"Son, look at those white people"

Sometimes you just have to accept that you are a tourist. Even without the map, we stand out in Hanoi. It's a city jam packed with street vendors, traffic and Asians. Lots of Asians who know how to dodge cars and mopeds in the streets and don't mind eating pho outside in 90+ degree weather and 100% humidity.

I'm spending the rest of June traveling through Southeast Asia with my friend Jacqueline. We met studying abroad three years ago and haven't seen each other since. We met at the airport in Tokyo and flew to Hanoi together, where we were greeted by a torrential downpour and really pushy taxi drivers. 

We got to our hotel late at night, ate dinner at the hotel restaurant for $6, debated drinking the table water, showered after our 24+ hours of traveling and decided we would spend Sunday exploring the city. 

Heading out this morning, it was like we had walked into a steam room. I thought I could handle the heat. I grew up in Vegas, live in Hawaii and spent time jogging around Death Valley in July while my mom ran a race for two days. This is a whole new level of hot, people. While I am thankful there was no rain today, I could literally feel beads of sweat dripping down my body. I was wearing grey pants and could smell my bug spray coming off and my hair sticking to the back of my neck. This was not my main concern, however. My main concern today was learning how to cross the street.

Crosswalks and street signs are few and far between here in Hanoi. And the ones that exist, you know who pays attention to them? Literally no one except for Jacqueline and I, so they didn't do us much good. Actually they do us no good. You know what else doesn't matter? What side of the road you drive on. Or actually whether you drive on the road or not. Sidewalks are cool to drive on, too. And if your moped fits between the street vendors at the night market, go for it. Also, you can fit four people on your moped. I kid you not.

We did do some things besides sweat and try to cross streets today, though. We visited the Temple of Literature and the first National University of Hanoi, which was pretty and extremely calm. There was a graduation happening while we were there and while I wanted to take pictures of the graduates, they wanted to take pictures of us. White people! Sweaty white people! People stared and waved and little kids were confused looking at us and when we responded to peoples "hellos" they fell over in a fit of laughter as if they couldn't believe we actually spoke. 

We continued wandering around the city, trying to unsuccessfully find a pagoda. The streets have absolutely no order and we got stuck at more than one 5 way intersection. There weren't usually sidewalks and when there were, they were filled with mopeds and people eating lunch at plastic kiddie tables.

We found a memorial to president Ho Chi Minh, got iced coffee and sat around a lake while people said hello to us. A group of students came up to us and asked if we had some time to practice English with them, which we did. They were extremely nice and recommended we go to the night market, where I didn't fit into any of the (elastic) pants I liked. 

We sat down to have dinner at the only place where the plastic chairs were not toddler sized (These stools that look like they belong in preschools). Communication was rough but we finally ordered beef pho and veggies with fried noodles. As we continued along, we saw the washing of the dishes was done in kiddie pools and trash was thrown on the street. At the end of the day, we were dirty, not tan.

Not every city you visit is going to be amazing, not every experience is going to be perfect or out of a travel magazine and that's the beauty of traveling. It takes you out of your comfort zone and into something you don't experience every day. And at the end of the day, I'm thankful for that. I'm also thankful our hotel room has air conditioning and a shower.