VIETNAM: Part II (Guest Writer - Vicky Rateau

Enjoying my last few days of vacation...

I think the best way to capture the Vietnam experience is to share memorable moments. At this point, you've already heard about the "artic cruise" and our eating our way through Hanoi. I'll share some other memorable moments in upcoming emails. We've got a little time before we hit Angkor Wat again for sunset so we're cooling away in an internet cafe. (Oh, if you didn't know, my vacation got extended to the end of this week.) For the time we have left, I thought I'd share this song...

Julio and I have have composed a song to the tune of the "Do, Re, Me, Fa, So, La" from the SOUND OF MUSIC, titled "the Sound of Vietnam". It goes as such (with commentary in parentheses to go unsung) --

--Dong, a bill, a Vietnamese bill
(Vietnamese currency)

--Ray, a drop of golden sun
(which Julio wished for our entire time in northern Vietnam. We've been blessed with daily sun since January 9 when we reached Hue though. For the record, I had plenty of sun until Julio arrived in Hanoi.)

--Minh, a guide who sees squid in rocks
(Minh was our junk boat guide in Halong Bay who was always saying to us, "do you see...(insert one) a dragon, a lovely lady carrying a child, an old, wise man in... in those rocks?" In response, we'd twist our heads and necks every which way to try to see what he was pointing at in the caves. He also would be the one to serve us our food from the waiter and he often mistakenly called something "squid" (from fried potatoes to pork)

--Pho, a bowl on every street
(pho is the morning breakfast for most Vietnamese. We had many but preferred French baguettes with Vietnamese coffee. The most memorable pho event, dare I share this, was eating pho AND chicken on the street. Generally, we avoided chicken. It's actually prohibited in restaurants in Vietnam because of avian flu. The only other place we ate chicken was in my cousin's eco-friendly restaurant where the chicken are raised in the backyard.)

--Son, a city full of stones
(My Son was a Cham village from the 10th-12th century that really was just a rubble of rocks. We recommend you skip it if you're ever in Hoi An and go to Angkor Wat. However, it was intereting to explore the Cham ethnic group and their history. They've been essentially wiped out in Vietnam and any survivors are strongly discriminated against.)

--Lac, a man who is deaf and mute
(Mr. Lac was a deaf and mute restaurant owner in Hue who's daughter made the best coffee we had in Vietnam, and we had some pretty good coffee. He was a great conversationalist, nonetheless, and arranged bikes for us and told us where to spend our time in Hue. The bike trip made for a memorable moment. More later.)

--CoffEE, a drink with "milk" and bread
(obviously, our much loved Vietnamese coffee had to make it into our song since we drank it 2-3 times a day. Oklay, it doesn't totally fit the rhythm of the song but hey...)

--That will bring us back to Ha, Hue, Hoi, Ho, Home.
(We noticed all the towns we chose to visit started with H's: Hanoi, Halong Bay, Hue, Hoi An, Ho Chi Minh City. And, for me, I get to go home.)

Okay, for Julio's blog readers, this may not compare with the fantastic and creative Drew's and Julio's song "It's all about aloo" (sung to the tune of "It had to be you" or Julio and Tricia's numerous versions of "Little Town, Quiet Village" from Beauty and the Beast. But, we had fun composing it although it took days to figure out what to do with coffee and "tea."

More later. We're doing well. Julio's totally enjoying spending time with my (blood and extended) family in Cambodia but eager to rest after our trip on a Thai beach. Lucky him. I'm back to DC on Friday, to work on Monday.

Vicky