A new friend

I had read that Vietnam did not have a friendly culture, but that was not my experience. While not always smiley on the streets, all of the people at restaurants, shops, and our hotel were surprisingly helpful and kind to us bumbling tourists. Instead of giving a play by play of our two last days in Hanoi, I'll just let you look at some of the pictures and provide highlights of our interactions.

Riding the elevator down from our hotel room, two of the cleaning staff walked in with me. Everything in Hanoi is fast, except for the elevators. I smiled at the women as they looked shyly at me and then one woman beamed back, gesturing at my face and saying, “So beautiful, so tall.” I couldn’t help it, I chuckled and blushed. At five-foot-three, no one has ever told me I’m tall, but being a head and shoulders taller than most women here, I am a bit of giant.

In a different hotel staff related event, Donavan and I made a friend. Calling himself Leo, the young man from the front desk was friendly with us from day one. Making little jokes and teaching us phrases that we couldn’t pronounce properly for our lives. On our last night in Hanoi, he asked if we wanted to join him for a beer, which we agreed to of course; you don’t say “no” on vacation. He led us through the maze of streets to a small bar with metal tables and the usual rickety chairs. Lo and behold, he had brought us to drink the fresh beer that we had searched for vainly on a previous night. We chatted over the glasses of light beer and small cured meat rolls wrapped in leaves. He told us about his girlfriend and his plans to own a restaurant; we encouraged him. We told him about our assorted cats; we all laughed.

I asked him if his real name was Leo and he told me that it was actually Hung, but he calls himself Leo because it is astrology sign. We told Hung to visit us in the US, so maybe we can someday take a similar boozy picture at a hipster bar in Portland.

I met more cats and asked them to pose for a photo. I'll leave these right here.