Vietnam part one!

 After we moved from our dope place in Thailand, I wouldn’t say that it got any worse. We were in Hoi An city, which is THE place for Vietnamese New Year! And keep reading if you would like to know more.

In this town when we arrived it was very late so as soon as we got into our one night hotel in Ho Chi Minh we went to sleep. After one night in Ho Chi Minh, we flew into the city of Hoi An to settle for the Vietnamese New Year! While we were Hoi An, we did some touristy stuff like going on a river boat and lighting lanterns. When we got back, we chilled at our hotel for a little before dinner. 

Our hotel was a super cool hotel called the Lasenta. In this wonderful hotel they had, a pool, a billiards table, a koi fish pond, a gym, and a really nice restaurant! It was rainy most of the time that we were there but it was still fun. We stayed at the Lasenta for 7 days! I used the gym and billiards table for most of the days there. The last really cool thing about this hotel is that there was rice patties right across the street! In the rice patties, the farmers own water buffalo that are used for the same purposes as oxen in the USA. The water buffalo were so cool, and I love them because they are the calmer version of Cape buffalo and because I like bovines!

For dinner we went to a really amazing NYC diner! This was a really nice dinner because it gave us a little taste of home. At the diner I ordered a Philly Cheesesteak that was pretty legit. My Dad ordered a cheeseburger that came with French fries and ketchup. Having real ketchup was super awesome because we had not had real ketchup since Florida! After that we topped it off with an exceptional milkshake!

The next couple days we did Vietnamese New Year themed activities. One of those cool activities was a small boat you took in the evening to release your lanterns onto the water. It was an amazing sight to see all of the little lights floating calmly on the water. We also ate at a place near the river called the Hillstation. The Hillstation had really good appetizers, some of which included a cheese platter and a little snack sized sandwich plater. AKA a crook mesieur as they say in French. The cheese plater was simply delightful because it had the following cheeses: Blue cheese, Gouda, and Brie! I enjoy all nice cheeses but Blue cheese is definitely my favorite. It is a beautiful combo of smooth and salty. If you can believe it the platter also came with some slices of a baguette! It was delightful! All of these awesome cheese platers went into my belly when my Dad took me on a dudes night (dudes night = cheese, movies, and fun).

Moving on from cheese platters, with the rest of our time in that cluster of towns we visited some cool sights. One of the things that we did was a lantern making class. In that lantern making workshop, we crafted our own lanterns and decorated them from scratch. Even though lantern making seems pretty   easy, it is not. It took us around 2 hours of strenuous work to craft the semi-perfect lantern. In the end our lanterns turned out pretty good, and right now they are traveling around in our backpacks coming along on this adventure! 

The other workshop that we did was a traditional painting workshop at the same place where we made the lanterns. In the painting workshop you learn how to do a traditional style of painting and eventually progress to create your masterpiece. The first step is to break down the scene that you want to make in the   end and practice the style of painting of each component. With my painting, I visualized what it will turn out to be first, and then went to practicing painting the different components until I mastered each and every one. The painting that I did consisted of a small bamboo island, a moon shrouded in mist, a traditional fishing boat, and a river for the boat to float on. Once you practice them on paper, then you move on to the final step, which is on fabric. After you paint the whole scene on the fabric, you’re done! It turned out to be a 1 hour process. Right now those are wrapped up next to our lanterns.

A couple days after the painting, we went on a VERY long tour where we definitely got our money’s worth. This tour was of all of the temples and tombs of the surrounding region and trust me that was a TON of tombs and temples. For those temples there’s not much to say. They were pretty cool and very big. There was a lot of koi fish in a couple of the temples ponds and you could buy fish food to feed them ( koi fish are the only fish that will help the humans in the end on the world AKA the Fish Era ). The car ride to the temples was super long but it was worth it in hindsight.

After the temples we went to Hanoi, which is a wonderful city. And in that wonderful city we planned a meet with two readers from the audience. These two people are my Mom’s friends. I will tell you more about these mystery people in my next blog, Vietnam part two!   -SilaG    

Pics:

One of the temples

A temple

The rice patties outside of the Lasenta

My dad looking at the sky

A shop at night

Night boats on the river

Some of the koi fish

Me at the doorway of a temple

My dad peering out from the flowers

Me with the front of a river boat

A lantern shop

Us painting

Some garlic and cheese bread

Me painting

Us biking on the Lasenta’s bikes

Us with our homemade lanterns behind us

A scented candle store that we stoped at

Me with the lantern frame that I made

Us painting

The Dragon Bridge

Scented candles

Us eating our garlic and cheese bread

Dudes night!

An example painting

Dudes night!

Me at a temple doorway

Me putting the felt on my lantern

A floating lantern 

A street painter

My Dad looking daringly at the dragons eyes

Me on the night boat

Me at a temple

Us at the lantern making workshop

A bowl of pho

Water buffalo!

My dad peering at a statue

Our finished paintings

The water buffalo!