Vietnam

In Vietnam there are lots of food stands and markets. The markets are like the farmers market except much more crowded and people beg you to buy their product. They believe that they have to sell fresh meat. We saw someone cutting off living frogs heads with scissors. They also believe that if you are stupid you have to eat brains. They were selling pig hearts, pig liver, pig guts, and pig brains. The brains were so small!

Here everyone rides motorcycles and the city is very loud because everyone uses there horns. There is so much traffic!

We went on a tour of the cu chi tunnels. South Vietnam hid in them during the war. This is one of the entrances when the door is closed. The cover it completely with leaves.

Here is the door when it is open. It is such a small entrance!

 

 This is a guide in entering the tunnel. The tunnel goes on for 250km!

 

 The tunnel is so short even my younger sister had to duck. We all went in the tunnel but only my older and younger sister crawled for a while. The rest of us just checked it out and came back up. If you are claustrophobic you should not go in the tunnel. 

In Vietnam there are sooooooooo many wires! Usually there are more wires than this!

There are lots of people going around while pushing carts of stuff that they are selling. But some people don't have carts and they have a wooden poles that have baskets on either end. The pole goes over there shoulder and it looks really heavy!

We went to a temple and there were these things hanging on the ceiling. Everyone who buys one writes someones name on it and sets fire to the end of it. Then, they make a wish and when the thing is burnt completely then the wish comes true.

Also, in Vietnam you see lots of sticks lit on fire. They are called incense. They burn all over Vietnam and it smells a lot better than the streets! People put them in trees wishing for good luck! In the picture there are pots full of sand with incense stuck inside of it.

When we were visiting a huge temple some Asian people asked to take a picture with me.  I was squished in the middle of all of them.

We are in Hoi An Vietnam. This is the Chinese bridge.

 

In Hoi An we are staying in a house. It is right across from the beach. This is me, my mom, my older sister, and my younger sister diving into the waves.

On the beach there are tons of these boats made out of bamboo. People take them out into the ocean in the morning and then they come back in the afternoon with lots of fish.


 Hoi An is known for their lanterns. They are all made of silk.  The streets are so colorful.  It is really beautiful!

                                     

 At night girls are selling paper baskets with candles in them. They are selling them right by a river. We bought one and then we put in a basket on the end of a pole and lowered it into the river. The river is very petty with these floating down it!

This is us in the front of a bike. it was really fun being pushed back to our hotel!

Next, we went to stay at a place very close to the phong nha caves.  It had a balcony where you could watch the sunset.

We went on a tour. First we went to paradise cave. It was huge and I had never been in a cave like this. Our guide said that the rock grows one cm every 100 years! So to have stuff this big it must take forever!

The second cave that we went in was called the dark cave. But I call it the mud cave. We don't have any pictures because if we brought our camera it would get ruined. First, t was super dark so we had yellow helmets on and on our helmets we had headlamps. We were only up to our ankles in mud but there was mud every where. we had to climb over muddy rocks and if the guide didn't think you were muddy enough he would cover your arms and neck with mud. But our legs were already muddy. After 45 minutes of trudging through mud we came out of the cave. Since we were so muddy we came out where water was. we got in the water and swam to get the mud off. The water got so deep really quickly but we all had to put on life jackets. We were swimming, still in the cave but the guide told us to turn our headlamps off. It got really dark and you couldn't see the bottom. When we finally got out of the cave we jumped in the blue river. It was a lot better because it was light outside!

 We went on a two night cruise in Halong Bay. There are 1969 islands in Halong bay. We only stopped at one. But the one that we stopped at had a cave in it. We ate dinner in a cave. That is the coolest place that I have ever eaten dinner in. A cave on an island in Halong Bay!!

From Han Oi we had to take an overnight train to Sapa. In Sapa there are a lot of women who make things. They fallow you until you buy something from them. This is them when we got out of the van at the place where we were staying. 
Someone who worked there told us to tell four of five of them that they were our friends and then only those four of five would give us tour. We didn't exactly do that. When we walked into the crowd of people two of them came up to me and told me that I was there friend. My sister and I had two friends, my dad had three friends and my mom had 8 or 9 friends! We had about 16 friends with us when were only supposed to have 4 or 5!!!  My two friends are the ones on the left. The woman with the white coat and the woman behind her.



These are my dads friends.


We went into one of my mom's friend's house. This is there kitchen and the bathroom was a hole in the ground and there was no curtain or bamboo around it!


This is the woman whose house we went in. Even her baby has something on her head!



We went on a street food tour. We went to so many stands! All of the food was really good! I even ate a worm pancake! But that one wasn't good! We went through a market and we saw pigs feet and pigs nose.  At the end of our tour we got something called an egg coffee. It is regular coffee with vanilla, sugar, sweet and condensed milk which is really thick sweet yummy milk, and an egg yolk. It is so good it tastes like liquid carmel! After that we got really weird frozen yogurt. We got chocolate, passion fruit, avocado, and wild rice. They were all really good. Except for the chocolate one.

This is the first food stand that we ate at. It was fried rice paper pocket with crab and pork in it. I am not a big fan of fish but this wasn't too bad. I would have never eaten at a street food place if if we were not on a tour. I would be worried that I would get sick!

This was another street food stand. This is a really yummy desert with coconut milk with tapioca pearls and banana slices. YUM!

This is my favorite place that we ate at. It was another noodle soup. There are so many noodle soups like pho. But this is the best noodle soup that I have had in Asia!