I wasn’t even going to bother writing about Hanoi, the city I like to call hannoying.

Hannoying has the craziest drivers I’ve experienced so far in Southeast Asia. They use their horns for everything and anything and run red lights and hope for the best. Locals walk right into you and taxi drivers yell at you if you don’t use their services. 12:30 am is the public curfew.  Beggars beg for you to buy something from them.

Good thing I’ve decided to find the good in every place I go even if i don’t like it. The upside simply came from two encounters I had at the Hoan Kiem Lake.

I walked to the Lake and sat on a bench alone. A 17 year old Vietnamese boy approached me and asked if he could practice speaking English with me. At first I thought awe man here we go, this has to be some sort of a scam, so the first thing I asked was why do you want to practice English? He replied that his school doesn’t teach English very well. That made me a little more comfortable, plus he was a youngen. He spoke English pretty well and asked what a few words meant. In return, he helped me with my Vietnamese pronunciations for hello, goodbye, excuse me and thank you. Edwards is his English name and when telling me his name he said it was like the Edward in Twilight. I told him I was team Jacob and he laughed, so I think he got the reference. 

The second encounter occurred when another Vietnamese guy approached us and was speaking Vietnamese to Edward. He asked if he could practice with me too. Edward politely got up and said now it is his turn if you would like. I can’t remember his name because it was hard pronounce. He spoke pretty well and was asking all sorts of questions. He is majoring in finance so when he found out that I was in accounting he asked what the big 4 accounting firms ask in their interviews, because one day he’d like to work in America for one of them. He was big on trying to sound American, he said he wanted to have an American accent.

Another good thing was Bia Ha Moi beer, which is a locally brewed beer and the pho wasn’t bad. I really like the pho back home because there is more meat in it and it includes tripe.

The Woman carry produce with two rattan baskets and a pole that crosses their shoulder. They cook on the ground on the sidewalks.

So glad to be leaving to Halong Bay for a 3 day 2 night junk boat cruise.