The Noodles Po

For those of you who have not yet experienced Kung Fu Panda, I highly recommend watching it to furthur your understanding of life in Asia.

I've come to believe that the noodle goose, Po's father, is from Vietnam and migrated to China. Thus Po's name, which probably originates from Pho, Vietnameses noodles. In any case, we love them. I think Rod has had at least one bowl a day since we've been here.

In addition to watching Kung Fu Panda, I recommend google imaging HaLong Bay. We spent two incredible days there, I mean really INCREDIBLE. Did you know they have a floating village with 300 families just living right there on the water. Imagine that! We got to kayak and swim in the water too; which was especially exhilarating considering the jelly fish we kept seeing from our kayaks. I think I mistook my life jacket straps for jelly fish fingers more than once.

Hanoi, the major city in the North has been our home base for this whole trip. It's a busy city. Just imagine a bee hive and you'll get a good idea for what this place is like. There are motos EVERYWHERE. It seems almost impossible to cross the street at first but with some instruction we've mastered the art- "walk with slow confidence". So, the three toed sloth does have something valuable to offer after all- wisdom. Hanoi does have some coolness to offer aside from the buzzing. We went to the Hanoi Hilton where American POWs were held durring the war. Very interesting, lots of pictures of John McCain. Not really a happy place to go. We also saw a water puppet performance which Nan and I enjoyed but all the boys dozed through it.

We also had the PRIVILEGE of visiting Sapa- maybe one of the most beautiful places on earth. We did a two day trek in the rain and mud to a black Mong village. It's the greenest place EVER! And there are rice terraces as far as the eye can see. There are several different tribes but we mostly saw the black Mong. They get their name from the indigo they use to dye their clothes which in turn dyes their hands black semi-permanantly. Their most powerful selling techinique is to follow you for hours on end on your trek and help you on the slippery slopes etc. It really works- after a 3 hours of hike support the least you can do it buy some earings off them. Most of them, as full grown adults, are smaller than Joe, Alex's 10 year old brother. One of them had a baby on her back the whole time. It was really incredible cuz, I'm not kidding, we basically slid down the whole mountain. She, on the other hand was just this little mom, trotting beside us, like a goat down the mud with no troubles, her baby just chillin on her back. Our favorite friend was a little girl named Jewel who stayed with us the whole way. We slept in the little house of a Zai tribe family and they served us some really awesome food- I especially loved the banana pancakes- they're a hit here, who knew! One of my favorite things we did was swimming in the river all morning. It was awesome.

Yesterday we did a bike tour through a little village... I mean I can't even describe how unbelievable everything is here! Needless to say it was breath-taking. So yah, life is good in the hood. Sam's broken foot is a little less broken now and he can walk a little and stuff. I've only thrown-up once from food poisoning. And the mosquitos arn't too bad. I think if I were to see Napoleon Dynamite today he would say to me, "LUCKY". This trip has been too good to be true and Alex and I really owe the experience to Nan and Rod, so thanks. And, lucky us, its not over yet!

Don't forget to watch Kung Fu Panda!!!

xoxoxo,
Morgal