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Vietnam turned out to be better than I expected. To be honest, I actually didn't have much expectations for it and it wasn't even on one of my to-see list. I found the people to be friendly and more polite than I had thought. The city wasn't as dirty or poluted as I had expected. There was actually some blue skies and I was able to see the city, unlike Guang Zhou where the smog is so heavy that you're lucky to see much of the skyline. The buildings are cleaner than I had thought, unlike Taipei for example where a monotone grey takes over the city.
One thing similar to Taipei though is the amount of scooters on the streets, except that these one bend the traffic rules a lot more. In fact, the only rule it seems is that you have watch the vehicle in front of you. People don't even use their rear view mirrors in fact. Just don't make aby sudden movements and nobody gets hurt. The traffic will come at you in all directions but as long as you move in a steady manner, they will flow around you just like how a river current flows around the rocks in the water. It's a frantic symphony of cars, scooters, bicycles, and pedestrians which you really can't comprehend until you're in the middle of it all. So that's exactly what I did. Janey's dad had a moped and I said that's a must-do before I leave. I even doubled him on the back, because otherwise I would be lost like a blind-man without his stick. It was very exhilarating to ride like there are no rules. In reality, its very defensive and I think everyone in BC should be forced to do it at least once to make them a better driver. You're constantly on the lookout for dear-life and it was a great adreline rush to be honest. But, for that 20 minute ride, I probably breathed in a year's supply of carbon emmisions. There's so many people in this city (8 million to be exact) that the traffic bunches up and you're literally inches away from the next person. They pretty much use their scooter and moped for everything. I've seen a family of 5 all on one scooter so it is to them what a mini-van could be for us. They were carrying all sorts of things being on it from a large piece of glass to bags of styrofoam at the front and the back of the moped such that you can't even see the driver anymore.
We were lucky enough to have Janey's brother, Tai drive us and show us around. Most of the time was spent visiting Janey's family but we managed to check out some really good local food spots. My top favorite was this restaurant called Quan An Ngon on Pastuer Street close to the cityhall . This is a super busy restaurant in the main part of District One that serves up all kinds of vietnamese dishes. We tried to get in for dinner but there was a line right out to thew street. So we returned the next day for lunch and got a spot. Its in an old french building that's 2 storeys and has a reflecting pool which leads to an internal courtyard. It has a very nice colonial feeling to it. We some of their exotic fruit shakes, vietnamese rice dish, spring rolls and Vermicelli with Snails and it was delicious! Yes, yummy snails. And the bill came out to be $218000 Dong, which sounds like a lot but really was only about twelve bucks in Canadian. The fruits were also very yummy and sweet. We tried all sorts of exotic fruits that's not available back home so it was a real treat.
On the last night here, we met up with my Grand Uncle who I didn't realize I had until a few months before I left, thanks to Maggie. I've never met him and he was my only relative in Vietnam so I figure I should go and say hi. He was almost 80 but still very healthy. He walks as fast as I did, still has great hearing and sight. He still commutes in the crazy streets with his moped so that really speaks of his health and alertness. It was great listening to his stories and understanding more about my family tree on my father's side. I even recorded him so that I can someday draw out a family tree.
So all in all, I was glad I made the trip to Vietnam. Maybe next time, I'll go back to Hai Phong also. Well, time for bed to catch our early morning flight back home, just in time for christmas.
Bali is hot and beautiful. Sitting by the pool, staring at the beach outside with nothing on my mind except what to eat next is a welcome change. All we did for the first 3 days were sleep, wake up, eat, hang by the pool, and repeat. The kids really enjoyed it and if it was up to them, they would be in the pool all day even if they came out as wrinkly elephants.
Of course for me (the busy body) relaxing can only last so long so we decided to check out the main drag Kuta where all the shops, restaurants and bar were. Most of Bali only have 2 lanes, 1 for going each way with no parking lanes. Add in lots of taxis and scooters and you've got busy streets of meandering traffic everywhere. The sidewalk is about 3' tight where there happens to be one so us with kids and scooters didn't get too far in the small market type shops. Throw in 30+ degrees of high humidity heat and it basically means we're walking around in the mall instead.
The food so far was mediocre with the limited local food menu of Nasi Goreng, Mie Goreng, You Goreng, and Everybody Goreng. It didn't take many meals to get bored of that. The local fresh fruit juices are yummy but not as sweet as the last time we were here. I don't know if its because of the season. I have to say that Thailand is much better in terms of local etnic food and fruits.
On the 5th day, we decided to venture out a bit and chose to goto the biggest Elephant Sanctuary and Safari Park where they have a heard of 30 Sumatrian elephants. A lot of these were saved and brought here. There's a good museum and you're able to feed, pet, and even ride on the elephants. We had lunch at the park restaurant and its probably been the best food we've had so far. The price was more than what was in town but definitely worth it. The sercvice through the park was excellent. The moment we went in the park, we were escorted by our private tour guide who brought us around the different areas. As we were eating, I saw the owner, an Australian named Nigel Mason, who was walking around the park probably doing quality control. It was evident that he cared for the elephants and for his park. And it definitely shows in the food, the service, and the cleanliness of the park. We chose not to ride on the elephants because the kids were scared but we did watch the elephant show where they had elephants walk on a balance beam and play with soccer and basketball. They didn't have an elephant paint though and I was looking forward to that.
After the park, we got back on our private chartered tour bus and drove back into town. It sounds lux but the tour bus is basically a 7 passenger mini-van that we hired for $60 all day. Good deal really considering the park was 2 hours away and we had the vehicle and driver for 10 hours. On our way back, we decided to stop by Seminyak, another Beach district, north of the main one in Kuta. Janey wanted to look for some jewelleries and we found that there were a lot of neat little shops. The streets weren't that much more stroller-friendly than Kuta so we cut it short, but its on our come-back list.
We wanted to checkout this restaurant we saw on a trouist magazine called Chinoiserie. Its a chinese restaurant and the words "Spicy Singaporean Crab" caught Janey's attention. The space was beautiful with a bar/lounge like ambience. They had a few sections including a front room which was enclosed and air-conned, an outside dining area which was covered, an open internal courtyard area, and a raised open dining area that had views of rice patties behind. The furniture were all patio seating and it really added to the outdoor feel. We were treated to live jazz while we were there and our little girls really enjoyed it. The food was excellent and the service was beyond our expectation. The server recommended their signature drink Mango Bok Choy and the curious health freak in me couldn't turn it down. He explained it was basically Mango and raw Bok Choy blended together and the taste was nothing like what I expected. It was not as sweet as I had thought a Mango mix would be and not as bland as Bok Choy should be. It actually tasted more like Guava juice with a heightened freshness. We actually were suspecting if they didn't substitute the mango for Guava instead. We ordered Char Kuey Tu, Baby Bok Choy, and of course the Singaporean Spicy Crab. Everything was very good even the Man Tau (chinese bread) that came with it. It was deepfried so the outside is golden brown but the inside was still soft and moist. It was very similar to the Shanghai deep fried buns. It was so good that we ordered a side order and used it to dip the spicy sauce from the crab.
We gave them many compliments and asked for their business card. Instead the chef Allan Wong came out and gave us his personal business card. He speaks Cantonese and is a Malaysian Chinese. We found out that the restaurant has been open for a year and he was brought over from Malaysia about 9 months ago.
That pretty much concludes a long, but fun day out and about. We are not back at lounging poolside for our last day here. Tomorrow, we're catching an early morning flight to Vietnam.
Stay tuned for that update.
Some of you may or may not have heard that we missed our flight on Dec 10. We arrived at the airport just an hour before departure time. If all of us were holding e-tickets we would have made it on, but Janey's, Katelyn, & Kirsten were paper tickets, therefore we had to update our tickets to e tickets due to changes made to our routing. There was not enough time to make this change and get on the flight. Fortunately, there was a lady (Joyce) at the ticket counter which was extremely nice (for an Air Canada person at least). She went the extra mile to get us out of this disappointing and hopeless situation. We're not saying that she got us on our original flight, but she did manage to book us on the next one out the following day. The normal (and proper) procedure would've been to call Aeroplan and have them book us something, but we knew that wouldn't be possible cause when I called originally, there were no seats available after the 10th. So yeah, 3 cheers for Joyce!!
So the next day we arrived at the airport at 2.5 hrs early to make sure we don't miss our flight again. While we were lining up to check-in, Joyce came over and told everyone this line was for people who already have a boarding pass. We didn't but when she saw us she told us to wait there and personally helped us with the check in. To be honest, while we were heading to the airport Janey was hoping that Joyce would be there to help us so that there would be no other surprise complications. She's thank-ful for "The Secret" working for her once again. I was thank-ful that we told Joyce yesterday that we would write a nice compliment letter for her.
The flight was better than I had thought mostly because of Air Canada's upgraded entertainment system with Movies on demand. Most of the time, we're too busy to keep up with the latest movies, so its usually on flight that we do our catch-up. Katelyn was being very good and Kirsten slept through most of it.
Upon landing, we met up with our friend Karen in HK. She took us to a famous place "Under the Bridge Chili Crab" to eat crab. The crab was OK in my opinion, I think our crabs in Vancouver are much better. The price was not cheap either so don't take our food for granted guys.
Afterwards we headed over to Times Square to shop for a camcorder. We realized it would be cheaper to get it in Vancouver, so gone are the days when people use to go back to HK to get electronics.
We heard on the news later that at the same time we were there, there was an idiot who threw acid down the street from the apartment building above. We were only a few blocks away from this, but fortunately not the same street. 21 people got hurt and one lady got burnt very badly. There had been 4 similar accidents in Mong Kwok in the last 3-4 months and the police suspect it to be the same person. They said this guy chooses the busiest location to throw the acid. I hope the police find this person soon and stop him from causing anymore injuries. I can't help but wonder is this an accident or a cause of bad act? Does accident even exist or is it just cause and effect? But that's a topic for another discussion.
The next day, we headed out to the airport for our flight to Bali. Yes, we only stayed one night in HK. It was really a quickie in-out to visit our friend Karen.
