Only 1 will have higher education

If the population of the Earth was reduced to that of a small town with 100 people, it would look something like this:

57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 Americans (northern and southern)
8 Africans
52 women
48 men
70 coloured-skins
30 caucasians
6 people would own 59% of the whole world wealth and all of them will be from the United States of America
80 would have bad living conditions
70 would be uneducated
50 underfed
1 would die
2 would be born
1 would have a computer
1 (only one) will have higher education

I came across this passage from one of the forum just now and it reminded me of a person who i'd met during my Hanoi trip. I have the chance to met quite many people of different colors along this trip but there is this particular girl who had left a vivid impression in my mind. This young Hanoian girl is the tour guide for the Halong bay trip, i am not sure how old she is, judging from her appearance, she should be in early twenties maybe.

Although she carries the title of English speaking tour guide, but let just say her English fluency wasnt that great. However, with her charming (to an extend funny) Vietnamese English ascent and big warm smile, she doesnt seems to have much problem mixing around with the rest of foreign tourists with her broken English. Its very interesting that she speaks and smiles at the same time, you can literally 'see' her laughters radiating from her bright and cheerful expression whenever she spoke.

I had a long conversation with her during the drive back from Halong to Hanoi since both of us were sitting beside driver seat and we were very much immobile and have nothing to do during that 3 and half hours drive. I am surprised to find out that she has been working as a tour guide for 6 years now, and she has to travel back and forth from Hanoi-Halong everyday without failed. Gosh, thats a bloody 7 hours of drive everyday! She was surprised to know that i've been to quite a few European countries before and was bold enough to tell me that she wished she can do that too, but has no money. She told me further that the pay in Vietnam is very low and its quite impossible for them to think of travel outside the country.

I was quite sad when i listened to this. At that moment of time, i realized that i never really know this part of Vietnam before. I've see the beautiful culture and its fabulous tourist spots, but i never really comprehended the reality and hard life of the Vietnamese, of which some of them make their ends met through selling the street food, souveniers, handling hostel business to serve foreign tourists like me.

When you look at the world from this perspective, you can see how different a person can be just because he/she born in a different country and have the proper education opportunity. How lucky i am in the sense that i owned a computer, and i can express myself and writting freely a blog now, and i am the only 1 in the 100 people who had the chance of higher education.

I told Yen (the hanoian gal's name) to practice hard and master her English, as Vietnam is developing fast, there will be jobs which required English speaking, and when the opportunities open up in future, she will be ready for that. I dont know how much she absorbed imy words, but i really hoped she will experienced a more abundant and wider horizon in her life.

My very best wishes to you, Yen

Hanoi Trip pt III (Travel for Glutton)

Hanoi is indeed a pearl of heritage and culture. Although nowadays it is flooded by sea of foreign tourists (am in no position of complaining as I’m one of them as well), but the deep rooted culture and boundless spirit of the locals is still very much intact and preserved. This has been best portrayed through their culinary and local cuisine.

The food is definitely one big highlight of the trip. The local vietnamese cuisine is very much simple (fast to prepare) but absolutely delicious. On top of that, you have the privilege to share the table with the local vietnamese as well as the fellow tourists, very much like in the busy dim sum restaurant in Hongkong. The only thing is that the table and chair are much shorter. And its kinda funny to see the foreigners which is like 5 feet tall sitting on the short chair, its like the giant sitting on the midget chair.

PHO

Pho shop

Half of the Pho menu

Despite of all the stories of diarrhea threat, I have finally tried the famous hanoi street’s PHO at Cham ca street (mind you this is not the KLCC Vietnam Restaurant’s Pho which cost a bomb), of course with charcoal tablet ready in my bag. It’s a rice noodle which taste heavenly with the clear but tasty soup. For 18,000 dong (around RM4), I've tried tai chin, which means a mixed of half cooked and thoroughly cooked beef slices. I cant describe the different of the pho with Malaysian’s rice noodles soup but it just different. The beef was soft and tender, and if you have good toleration towards raw meat, half cooked is always a better choice. Well, not to say we didn’t eat raw food like sashimi and sushi in Malaysia.

The cooks prepare the pho behind the glass window (lots of corriander, yucks)The happy me with the yummy pho

Bun Cha

Bun cha is another great local dish, it’s a dish consist of barbeque pork cutlet, char siew like pork, fresh salad (mint leaves, salad leaves, coriander and some other herbs), rice noodle and a funny tasted soup (sweet and sour) which has pieces of vegetable (carrot, cucumber in it. The way to eat the dish is to mix everything in one small bowl and eat together in a mouthful. The pork comes with some fat and burned choacoal taste, exactly how i wanted it to be. yummy! Apart from that, i've also ordered 1 roll of nem (by showing '1' finger), which i have no idea why they have served me a plateful of at least 3 rolls of nem.

Bun Cha Dac Kim at Hang Manh street

Bun Cha
showing the nem

Aunty frying the nem

If you ask anyone what they know about vietnam cuisine, Nem is definitely in their list. Nem is like the veitnamese version of popiah, with pork, glass noodles and some vege in it. They have two types which is the grilled and non-grilled type. Well, unhealthy oily grilled food always tasted better, arent you agree?

Yummy nem served with pieces of tomato and salad leaves

More vieliscious food to come!

The Hanoi trip Pt 2 (Halong Bay)

The Ha long Bay trip was an unforgettable experience.

There are numerous travel packages around and for $25, it includes the transportation to HaLong Bay, cruise, lunch on the jung, kayaking and a visit to cave. And trust me, the experience worth every single penny. We were picked up by this small van at 830am in the morning with the rest of 10 other tourists from various countries such as US, Germany and UK. Travel in group is much more enjoying than traveling on our own as its really interesting to listen to the life and travel stories from all around the world, from different walks of life, and the best thing is when they are never stingy in sharing them.

Along the journey, I get to know this woderful lady named Emily (the one with white hair in the photo), she is one interesting lady with endless friendly aura radiating all over and very much down to earth. It come to me a surprise later the end of trip that she is actually a phD holder and an executive director. Thanks to her chattiness, the atmosphere in the van was light and easy, it really helped us endured the three and a half hours of boring journey in a cramp and stuffy van.

We were brought to the destination with a Oriental looking Sail ship called jung with dragon head and a nice open deck. I was wondering why on earth that all the jung have dragon head instead of you know mermaid head or other mystic creatures (i thought chinese are the only race that obsessed about dragon). Browsing through internet and i found the stories behind halong bay which is very much related to the dragons. Apparently, the legend tells a story of the Jade Emperor sending the mother dragon and her band of child dragons to help Viet people when they are attacked by invaders. The dragons descended in flocks from the sky, spat out immumerable pearls which changed into jade stone island the moment they touch the water, the islands linked together to form firm citadels that checked the enemy's advance and smashed their vessels to pieces. After the invaders were driven out, Mother Dragon and child dragons stayed on earth and soon landed on Ha Long and Bai Tu Long (from http://www.halongboat.com/halong/legend.htm)

At first we see nothing as the jung sailed into the wide open sea, however, in just a short 10 minutes, the jung entered into this mysterious path which was surrounded with more than 1800 limestone mountains dotting the sea scape. As the the Jung sailed through, the path just opened up and every island is very much beautiful by its own.

Emily and his husband, cant remember his name, but we secretively called him Albert Einstein (because of his white hair)

Finally we reached one of the island with the biggest limestone caves -Hang Sung Sot in which we were led by the tour guide to visit caves where the art was drawn by the hand of the nature. The stalactite/limestone formations was fascinating and vision to behold, hanging on the cave's ceiling, it forms various structure and statues, some looks like the mystic creatures of Vietnamese legend: turtle, dragon, phoenix and the unicorn, not exactly look-alike but well, sort of, according to our vibrant vietnamese tour guide. For a short (or petite) guy, he is full of vibe and zest. He spoke of the legend and the stories with so much of enthusiasm and pride, as if he live through the times itself.

After the cave visit, we went for Kayaking. It is not a new thing for me but was definitely a highlight of the entire Halong journey. I have tried kayaking in Lake district, UK and Permai beach, Kuching before, but kayaking in the middle of the wide open sea surrounded by limestone islands, that’s something new. Its pretty funny that the tour guide just throw us into this small kayak and expecting us to start kayak by our own. Well, I am not saying it’s a tough task, however, imagine the dunno-how-deep-is-the-water running underneath of you and once a while waves beating the kayak and threatened to turnover, and furthermore the only protection you had is the piece of life saving jacket which is hanging loosely on your body. It can be quite scary and real fun at the same time (once you get the hang of it of course).

In the middle of ocean, suddenly the sound of the crowd ceases, the whole world turned still, the sound of the waves, the buoyancy, the clear blue sky, its very much just nature and you.
Anyway to cut the story short, after the kayaking, we went back in a speed boat which cruise at 120km/hr speed. With the wind blowing so hard, my face nearly turn into plastic. So in one short day, i've experienced the jung cruise, kayak and speed boat, and Emily joked that maybe the next is life boat. -___-