I think the heat is making us all a little crazy at this point. Last night a few of the volunteers and I took cabs into the city center. We went to Fanny's for their monthly all-you-can-eat ice cream buffet. First of all, the roads were packed because they were having all kinds of excitement in the city because there's only 100 days remaining until Hanoi's 1000 year celebration. There were a bunch of stages set up all around one of the lakes with various types of performances. We even got to see fireworks!
Fanny's was complete chaos! It was PACKED when we got there. They had an ice cream bar, sorbet bar, fruit bar, toppings bar, and a chocolate fondue station. Mmm! Lots of great stuff. The blueberry and passion fruit sorbet were my favorites. I wasn't too impressed with the ice cream, but I also didn't try many flavors. One of our friends, Christian (from Austria), had 45 scoops! He was a machine. After getting our fill, we escaped to the busy streets in search for a bar. We didn't find any that had tables, so we decided to just head back to Peace House.
Apparently Peace House is in bumble. We can see the city from the roof, so it's not terribly far, but cab drivers aren't very familiar with the area. Our ride started out great - we had a young guy (20 years old) who was loving our attempts at speaking Vietnamese. He was hysterical...he put Laura on his walkie talkie to talk to someone else on the other end. The ride started to get old after an hour. We got out of the city and he had stopped to ask for directions, but we weren't having much luck. Vietnamese people are very willing to help and they always offer an answer, whether it's correct or not, in order to save face. I'm pretty sure none of people he spoke with actually knew where Peace House was even though we had the address and a little map. After nearly an hour and a half (the ride should only take 30ish minutes late at night), he pulled up to a construction site and told us to get out and walk down the road or pay more for him to drive around because he coudln't drive through. We're not very familiar with the area, plus it was super dark, so we weren't about to get out of the car. Even thought Vietnam is known for being a safe country at all hours of the night, we weren't very confident about walking. Finally, almost 2 hours after we began, we ended up back at Peace House. Ah! The language barrier is definitely a limitation for all of us English speaking volunteers! Our attempts at speaking Vietnamese are poor at best.
All the newbies got up this morning to head out for a city tour of Hanoi. Our first stop was at the Museum of Ethnology. It was interesting - there were exhibits inside and out describing the various ethnic groups in Vietnam. I'm excited to get to Sapa, where we'll get to see some of Vietnam's hill tribe peoples. Afterwards, we stopped in a local shop for pho. This is a traditional Vietnamese dish, consisting of noodles, vegetables, and meat in a clear broth. It was tasty! Vietnamese people eat pho anytime of day - breakfast, lunch, or dinner! It's interesting that Vietnamese people eat three large, hot meals a day compared to Westerners who typically eat one hot meal and two lighter meals. Next, we hopped on a bus (with air-conditioning!) to the city center for traditional, handmade Vietnamese ice cream by the lake. We were all feeling the heat by that point, so we split ways to get to our accommodations. Mom and I are staying at the Sunshine 3 Hotel in the Old Quarter. It's heaven! We're going to get a GREAT night's sleep tonight in the airconditioning and comfy beds. Life at Peace House is great, but very rustic and basic. It'll be nice to enjoy a night in the city.
That's all for now...we'll spend today and tomorrow in Hanoi...work officially begins on Monday!
P.S. We'll post some pictures soon...my computer is terribly slow, so I haven't taken the time to upload.
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