Hanoi, Sa Pa and Luang Prabang

OK. So you go to an 'exotic' place on your travels. The food is a huge drawcard. Amazing flavours are bound to be everywhere, in every dish. But is this the reality?

During the first few days of wanting to experiment with 'everything', you do several things.

One: eat where the guidebook says, which can be a problem if the review is old, the place has become super popular (and therefore average), or if its just not your style. Timing is everything if you follow the guidebook. Too long after the review and its become a sea of tourists all too afraid to admit the food might be boring or bad (but more about tourist denial later).

Two: you follow the locals (or ask a local) in an effort to find the cheap and authentic food heart of the place. You steer clear of tourists and order by pointing at a picture or mimicking the movements of the animal (not recommended unless you can withstand group humiliation in a foreign language). But eating 'local' can disappoint because as is true of many places, day to day cuisine is based on the commonest, easiest ingredients, often not that exotic. So noodle soup flavoured with pepper is the local 'food', but there's nothing that exotic about flavoured water if you were after a taste sensation never before had.

Three: eat where you see the most people eating (and where locals outweigh tourists). This can be a great guide as it means you often get great quality, but what if you don't know what to order? You can end up with steak and chips like I did in Paris, when I thought I ordered something French-sounding with loads of butter and 'Frenchness'.

My point: It's really easy to go to a great place with great food and order the most mundane thing on the menu.

So maybe this is already somebody's life's work, but there definitely needs to be a plain language food guide to the world. One that dispels some of the exotocism from what can often turn out to be a fairly mundane reality of travel eating. And does some realistic 'interpreting' of common ingredients and regional cuisine. I mean, bread is still bread in bagel, baguette, flatstone, pizza base, roti, naan or worthless whitebread slice form. An like menu's the word over: Beef or chicken (or in some places pigeon and frog) still form the basis of most dishes.

This might seem like a cynical take from only a two-country jaunt and only 25 or so meals, but it's not. One dollar noodle soup prepared and eaten in a marketplace brimming with hardworking hill tribe women is a special experience, even if pepper is the only flavour. Average spring rolls eaten with a 180 degree view of Hanoi's nightscape across the colourfully lit Hoan Kiem lake is not to be scoffed at. And steamed spiced fish prepared by your own hands to a Lao recipe, and eaten in a riverside garden is unforgettable.

So all I'm saying is food is part flavour and part atmosphere. It's just that the proportions can change, depending where you are and what you order.

Kind of glad to leave the Hanoi zoom behind for the more sedate, but active pace of Sapa. It's less challenging to cross the street, the vendors come to you (and then follow and stalk you), and the streets are quickly mapped in the brain.

All these benefits aside from being an amazing location high up in the north Vietnamese mountains. With breathtaking views, friendly people, fantastic, basic food and pleasures like hangin' out with the Hmong and Red Zha ladies in the town square. Such amazing and hard working women, but so generous with their smiles and patience with teaching me even the most rudimentary Vietnamese. One lady told me her one year old learned faster. No wonder - all that mountain air!

The train from Hanoi is pretty rattly and swaying, in little berths that are pretty generous by Eurail standards. The guy who picked me up from my hotel drove me to the station on the back of his motorbike. It was a thrill to zoom through the Hanoi streets and be part of the 'flow' for a change. Then he put me right in the cabin - thank goodness too - the train platform system is non-existent and I would never have even found the right train without him. Was bunked in with two nice Netherland ladies and we passed some time comparing notes and sharing stories about how ripped off we've been. Fifty cents for 5 Hanoi donuts, you must be kidding!

At the other end there is chaos. Offered lifts from a million guys with cars and vans and motorbikes. I was tempted to try the bike, but was so tired from the train, thought I might fall off. Sapa is an hour away too, so glad I didnt in the end. The sun was rising on the trip as we drove upward on the windy road to Sapa and was up by the time I arrived. The bastard driver who charged too much, dumped me in the town square and pointed me in the wrong direction for my hotel. I had walked about two kms up a hill before giving up and hailing a motorbike guy back down. Turn out I was dropped about 200m from hotel. But you know, you believe people when they say things like they know what they are talking about. And I did get to see some stuff from the road that was pretty.

Today I trek to some local villages and then stay at the mountain retreat. I am so excited about going somewhere quiet (everywhere has been a 5.30am city of industry under my window). I hope I can sleep with all the quiet. When I get somewhere with decent internet and computers that will take my SD card reader, I'll upload more pics.

Also, I might see if I can work from "home" in Sapa. I had noodle soup and a beer in the marketplace yesterday for $3.00. I am home!

So I really thought that since I am old enough to remember life and personal communication before mobile phones and facebook, that I'd not be the type to run to the computer the minute I see I have a laptop provided in the hotel room at my holiday destination of Hanoi. But alas, here I am, even blogging. Mostly because I made (what might be just sleep deprived) amusing observations of my journey from the airport. And I am trying to establish a new writing routine. Also, I'm excited and alone on holidays so the computer is 'my new friend to giggle with'.

First, my driver, the slick and fancy 13 year old, who snatched my name out of the hand of the guy actually holding the sign at the airport. There was some kind of pecking order based on good looks and age I suspect. (His, not mine)

So I'm scuttling after him to the waiting car with him talking out of both ears at once with his mobiles, very talented. But I am surprised to find him silent and non-communicative on the drive. Not much English (or not that he wanted to share with me - his grandmothers age) anyway. I am quite tired, and so very content not to have to think about things or answer questions that he doesn't want to ask anyway.

Okay, it's been 6 years since the first harrowing experience of being a vehicle passenger in Vietnam. I find I am now 'charmed' by the dangerous tailgating and what seems like rude pushiness and impatient honking. But the honking is a language in itself (perhaps not worthy of a technical communications article), but a form of communication nonetheless. And since last time, the actual horn mechanism has been modified to produce a veritable vocabulary of different sounds. There's the usual toot and repeat, toot and repeat, faster. But there's also a kind of half toot wail effect and an ullulating horn warble that seemed to be used as a sustained warning of some kind. There's also a combo chorus of some or all that has a mysterious sentence-like vibe. Interpretation is impossible. We use speed cameras to reduce the road toll, Viet Nam modifies the car horn. Economical and logical.

Anyhow, I'll save that fasinating cultural deconstruction for another blog. Possibly one later tonight after too much great food, too much semi-cold beer and the free bottle of white wine that came with the room. Needless to say I made it to the hotel in one piece. I did have to be assisted out of the car however, as I have not yet bought a personal horn to ward off the oncoming traffic.

Getting the hell away from this contraption now.

Anyone who knows me, probably knows how I would answer this question: with a resounding NO! However, the holiday of which I am already overblogging about is a mere two week trifle in well-populated, tourista-ed trails in SE Asia. I am not trekking alone across the Mongolian tundra! So really, how much should I prepare, and when should I bloody-well stop? Here are some options I give myself.

Option 1: Self-sabotage
Organise everything within an inch of departure and then deliberately leave some things behind that I think are critical now (such as dental floss and that third pair of socks). No. I don’t think I want to spend the entire flight anxious about my dental hygiene.

Option 2: Extreme 180
At the last second, be extreme and just take whatever I can wear and fit in a small backpack – buy everything else! No. That’ll piss me off if I spend money on socks, only miss out on having my picture taken with a huge lizard.

Option 3: OCD, OCD and more OCD
Make more lists about what to take and what to do. Synch it all with mobile phone and email, as well as making print copies for your mother. Continue to obsess about how many spare ziplock bags to take and which pockets of the backpack require padlocks. Seems extreme and I experience a distinctive kind of embarrassment that goes with admitting I do these things.

Option 4: Self-centred hippy approach
Just do what feels right. If you want to obsess, obsess. If you want to leave stuff at home, leave it. If you need another list, make it. Embrace your eccentricity as part of the holiday. Remember: all decisions are YOURS, you negotiate with NOBODY, you seek the approval of NO-ONE! But for your own sake, take the time to relax and enjoy!

(3 days, 13 hours and 9 minutes til departure)

Well that might be just my opinion.

I sort of wish I was the 'buy a plane ticket, chuck some stuff in a bag, get on plane and see what happens type', but I'm just not. I love to research the best value accommodation, things within walking distance, monitor the exchange rate, contemplate the merits of certain backpacks and listen to sound bites of the spoken language (then promptly forget them). Fretting about money and missed connecting flights is just all part of it.

As a random kickstart to the travel blog (which may not even make it beyond day one of the journey), I thought I'd make a list of some sites I've visited and google terms I've used in preparation.

Useful sites

One Bag - I wish I could follow all this advice, as the principle is excellent.
Trip Advisor - I've never booked accommodation without consulting it (but take care to sort the finnicky from the truly justified, and the ad-vertising from the genuine travellers).
Agoda - For pretty good discounts on accommodation
Evernote (on computer and Android app) - for keeping a copy of all my stuff together, wherever I am.
Six on sixteen (and connected hotels) - I'm staying at all three sites. Community-minded, ethical, fairly priced, food-oriented, perfect.
WikiTravel - Practical facts, history, advice, recommendations, etc, in familiar wiki form. You can tell some info is advertising though.
xe - for currency exchange rates (barely resembling what you actually get.

Google terms

Sapa tourism, tubing laos (no, am definitely not going to do this), tropical travel shoes, climate [region], shopping in Hanoi, Uncle ho's tomb, monk parade, night markets luang prabang, mountain retreat sapa, best restaurant sapa, ethical elephant treks review, elephant orphans laos, cooking classes, 4 days in laos, 2 days in hanoi, tamarind community dinner, a million other things as they occur to me...

I love lists. Especially lists about travel. That's why I put the google terms one, just so I could make another list.
(oh, mental note Claire, don't forget dental floss, nail polish and warm socks.)