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Welcome to Vietnam
A lot of good, some bad, and one very ugly moment
I cannot tell a lie, the journey to Vietnam was arduous. The 14-hour flight from New York to Japan was only bearable because I got an upgrade to Business Class on Continental Airlines where there was lots of food and 300 movies on-demand (I made the leap and saw the one movie I had always imagined was the scariest movie of all time, The Exorcist. And guess what, it really wasn't that horrifying. I mean, why don't they ever explain why the little rich girl played by Linda Blair was chosen by the devil to be his vessel?).
Anyway, I digress. Then from Japan, I had to hop on another six-hour flight to Hanoi, which added up to a full day of travel time. I was so dehydrated, I felt like I'd been wandering the desert for a week. And the time difference is also brutal: it's exactly 12 hours, so when it's 2 p.m. in New York, it's 2 a.m. in Hanoi. Luckily, I arrived into the lap of luxury at the InterContinental Hanoi Westlake a stylish, mod Vietnamese nouveau hotel in Hanoi, built almost entirely oveHr the water. And the water is important in Vietnam, because if you look at the country on a map, it's a thin strip along the southeast coast of Asia, bordered by China to the north, and Laos and Cambodia to the west, and the ocean — The Gulf of Tonkin to the east and the South China Sea to the south.
It was near midnight when I arrived and I liked the veil of darkness. Tomorrow I would wake-up and everything around me would be a surprise. I was starving, so I ordered my first bowl of Pho (pronounced "Pha"), a flavorful, hot Vietnamese rice noodle soup topped with fresh sprouts and think slices of beef. I would have it every day of the trip for breakfast, but just then, it was absolutely the perfect pick-me up, fortifying and relaxing, like chicken soup when you feel a cold coming on.
Anyway, I digress. Then from Japan, I had to hop on another six-hour flight to Hanoi, which added up to a full day of travel time. I was so dehydrated, I felt like I'd been wandering the desert for a week. And the time difference is also brutal: it's exactly 12 hours, so when it's 2 p.m. in New York, it's 2 a.m. in Hanoi. Luckily, I arrived into the lap of luxury at the InterContinental Hanoi Westlake a stylish, mod Vietnamese nouveau hotel in Hanoi, built almost entirely oveHr the water. And the water is important in Vietnam, because if you look at the country on a map, it's a thin strip along the southeast coast of Asia, bordered by China to the north, and Laos and Cambodia to the west, and the ocean — The Gulf of Tonkin to the east and the South China Sea to the south.
It was near midnight when I arrived and I liked the veil of darkness. Tomorrow I would wake-up and everything around me would be a surprise. I was starving, so I ordered my first bowl of Pho (pronounced "Pha"), a flavorful, hot Vietnamese rice noodle soup topped with fresh sprouts and think slices of beef. I would have it every day of the trip for breakfast, but just then, it was absolutely the perfect pick-me up, fortifying and relaxing, like chicken soup when you feel a cold coming on.
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