Somewhere between Vox & Hunter S. Thompson
I know that I said that my next post would be about my new motorbike… but something came up, so I thought we could take a little break from our scheduled programming for some live reporting. It was another Tuesday night in Hanoi. I was having drinks with a few friends at a nearby place that we like to go to. And that's when I saw the smoke...
First, I'm sure that you will be relieved to hear that my missing luggage was recovered about 24 hours later. It was actually delivered to the office of my employer (where I was living) by the airport staff, which is much nicer than anything I have experienced in the Western world. I wasn't living in that office for very much longer though. I found an apartment within 2 days of being in Vietnam through Facebook. Thank you social media. And guys, this place is amazing. It is coolest place I will probably ever live and it is only $210 per month. But rather than try to describe it I’ll just give you the tour...
Fast-forward to 30 minutes after my plane landed and I was the last remaining passenger watching an empty baggage claim carousel circulate. My bag (the one that we had paid so much money to get onto the flight to Chicago) never arrived in Vietnam. I spent the following 30 minutes trying to break down the language barrier that separated me from the poor souls working at the ‘lost baggage’ counter. It didn’t help things that I mysteriously had 2 baggage claim tickets for the same bag.
The city had an interesting dynamic. It was at least 1/3rd beautiful British people, presumably all working in the financial sector. Walking through the streets it felt like New York City crossed with the rainforest exhibit at the zoo. Also, the city is sort of at the bottom of a small mountain so everything is either up or down a steep hill. Trollies ran through some of the more flat streets like San Francisco. Interestingly, in many parts of the city there were two layers of sidewalks. The first layer was street level. It was hot, dirty and full of small Asian shops, markets and hair salons. The second level was elevated and climate controlled, unfolding like and everlasting shopping mall of jewelry stores and high-end fashion retailers. To facilitate crossing the street, these sidewalks included bridges that would arc over the busy city life immediately below. I did my best to stray from the ‘main’ roads and hiked up a series of steep winding streets with narrow sidewalks.
Welcome to my travel blog. The point of this blog is first to keep everybody updated on what I am doing and verify to the world that I am still among the living. Secondly, this blog will chronicle my story as I make my way through uncharted waters. Hopefully it can serve as encouragement for anybody else out there considering doing the same thing.
