American Sweat and Snails

Tomorrow is a big day. All the ETAs are meeting our hosts at our placement institutions for lunch at the Hanoi Opera Hilton. It’s exciting and nerve-wracking all at the same time but it will be nice to make contact and have some discussions about the kind of work I will be doing and hopefully my teaching schedule.

I have spent sometime in Hanoi now and perhaps the most noticeable thing about Hanoi and Vietnam in general is the humidity. One of my fellow ETAs described it as Vietnam hugging you in warm embrace. If that is true I wish the Vietnamese climate would be less friendly. The moment you step out of air conditioning you sweat. Your face, back, feet, shoulders, knees, nose, elbows all sweat and by the time we finish our walk from our hotel to the orientation site we are all drenched and dripping. Then you continue to sweat for about an hour in the air conditioned orientation room. But here’s the thing. The Vietnamese locals don’t sweat. Seriously it’s like they don’t have sweat glands. Just picture it. Americans dripping in sweat with clothes that are completely (I mean completely) darkened by damped sweat surrounded by perfectly happy and dry locals.

On the up side I have had some great food. Even the snail noodle soup dish was good minus the snails. The snails didn’t have any really discernable flavor but their chewy, rubbery texture was not the most appetizing dish I have ever consumed. I can cross snails off my list. I made up for it with lunch and dinner today when I had the best fried rice, eggrolls and wantons with mango, cilantro, onion, tomato salsa (which was cooked so it was safe). I have noticed however that the Vietnamese diet is very low in dairy, vegetables and protein. Most the dishes are rice based or rice noodle based served either alone or in a water-based broth. With meat dishes there is relatively little meat compared to the nutrient-deficient rice or noodles. I did learn today of a Vietnamese dairy company Vinamilk which produces relatively safe milk and yogurt.

The vendor who sold me the snail noodle soup. We sat on tiny stools no more then 10 inches off the ground packed in the sidewalk along with the rest of the customers.

The snail soup. The broth was excellent, the pork sausage was great and the tofu was to die for. It would've been great if the snails weren't there. But I tried some snails and after my testing most stayed in the bottom of my bowl.

Here are some shots of Hanoi's Old Quarter which is the area our hotel is.

Hanoi Opera House. It's currently hosting open auditions for So You Think You Can Dance Vietnam.

Footbridge to a local temple. The shots above are from a local park around a lake in the old quarter where our hotel is located.

One more thing. I have included a video (forgive the poor quality) of a typical street in Hanoi at rush hour just in case my description was not apt enough in the last post. One of the ETAs I was with has video of us crossing the street from our perspective and I will try to get a copy of it so you can feel like you are here.

I must get back to medical school applications. I will post pics from Ha Long Bay sometime next week. Until then have a good week readers!