Hanoi

Hanoi

So Madam and Jimmy finally made it to Bangkok after years of threatening to come. Our original plan was to spend four days in Hanoi exploring the city, then head back to Bangkok and explore there for another week or so. Before and during the trip, people asked us (over and over) if we were planning a trip to Halong Bay, which originally we were not. We’re all city people and I had heard that it was over-loaded with tourists. I had been warned by friends in Bangkok that things with the protests were going to be kicked into high-gear around the time that we were leaving, but I had no clue that the airport was going to be closed on us.

Ok, more on that in the next post.

Having been to two countries this year that share similar backgrounds over the last 100 or so years (Laos and Vietnam), it was really interesting to see how their original cultures survived … or maybe it’s that they both responded to similar outside influences in very similar ways. Both countries were colonized by the French, suffered during the Vietnam war (well they call it the American war) and now are rebuilding. Things in Laos seemed to operate at the laid-back pace of Thailand, where Vietnam had this go-go-go mentality. Almost like they were making up for years of strict communist laws by rushing as fast as possible into capitalism. People in Laos seemed much more interested in religion, where in Vietnam I didn’t see this emphasis at all.

I wonder how much the size of the populations impacts things, in Vietnam there are 86 million people, Laos only has 6.5 million (Bangkok alone has at least 8 million). I should also say that I speak a good deal of Laotian and only speak about 20 words of Vietnamese. This is significant because in Laos I was able to talk to people and try to grock what they are thinking, I tried to do the same in Vietnam but only in English which I think was very limiting.