Ben Post #5

I ate 10 chicken feet yesterday.

They are delicious. Can’t wait to stop by Von Hanson’s when we’re back.

;)

Anyways, last post was on Christmas, and we have just passed the Lunar new year (big thing here in Asia), so time for more updates.

Here was our Christmas Day

This is Bae (pronounced “bey” a la Beyonce)

“It’s because I’m green, isn’t it?” — Ben’s Grinch impression

Christmas Card 2020

Then, after that, my dearest parents Mark and Lisa came to visit! And we had a b-l-a-s-t blast. Very very fun. Thanks Mom and Pop for coming all this way to hang out.

Their first day here we did the walking tour of Hoi An.

Immediately, Mom’s shoes were not up to par, and thus we stopped by the shoe store

Then more walking and fun throughout the day.

Mom standing proudly as “her water buffalo” tries to knock down this poor tree.

Laughs, wonderful laughs.

Next day we went to My Son sanctuary, which was quite fun. We actually rode scooters all the way there, and Pop did a swell job of piloting his cheap rental scooter through an hour of world-class Vietnamese traffic. In moderate rainy conditions. Good times.

Inspecting 1000 year old architecture

Tree pose yogaaaaaaaaaaa

The team!

The day after that we went to Ba Na hills, which is an egregious place. We had fun, despite sub-optimal weather.

The golden hands bridge, mom, pop, and a Vietnamese guy who just does not look impressed at all.

Fully in clouds

Riding a very impressive worlds longest cable car surrounded by 100% cloud cover. Less than ideal

Woohoo!

Everyone was laughing

See ya later Ba Na Hills.

The next day we went to the beach, chilled out a bit, and then went and visited ”Cau Lau Lady”

Mom buying stuff, Pop evaluating the merchandise.

Our favorite restaurant in Hoi An. They have tiny stools.

These are the stools. They are 6 inches off the ground. Pop looks more comfortable because he stacked two on top of each other, which was very smart.

Next day was the cooking class and the Secret Cocktail tour. These were both great fun.

attempting to creat a tomato rose. I did not do well.

Mom taking in the lessons. Also, those green tubes are Vietnamese style leverpostej

Lunch with Mom.

The boys and their pretty cocktails

Again, more goofing around with Mom.

nea the end of the secret Cocktail experience. As you can see Tanna does not thing my performance is very good.

Then we went to Marble Mountain. Which — as you can tell by now — is a mountain of marble. Vietnamese naming schema is easy to pick up.

Lisa. Scooter. Go Time.

Mom “wow, look at all the waves!”, Pop “The construction here is amazing.”

Goofin around.

Mom basking in her glory of climbing through a dark cave to get to the top of Marble Mountain.

“It was her”…..”Who, me?!”

Tanna doing Tanna things (heights + views + tree pose)

Great pic of the team except for my “Hey check out my new jeans” hip pop elbow pose. “I don’t know what to do with my hands!” — Ricky Bobby

Then we flew to Hanoi (who knew!?!?) in preparation for Ha Long Bay.

Pop with his Vietnamese Teddy Grahms

Touring “Maison Central” aka the Hanoi Hilton. This is where John McCain was a POW. Pop managed a smile, mom is just not pleased to be in a prisoner of war camp.

Why would you ever buy a truck if you can just put everythign you need on a bicycle. Makes no sense.

Mom blatantly taking a picture of the one guy playing guitar when there was nobody in the audience. You must also notice that Lisa tends to take pictures in a way that when she puts her phone up to see what she is taking a picture of, she leans back instead of moving the phone forward. Very forward thing.

Spent the afternoon here waiting for Tanna, who had to buy another flight because of some mis-handled documentation.

Then, Ha Long Bay Day.

Mom was pumped to go.

Pictures of all the boats. Pop will also do the famed “Lisa Lean” when taking pictures.

We were immediately given 100 plates of food upon boarding the boat. We did not need this food.

Don’t know how this picture happened, I just like it

At the kiss rock.

Kiss rock 2!

There are caves in Ha Long Bay. Who knew!

And they are UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE!

Team pic #HaLongBay #NoPlastics

A lovely picture of Mom.

Tanny doing her instagram poses.

Pop evaluating the Geology.

Ended the day with some delicious Pho.

And our last night, we hung out as a group and had fun. Big shout out to Lisa Do for being our wonderful host in Hoi An. It was a wonderful few days that Tanna and I are both very grateful for.

Lisa Dough. The boss.

After they departed, we headed up to Ha Giang, where we are currently working as volunteers at a hostel that rents motorbikes to groups that are touring the area. Why do they do this? Well, because it is truly awesome.

Here are some photos of our time on the Ha Giang loop. We have many more but it is getting late and I cannot stay up much later.

Day 1 mini-recap

DAy 2 mini

Watch this truck try to go up the road

don’t tell Trump!

Woohoo!

Boobie mountains

You have to zoom in to see the detail of this place.

MAGMAAAAAA

One woman, unstoppable.

#1! This is funnier if you are familiar of paintaings of Buddha the day he was born.

Just a little “Hey one second while I demo the mountain” break.

This is a truck going off a cliff.

Guess where her foot is?

To be clear to the parents I did not support this.

Puzzle Piece

I do not know why she does these things.

This is where we ate lunch one day

If you can fullscreen this it is pretty cool.

Can you find Tanna?

Rice Terraces

Another great find Tanna picture

Adidas.

And now we are here, in Ha Giang, for another two weeks. Looks like we’ll be doing this again towards the end. Everything if great.

Our tour coming up includes a visit from Marles & Phil (very excited), then we are going to bike around Taiwan (on a bicycle….), then South Korea, Japan, and then we get to have a two day Cinco De Mayo and get home to ‘Merica.

Talk soon!

And, no, we do not have coronavirus.