Hanoi

So then we flew to Hanoi. We learned that there are 9 million people in Hanoi, and 5 million scooters. We’ve been crossing crazy streets a lot, and we’ve gotten more used to it. Most places don’t have street lights for crosswalks. You have to just start walking slowly across the street. The cars and scooters go around you. But you have to go slow and steady. Totally crazy. 

We went for a walk with a tour guide, which was fine. She didn’t have much to say. She’s been helpful throughout, like when we got off the train at the wrong town, but just not that much interesting on the tour. One of the more interesting bits from the conversation were that her dad votes for the whole family. In Vietnam people can only vote for local offices and even those elections are not much.

I also asked her about all the copy cat businesses and she was pretty neutral on it. She said, we were communist for so long and this capitalism thing is so new and  we’re experimenting and people are trying to get by.

Yona and Noah went rock climbing in the evening.

We met a Danish man at our hotel today and went for a walk with him. He took us to a produce market (called a wet market). It was lots of fun. Mounds of dried fungus, hopping frogs and boiling pots of pho. He’s been coming to Vietnam for many years as part of a research project about type 2 diabetes. Like everywhere in the world, diabetes is rising rapidly here. There are a bunch of reasons including diet, exercise and people living longer. The lack of exercise is a big issue. The sidewalks are filled with wares and scooters and the streets are so busy that elderly don’t leave the house much.

 They're oranges but they're green

 Cinnamon

 Buddha's hand fruit

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We had the fried milk, with ketchup. It was good. 

 This doesn't look like a refrigerator

  This doesn't look like people

 Now we all know what fried milk looks like