Julia and I went back and forth on where visit in Vietnam. We had heard mixed reviews on visiting this country.  There seems to be a complicated relationship with tourists-understandable so. Partly for this reason, we decided to make one stop in Vietnam:Hanoi.  There was some discussion of going to Ho Chi Minh City and working our way up (we hear Hoi An is a beautiful place) but getting up the country is tough.  It’s a long place and we didn’t want to take our lives into our own hands with night buses (again we heard mixed reviews on the safety.) In the interest of ‘less is more,’ we chose Hanoi with a side trip to Ha Long Bay.

Hanoi is one of the most insane places I’ve ever visited.  Traffic zips around in every directions with little, or no regard to pedestrians.  Julia and I would literally cross the street, holding hands (at a cross-walk mind you, typically while cars had a red light) by saying “Ok, ready? Set?  Go!”  Red-lights don’t mean much in this town.  Traffic stops when the other opposing cars start. . .sometimes. I still couldn’t tell you what side of the street people are supposed to drive on because people drove everywhere.  There was no look left OR right.  It was look left, right, left, right, GO!

We would just look at one another and think “how does this work?” The locals do it best.  More often than note we would try  to be in close proximity to a little old lady crossing the street, navigating her way through the craziness, and follow suit.

The sidewalks were also huge predicaments.  Motorbikes were parked all over the sidewalks with little room to actually walk.  One night we were heading home. I slipped on the water being thrown on the street, fell on all fours and nearly flat on my face as a gaggle of old Vietnamese women watched me and gasped in horror.

In Hanoi, we walked around the city taking in the sights and sounds.  We visited the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ where John McCain was a POW.  This place felt a little propaganda-y.  The museum started off by explaining how it was built during the French occupation of Japan to hold Japanese prisoners.  It talked on and on about how poorly these prisoners (mostly “revolutionaries”) were treated.  I’m sure they were treated quite bad.

Then it goes into a section on when the prison was used during the Vietnam War (known as “The American War,” or “The War Against Us Interference.”)  The pictures and videos depict smiling American POW loving life in prison; playing basketball, eating hearty food, decorating a Christmas tree, making arts and crafts.  The whole thing was just bizarre.  I’m not one to get into a political debate, especially regarding whether or not we were justified in entering Vietnam, but there seemed to be very little responsibly taken for the tragedies Vietnam put its own people through.  Before visiting the country, I read a book called “The girl in the picture.”  It was the story of the iconic Vietnam War picture of a young girl running naked down a dirt road screaming after a napalm attack from her own country.  This book opened my eyes to the plight on the Vietnamese people during this time.  This museum felt quite one-sided.

This appeared to be a theme throughout our visit.  Sometimes outright, sometimes underlying.  Either way, it was felt.  We were in our hostel lobby one morning, when we struck up a conversation with the receptionist who worked there; a girl named Min.  She was about my age and was very open to talk to us about anything: Vietnamese attitude towards Americans, problems with her government, her hopes for her son.  She had gone to university with Americans and was friends with many.  She told us a story of how one day she and her American friends were traveling around Vietnam when they arrived to a small village.  They walked into town and met an old couple who started to cry when they saw the Americans.  When Min asked them if they were okay the people told her whenever they saw American men they were scared and fearful for their lives.  It was hard to process stories like these.

The highlight of our trip was visiting Ha Long Bay.  We went on a 3-day, 2-night cruise.  The highlight was definitely NOT our room!

Ha Long Bay is downright beautiful.  We spent our days exploring the caves, kayaking, and taking in the vastness of this natural wonder.

We spent one afternoon kayaking or as Julia would say “floating around  and taking pictures.”  Kayaking always starts out fun until you are exhausted and yelling at one another to “pull your own weight and start paddling harder;” not a direct quote, I’m just assuming that’s what sisters would say to one another.

On our second day, we sailed through the bay to a little island.

Vietnam was a stark dichotomy in every way possible.  Extreme friendliness of people we encountered, coupled with sheer rudeness from others.   Unbelievable beauty in places like Ha Long Bay; piles of trash floated down the river beside our boat.  Delicious food from street vendors; the unspoken but known fact that they eat our furry friend-cats and dogs.

We felt we had to be more aware in this city than anywhere else we had been previously.  Scams were prevalent, people would rip us off, and this began to permeate our experience a bit.  On one of our last nights, Julia and I were sitting in a park, waiting for our city food tour to start a couple blocks away, when a group of college kids walked up to us.  My first thought was  “Oh geez.  I wonder what this is going to be?” Turns out the kids wanted nothing more than to sit and talk with us to practice their English.  Julia and I talked to this group for almost an hour about everything under the sun.  It was a simple, highlight of the trip.  Sweet, kind, interesting kids wanting nothing more than to share in a conversation.

It made me realize, as I have time and again on this journey, that stereotypes and generalizations are probably the worst things that can happen to us as humans.  It’s so easy to let the negatives resonate.  The challenge is to continue to see the best in a culture, country and individual people.