Hanoi is a city where the speeding traffic flows like a constant tsunami down the streets while pedestrians dive for cover, but it has the most delicious coffee in the world. After spending nine days in Vietnam, I’m still dreaming about the egg coffee. If that sounds questionable to you, I understand because I had my own reservations, but let me assure you it is the creamiest most delectable beverage in the world—like a hot chocolate half full of very melted marshmallows. It became a serious addiction—I went to the Giang Café twice a day every day I was in Hanoi.
When I was not getting my fix of that surreally wonderful beverage, I was usually sitting in a beautiful park, where I met the sweetest two girls who were looking to practice their English, and when they found out I was an American, they exclaimed, “Ah, a native speaker! Lovely!” While I waited for a water puppet show to start, they kept me company and we proceeded to talk about everything under the sun, including the legend of the lake in the park and our favorite TV shows. When they asked me for recommendations, I listed everything I could think of, and finally one of my new friends, thrilled to use a colloquial expression, exclaimed, “You watch so much! Oh! Couch potato!” Before I knew it, they had convinced me to sing a song for them while they recorded it, and one had even tried to set me up with her brother. I still miss them to this day, but I was yet to meet a much more eccentric character on that trip.
On an excursion to Tam Coc, Mr. Patrick Park, a retired policeman from South Korea, happened to be the only other person traveling alone, which our guide clearly thought was a sign that we were destined to be lifelong friends, so he put us in a boat together. That journey started with Mr. Park immediately blasting the titular song from the Fame soundtrack on his iPhone while we passed every other normal and quiet boat on the river driven by a Vietnamese driver paddling with his or her feet and staring at us like we were washed-up Broadway stars peddling for change on the streets of New York City. Mr. Park then amused himself by having me repeat a phrase in Vietnamese to the driver, who found it hilarious when I discovered that I had just said I love you. Maybe our guide was right after all, because by the time the boat ride was over, Mr. Park and I had had a thorough heart to heart and became friends on Facebook because, as he told me, “You’re a strong woman, and I want to hear your stories.”
This was almost as endearing as a teacher bringing seven second graders to practice their English with me at the train station, where she had them repeat the phrases, “I love America,” and “I love you” in unison. When they found out the name of my dog, that started a chorus of “I love Percy” as well, and before they left, they each gave me a high five and hugged me, which was so adorable that I almost teared up.
Once I left Hanoi for Sapa, my adventures truly began, starting with an overnight bus and being forgotten at a freezing bus stop in the middle of nowhere alone in the middle of the night. After several frantic phone calls from me, my hostel finally reminded the next driver to pick me up, and I was off to the beautiful homestay, where I was repeatedly bitten by the cutest, but most vicious puppy the world has ever known. A little boy who lived in the house had a running feud with that puppy, and as soon as the puppy bit him too many times, he would pick up the puppy and put it on a nearby shelf, which confused the puppy enough that it couldn’t figure out how to get down until the mother would yell at the boy to put the puppy back on the ground. 
Once the puppy was in relative safety, at least for the time being, we started our trek through Sapa. While hiking through the muddy rice terraces and balancing on the edges that were barely wide enough for one foot, I nearly fell to my death several times and my clothing has never recovered from the dirt stains. Were it not for the local guides holding my hand, I would not have lived to tell this tale, but the price for my life is apparently the cost of a handmade purse, as I found out to the dismay of my wallet.
The next adventure was a two-day boat cruise of Halong Bay, where I kayaked quite a bit, when I wasn’t gorging myself on squid cakes, fish, fried stuffed crabs, seafood spring rolls with Vietnamese chili sauce and taro and egg donuts. Our guide was not as thrilled about the kayaking, however. When one of the other passengers mentioned that night that he looked tired, he misunderstood and thought she was tired from the kayaking, which started him on a five-minute rant of “You’re tired?! I kayak in the morning, I kayak again. I kayak at night, and then I kayak again! And I kayak again!” while I tried my best not to burst out laughing.
Unfortunately, on the second day, our boat broke down, causing a delay that forced us on a mad cycling journey across an island in the dark. When we finally arrived at the house, we had no time to go the beach, so we were taught to make spring rolls, and I found out that I have no future as a Vietnamese chef. As we ate, our host lady came in and began pointing and speaking angrily at the food. We all looked at the guide in confusion, but he hesitated suspiciously and then said, “Umm, no problem.” A very funny girl from Wales who was next to me then murmured, “Excellent translation,” which caused the whole table to erupt in laughter. The next day, our luck did not improve, as our rescheduled beach excursion instead became our bedraggled group peering at the beach in the downpour of rain that was so thick and gray that we could barely see any ocean, while our guide futilely tried to convince us it was one of the most beautiful beaches in all of Vietnam.
My bad luck with the rain continued the next day on an excursion to Ninh Binh, where I ended up motor biking through a monsoon, visiting a three-level temple in a cliff, and climbing to the top of a beautiful viewpoint called Hang Mua. When the rain finally stopped, I went on a harrowing boat ride, where the top of the cave was so low that we all had to lay on the floor of the boat to keep from being decapitated.
My train ride in Vietnam was only slightly less traumatic than my train ride through Myanmar. This time, a fight broke out on the train and everyone began yelling in Vietnamese while I tried to pretend that I didn’t exist and focused my gaze on the many socks people had hung out the windows to dry. When I got off the train, one of the many fruit vendors tried a different sales technique with me and started trying to transfer the long pole with a big hanging basket of fruit on each end to my shoulders, saying: “Heavy! You carry!” which just caused me to run away even faster.
In all my travels throughout southeast Asia, I have seen a great deal of seemingly strange things, including people sleeping in open luggage compartments underneath buses, but I’ve also seen many things that remind me that humans are not so different. As I watched little kids running down a mountain in Sapa with their mouths open and bouncing just to hear their voices vibrating, I remembered doing the same thing in America growing up, and I realized again how much we overcomplicate relationships as adults and get fixated on our differences instead of our likenesses. I think the beauty of traveling is not in realizing how big the world is, but how small it actually is.
Sarah Anderson 