I'm willing to bet Frank Sinatra has never been to Vietnam during typhoon season. After thirty plus hours of travel door to door from Croatia I arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam's capital city. There were four flights, three of which I had to go through immigration. When the plane was landing in Hanoi at midnight, the flight attendant announced that it was ninety degrees- I knew I was in for it. People are trying to scam you the moment you step off the plane so thankfully, I met an American from Boston who's hotel was on the same street as mine and we shared a car. The next morning when I walk out of the hostel I immediately broke a sweat from both the intense heat and explosion of culture shock. Nothing could have prepared me for this madness. All the videos on youtube, advice from other travelers, blogs, travel shows and books meant absolutely nothing to me. The beeping of horns from thousands of motorbikes haphazardly driving with several people including infants, women washing dishes on the sidewalk in a bucket of soapy water, haircutting done right on the side of a busy road, people all over on sitting around little tables on low stools eating pho, old ladies with pointy straw hats selling dragon fruit from baskets that are hung over their shoulders with a bamboo stick, a woman washing her waist length hair in a bucket and men digging for treasures WAY up their nose with out an ounce of shame and then playing with the boogers- it was a lot to take in. Thorntree has an article that claims cooking lessons in Hanoi is a top ten travel experience. I went to check out the school which was a fifteen minute walk from my hostel and it was the best thing I could have ever done. The people there were so friendly and helpful, it was exactly what I needed to wake me from this lucid dreaming. The class was taught by the owner of the school, Tracey. She first took us to the market to show us all the different types of rice, eggs, greens, fruit, herbs, animal livers, crustaceans, pig intestines, feet, snouts and many things I could not identify. There is a woman there who sells different bunches of herbs that are boiled down with a black pod and applied to the hair to give shine and maintain its deep black color. There was also a man there tearing apart live frogs. Tracey explained to us that the food in the north of Vietnam is Chinese and French influenced, the middle of the country is similar to Thai food and the south uses a lot of curries. We made pork belly with sticky rice, crab soup, spring rolls, silk worms(not my favorite), banana flower salad, an omelet loaded with Asian greens accompanied by a lime chili dipping sauce and a cold soup for dessert made with coconut milk, peanuts and sesame seeds. The food intrigued me- so simple to prepare, yet so complex in flavor. After the class we sat down and ate this heavenly feast. Three out of the four people in the class live in Asia for their job and the other was a student teaching English for the summer. They all had crazy food stories from eating snake with the heart still beating on the plate, drinking the bile separately to being served fish so fresh it is still gasping for air on the plate before them. The Vietnamese eat dog as a delicacy that are supposedly farmed but some beg to differ and I have to say I did not see many dogs on the streets. I used the rest of my time in Hanoi hanging out with six British guys I met traveling through Asia, checking out lakes, temples, eating pho and exotic fruits. I went out to dinner with the guys one night by the hostel and it turned out one of the Vietnamese assistants from the cooking school was also the manager of this restaurant. I looked really popular knowing a local. Each day and each bowl of noodles this is getting significantly easier. These vagabond shoes were longing to stray....my little town blues have melted away.......
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