The Harsh Barge: Hanoi and Haiphong

Upon reaching our destination, we had a couple tasks to accomplish: 1.) Get sim cards 2.) Call couchsurfer people 3.) Find motorbikes 4.) BARGE. So straight from the plane we hit the ATM, and thanks to the Vietnamese exchange rate, we became millionaires (20,000 dong equals roughly $1 USD, so 1 million is about 50 bucks).

A couple days later, after we found bikes and were ready to make a purchase, we had to go to an ATM once again and withdraw money. We both had to withdraw 8-10 million, and the ATM was spitting out only 100,000 bills (the highest bill is 500,000, but apparently not all machines will have them). So here we were, with wads of cash over 3 inches thick, on the most touristy strip in Hanoi, lined with street vendors and 100-liter toting backpackers.

We were swarmed—a woman trying to sell us “I <3 Vietnam” shirts on our right, someone pawing us with Asian-style fans from behind, and another to our left showcasing trinkets and souvenirs. We tried our best to ignore them, but the vendors in Hanoi are much more aggressive than those in Bangkok or other places. At one point, we were in a restaurant eating, and a woman was coming inside and trying to sell us shirts. We said no, and she continued to pull out different sizes. I mean, I realize that this is what these people do for a living, to make money and survive, but just because we’re white foreigners doesn’t mean we’re millionaires—oh wait…

We left the airport with nothing to do and nowhere to go, so we found out which bus headed towards the city and we hopped on. The bus was a big ol’ clanker and took us through some rough county roads towards Hanoi. I didn’t know what the think of the scenery; all I’d been exposed to was Thailand, and I hadn’t seen much difference between the two besides that the Vietnamese drive on the right side of the road (fortunately for me, unfortunately for Conner, who had been used to Thailand’s left-side driving). We had no clue what stop to get off of, so we kept eyes peeled for other signs of white people, thinking that would lead us to the busy, touristy side of town where it would be easier to find something good to eat.

We got off at a busy stop called Long Bai. We crossed to street, being pestered by motorbike taxis, and started walking around aimlessly. At this point, I noticed a lack of street animals, and shortly after, saw some dogs locked in cages in front of a shop. This saddened me, since we’d heard talk to the Vietnamese killing, cooking, and eating street dogs and cats to be served in restaurants. Despite seeing this, I have yet to see any dead dogs at butcher shops or any alley cats on menus, so I’m just going to keep believing that they are only rumors.

We stumbled across a place that looked quasi-vegetarian, so we stopped and tried talking to the people who were working, ultimately getting lost in translation, but got the food ordered regardless. Conner was using his phone to translate English to Vietnamese to order vegan food, and one of the first suggestions that the app showed was “I can’t eat horse penis”, amongst many other disturbing “things” that we didn’t even know were edible.

After finishing our meal, we used the restroom, which is almost always marked “WC” (still haven’t figured out that translation yet). In Vietnam, and many other southeast Asian countries I assume, the restaurant that a family runs also doubles as their house, so when you use the restroom, you’re actually using their personal restroom, which isn’t always the cleanest (to American standards anyways). At this particular one, they didn’t want anyone taking a crap without their permission, which was unfortunate for Conner…

After talking to a moto-tour-guide man for a while about where to find motorbikes, we hit up a place called the “Hanoi Backpacker’s Hostel”—a lovely place where foreigners go to get a “real Vietnam” experience by drinking Tiger beer, playing traditional Vietnamese games like beer pong, reading Lonely Planet books in air-conditioned rooms, and using the hostel’s “Facebook machines” available on the 5th floor.

Other than being everything we try to stray away from, the Hanoi Backpacker’s Hostel front desk guy gave us a good tip on where to get good motorbikes. He handed us a card reading “Vietnam Motorbikes” with a simple map on the back of how to get there. We left the hostel and decided we would walk there to save money. After about ten minutes of walking through the insane packed streets of Hanoi in search of a road we couldn’t even pronounce, we decided it would be best to take a motorbike taxi. It wasn’t hard to find one, unsurprisingly, and after some intense haggling we persuaded a guy to fit us both on his bike and take us to the motorbike place for a couple bucks.

Before we left, I saw this sign. I imagine it’s a Wanted poster for a child molester, or maybe it says “Re-elect Dung for president of Hanoi Chess Club”, or perhaps “Professional Portrait Photography”.

Over the course of our adventure, we talked about the many definitions of the word “barge”. One of them being a word referring to a boat such as this. We’d see something like this and exclaim, “Look at that barge!” As this one passed under us, I thought about how feasible it would be to drop down onto it from the bridge, right on to the sand, and barge off into the sunset.

Near the end of the bridge we came upon two women selling ears of corn. Just out of curiosity, we peered over the edge and saw that the woman had been chucking the shucks behind their heads onto the riverside below for what looked like a hundred years. After seeing the thousands of disposed corn husks, Conner asked for a photo of the lady chuckers, who replied no.

View from the bridge.

Hanoi had some pretty intense traffic, especially around the area we were in. I was getting a little worried about maneuvering a motorbike through this congestion; I’d never drove/rode a motorbike before until a week earlier, not even in the U.S., and I was about to barge through traffic like this. It was ride or die, sink or swim—throw me in the water.

One of the first things I noticed when I got to Thailand was how haggard the power lines were: lines on lines on lines, cords on cords on cords. Vietnam proved even worse. Maybe they need to get a real electrician out here (Taylor Paige?).

We had gotten ahold of our couchsurfer host for the night, and it just so happens that his name is DAVID LETTERMAN. Well, actually his last name is Lederman, BUT STILL! So we got the OK to stay at his place for the night, so we got our bags and hopped in a taxi, but before doing so, Conner decided to buy some soy milk from this tofu lady, which he later said wasn’t that good.

Here’s us with the one and only DAVID LETTERMAN. He was a really nice guy, and offered to take us with him to some birthday dinner—the price: $15. Not used to spending over $2 on a meal, we decided to respectfully decline and stay at the apartment, to which Lederman offer his stock of food to us. We made a meal of rice, beans, and noodles, all compliments of Dave. He also offered us internet, air conditioning, and the first hot shower I’d taken in over a week.We’d struck gold with David Lederman. Here’s our awkward family photo. Or maybe it’s just me who’s awkward. And it kind of looks like I’m wearing heels…

Meal at David Lederman’s.

Sadly, we had to leave Lederman’s at 7:30 the next morning, for he had to go work where he teaches English classes. So we took off into the city by ourselves again, taking a bus and heading toward the Hanoi Backpacker Hostel that we had been at the day before. There, we dropped off our bags and used the hostel’s “Facebook machines” to do some couchsurfing messaging. Our plan was to send out as many messages to couchsurfers as possible, in hopes we could have an array of places to stay between camping. Our other option was to sleep at Buddhist temples. Apparently the monks offer places to sleep, as long as you ask first.

So after finishing our couchsurfing requests, we hit the city in search of vegetarian food. After some heavy searching, walking, and price comparing, we decided on a place that was a little pricey but nice.

“The monks are dressed different here,” I said jokingly to Conner. But it wasn’t a joke. Of course, these aren’t actually monks, they’re construction workers, but these orange-clad working men have practically replaced all orange-clad men of Buddha that we’d normally see in Thailand. What I mean to say is: there are NO monks in Vietnam, meaning there are NO Buddhist temples, which means there goes one of our options for a place to stay.

This picture needs little to no explanation.

One of the things we liked to do was find and take photos of scooters overloaded with stuff. At one point we grew bored enough to where we bought some cheap “bia” and found a spot overlooking a busy street at rush hour. We drank the beers and tried to find the most haggard loaded bike. I think this guy won.

Bia Ha Noi, one of the only cheap beers in Vietnam.

This woman won most-overloaded in the bicycle category.

After paying for and retrieving our bikes, we decided we would stay in Hanoi one more night, especially since we had another couchsurfer who was willing to host us. His name was Bao: a Vietnamese guy who spoke good English. Bao informed us that another couchsurfer would be staying with us—a girl from Portugal who had gotten some kind of parasite in her arm from the beach, and had to go to the hospital in the morning. We slept in this room, which was very hot and apparently occupied by cockroaches.

Not only was Bao kind enough to offer us a place to stay, he also translated some words that would make it easier for us to find vegan food. He wrote them down on a piece of paper that Conner put in his back pocket and would continue to use at every restaurant we’d go to afterwards.

The guy with the blond hair is Richie, the Scottish guy from Vietnam Motorbikes that sold us our hogs. He hooked us up with a map and marked some good destinations on it.

And then we were off. THE HARSH BARGE BEGINS.

I got through Hanoi traffic with little trouble, despite a little rain. We cruised along to our first destination: Hai Phong. About halfway, we decided to stop at a small town that we believe may have been called “Lai Cach”. Here, Conner made a friend, and we drank two cups of aeropressed PT’s coffee, along with a pitcher of bia for 20,000 dong (about $1).

Here’s Conner’s friend. We marked up our map a little more, then hit the road again towards Hai Phong, where we had another couchsurfer to host us for the night.

We arrived at Hai Phong without much trouble, and I met Conner at an all-vegan restaurant. The food was terrific—one of the best meals I’ve eaten in Vietnam so far. One of the fake meats there tasted exactly like some kind of cereal I couldn’t quite pinpoint (Conner said Cinnamon Toast Crunch but I don’t know).

Vegan pig ears, vegan snail, vegan gizzards, vegan liver slices, but no vegan horse penis…

Here’s a sampler from another sampler from a veg place in Hai Phong.Once again, I was eating food but had no idea what it was. Tasted great though!

Here’s the “couch” we surfed. Our host was Jennifer, an Aussie girl teaching English classes in Vietnam—a trend we started to see among couchsurfers. She was staying with some other foreigner teachers at a hotel, and she was kind enough to offer her room to us while she’d stay in her friends room. Another hot shower, another real bed, and wifi—perfect.

Then she took us out for a night on the town. Hai Phoung was nice—it was a Wednesday and hundreds of people were out, either laying next to the lake, having tea on the sidewalks, playing in the lawns with their kids, or drinking. We decided to drink, naturally, and found a nice little place where we had a table with a view over the lake. We all ordered the “cheap cheap” beer, and sat and talked of our travels. But something still wasn’t right. So we all decided to get up and find a different place, and boy, did we find one.

We stumbled across a bunch a plastic chairs and tables and a bunch of drunk Vietnamese guys, and it called out to us. We sat down at one of the dinky tables and two guys immediately joined us. We ordered beers but the two guys started paying for everything, and after downing our first one, they produced a sealed 7-Up bottle and began pouring it in our cups.

“Cool,” I thought, “dude’s hooking it up with the 7-Up.” Wrong, it was BEER! We drank all of it and they brought forth another sealed bottle, this one being Sunkist. Once again, BEER! We didn’t ask questions, and just drank. Lots of fun was had.

And here we are next to our bikes in a parking lot that was once full but now completely empty. Hai Phong was great and we left it that morning heading for Cat Ba, a beautiful bunch of islands, where we would start the most haggard part of the Harsh Barge thus far: camping for 7 days straight through the northeast mountain jungles of Vietnam.