Vietnam Day 2: Settling In

Quynh shared my room with me because she didn’t want to ride home so late in the night on her motorcycle. I showered and went to bed and fell FAST asleep. In the morning, she was already gone since she had work, and my brother came in to check up on me. I then learned my throat was pretty sore from trying to yell over the music. All from trying to talk people out of drinking too much. I need to figure out a more effective and efficient way of doing so, because talking it out is pretty useless :P

Anyway I got ready and started packing, because I thought we were going to head to Bai Chay (where my dad’s hotel is) and took a while. My brother finally tells me that there was no need to pack up so soon, we were only going to breakfast T__T! At the café, it felt really weird. I had ordered Banh My Pate, which I expected to come out like those Viet subs… but I got a real sandwich with toasted bread slices, tomatoes, lettuce, and pate. I sat there listening to English music, reading the English menu, watching my brother’s friends eat their cheeseburgers and tuna sandwiches, and felt a little depressed. Here I came excited to be immersed in my family’s culture, but so far all I’ve found is my own.

I couldn’t wait to head to familiar territory—I really wanted to see my cousins. We took a three hour ride from Hanoi to Bai Chay, and I felt more at home. We got to my dad’s home (formerly a hotel long ago) and got our swimsuits out! Billy and Nicole didn’t feel well, so Tony, John, Kyle, Kirby, Dave, Daniel & I headed out to the beach. I’ve never experienced something like this before and it was really cool. There were a lot of people, and the water was ridiculously warm. I noticed that not many females were rockin’ the two-piece and so didn’t feel comfortable taking anything off. My little sister came along afterwards, and trying to convince her to get in the water, I had to carry her and walk into the water fully clothed. It was worth it though to get her comfortable with the swimming :P The guys were throwing around a football, and attracted a lot of attention. Soon people were joining in, and we were definitely having a good time :)




Meet Dan
That night we had dinner at a restaurant near our place and had lots of seafood. I was full after just the shrimp and crabs. One of the waitresses was sitting down with us feeding my sister and I figured she was a family friend. Turns out she was my cousin… WTF LOL.


Kirby, Dave & Kyle trying to eat crab

Walking back to the hotel, I stopped in my tracks when I saw who was sitting inside. MY COUSINS!!! :D (from my mother’s side). I was so happy to see them. Hoang, Duong, and Tung are the three boys from my mom’s side who are close to my age and together we make quite the adventurous team B) ! Que Anh is Tung’s younger sister, and it really doesn’t seem like she grew at all these past two years, haha. Tung, on the other hand, is so goddamn tall now! He’s even taller than Hoang, who is turning 18 on the 26th, and I think is only 14? Or 15? Must find out.


Duong, Hoang, John, Tung & Que Anh

My brother’s friends went to get massages while we stayed to catch up with our cousins and aunt. We ended up going for a walk and went to the night market they have there. It’s just a complete tourist trap and my brother had this silly idea to pretend we didn’t know Vietnamese and see if anyone would rip us off. Let’s just say we got found out near the end of it, and my brother got told he’d get his ass kicked one day LMAO. My aunt was not impressed. We sat down for some drinks after. I had iced coffee, which turns out didn’t really work on me. When we got back to the hotel we said our goodbyes and they left to go back to Ha Long Bay.

With my brother’s friends still not back yet, John and I decided to go to an Internet Café before the night winded down and everything closed. It was pretty useless though because I wanted to go on Hotmail, and every time I did Internet Explorer would just crash on me T__T I was left with Facebook, but no one is up at 10AM! (Except Jeanette HAHA.) I couldn’t even work on my blog because I typed everything out on my laptop first. Epic fail.

When we got back we came right after everyone else got home, and learned that although they received great massages (and more for some…) they all got ripped off, and had paid the “white price” haha. Some people had been confused into paying a tip, when really there was no need because everything had already been paid for, in which the extra money was already included. We hung out outside for a long while and then ate some midnight snacks.

Right now, I am extremely tired, but super paranoid. While I was showering I started to remember all those ghost stories my cousins had told me during my last visit. Now, the place I’m staying at definitely has no creepy history, but just thinking about bad spirits wandering around Vietnam scares the heck out of me. If there’s one thing I’m sure to believe in, that’s ghosts/spirits, even if I haven’t had any personal experiences with them. I think what’s really bugging me is the fact that I have to sleep alone in my room. I’m going to have to sleep eventually, but I think it’ll be with the light on. Damn, my laptop is almost out of batteries and I don’t think it’s safe to plug mine into the outlets here. I will have to find an energy converter lying around. The sun doesn’t look to be rising anytime soon :( Why am I such a baby!!!!!