thing, I have to give a special mention to Qatar Airways for serving the best airplane food and having the best safety procedure instructions. I don't remember when was the previous time I watched it all through.

My breakfast on the plane: honey-oats pudding, fruits,
yogurt and croissant. The best ever!