Back Home and Processing

Ken and I left Viet Nam in the early evening, after spending the day in Ha Noi, finishing up

Balloons over Hoan Kiem Lake on the last morning

shopping, last walks around Hoan Kiem Lake, etc. We flew overnight from Hong Kong to Vancouver, arrived in Vancouver at about 9:30 p.m., and then spent the night there before flying back to Saskatoon. I've found that this schedule has made an enormous difference in terms of how tired I've felt. Last time, we left Viet Nam in the morning, then got to Saskatoon that same evening (longest. Monday. ever). We both spent the next couple of weeks waking up at 3 a.m. going, "Are you awake? Yep. Me too." Both of us also went back to work a day after we got home, and we both ended up calling in sick (or comatose) later in the week. In my case, the co-worker who answered the phone when I called responded, "Heh. Told you!" She'd gone back to her home country of China earlier in the year, had returned to work immediately, and I'd had to poke her awake a couple of times.

This time, my sleeping patterns returned to close to normal almost immediately. The brain fog is still there, but I've mainly noticed strangeness in hunger patterns. I usually go around with a mild-moderate interest in food all the time. Since I've been back, food interest has alternated between the extremes of a lack of interest in eating, bordering on mild nausea and GIVE ME ALL THE FOOD NOW, I AM FAMISHED!!!

Anyway, I just wanted to begin to wind down the Viet Nam series with some final random thoughts on a variety of subjects. Since we were just on the topic:

Food: Yum. Any questions?
Seriously, though, Vietnamese food is wonderful. Ken and I tend to eat (both at home and out) a fair

Anything you need is at the market

bit of Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, etc. food anyway, so the general type of food (i.e. rice, noodles, vegetables, etc.) wasn't a huge change for us. The difference was that the food is so unbelievably fresh! The vegetables and fruit are locally sourced and just picked that day or maybe the day before; the chicken or fish was probably alive that morning. You see this in the markets as well; people tend to shop every day, so are buying their fruit, vegetables, and meat fresh. It's a bit disconcerting to urban Western eyes, but the fish and seafood at the markets are still alive, as are the chickens.

Eels at the market

Ruuun! You can do eet!

Besides the durian, I managed to try about 4 other types of fruit for the first time: sapodilla (which, incidentally, comes from the tree containing the main ingredient for chewing gum), custard apple, passion fruit, white guava, and a Vietnamese apple, which contained a pit rather than a typical apple core. As well, there was mangosteen, pomelo, peach, mango, dragon fruit, orange, melons of various types, jackfruit, rambutan, longans and pineapple. Coming back to Canada I was prepared for the produce section culture shock this time; last time, I ended up weeping at Safeway , "It's all so expensive and crappy!"

My fruit salad at dinner in Hue

I know I've already posted this, but you know that you need to see it again

As a former French colony, Viet Nam also produces quite a bit of European-style bread; baguettes are a common sight, and are often served for breakfast along with omelettes, Laughing Cow brand cream cheese, and strawberry jam. There are also a number of French-style bakeries producing croissants, pain au chocolat, and all manner of cakes and tarts. I had one of the best brownies I've ever tasted at the bakery in Hoi An.

People: 
It's hard to know what to say to try to capture the character of an entire nation. There are saints and jerks in every culture and country (we hope that the latter are not involved in governing said country, but sometimes....). Given Viet Nam's history of war, invasions, colonialism, and privation, it would be entirely understandable were the prevailing attitude one of paranoia, bitterness, and hostility. It's not. The attitude is one of moving forward, making things better, and taking joy in the life you have. Imagine that.