Singapore Suitcases: Week 15 - Of Ironed-noodles for hair, Asian TV & The MD House -S'pore's first house-guests!

1. Week 15 promises to be full of fun and has F-A-M-I-L-Y written all over it. Our very first official house guests in Singapore  - my parents arrive mid-week. They will be here until next weekend, so the next week and a half will most certainly fly - exactly something that I would'nt want it to do!

2. As we all are well aware, Asians are infamous for having been blessed with lustruous albeit thin, poker straight manes. Since Singapore has Asians/ Indians alike among its diaspora, at some point it seems like there is a desire to covet the grass on the other side. Naturally as its always greener (straighter in this case) although I have no idea what's wrong with sporting a mop of curls? Curls = Character, I thought. I guess the Indians/ Tamilians living here disagree with me!
Brazilian/ Japanese Bonding techniques are common terms most have heard of in the past few years, if you even ventured outside a hair salon. When those with naturally non-straight tresses resort to such unnatural techniques to straighten their hair, Mother Nature, it seems, gets mighty pissed. Why else would then one see walking examples of her anger around, in women with mops of spaghetti, curling at its roots and ironed straight at the ends? Surely hair was meant to do the opposite - that is grow straighter at the roots and curl at the ends, if at all, right? Naturally, the hair growing from the roots does not get the memo that the rest of the mane has been chemically bonded/ treated to be unnaturally poker straight. So it grows like it should - natural, without a care and with utmost honesty. Until it sprouts out, making the person look like a head of curly-maggi-gone-on-to-becoming-straight angel hair!
Straighten and iron you hair if you must O' brown women of Singapore, but then make sure you take all the efforts to keep it looking that way. Or just keep it simple and keep it honest!

3. The baby's school teacher has been sending back her art-work home with her, each day. The wall space to display it, in our home, is now shrinking and soon we're going to have to rent storage boxes for the same, the silly memory-stasher that I am. The effort is going to be, to stash all her works underground and hopefully curate it so I can hang just some of it off the walls/ ceiling in her room. It's funny how the most important brief in creating this artwork display is to make sure its kept out of reach of the artist who created it, in the first place.

4. TV in Singapore is quite boring honestly. (Not if you understand a few Asian languages, enjoy K-Pop and Filipino Soap Operas though.) But once in a while one pines for the real CNN, not the Asian one being telecast from HongKong or the real FOOD TV, not FOOD TV Asia which telecasts re-runs of shows you've watched whilst living in The States. Clearly, English television is not that great here, BBC and British channels being the only exception. We've figured out tricks to watch our Thursday NBC funnies & other American shows that we love, yet its not the same as switching to your fave channel/ TiVo to do that.
Throughout all this TV trauma, what remains consistent are the Desi TV channels - the shows of which do not change whichever country one lives in. So for now our solace lies in the fact that we get to see all the Bollywood Filmy Awards shows throughout the months of January-February. Yet that cannot make up for the fact that we miss out on the SuperBowl, Obama's SOTU speech, the Emmys/Grammys/Oscars (all of which can be watched if one does not mind waking up in the wee hous of the morning). After having lived in America for this long, to have to readjust one's sleep to watch these, just does not seem fair anymore!

5. The highlight of the baby's life at 18 months of age is the amount she talks! And to think Hubster thought I was the chatter-box in the family. Take that Hubster!
The baby's been quite the babbler ever since we can remember (Her first nanny would always say she would talk early). But offlate its as if a switch just got turned on somewhere, especially with respect to her communication and comprehension abilities. As most parents would, we too are enjoying this phase of her life, although not as much the 'control' aspect of it.
It's like a self-enforced regimen around her - anything you say or do stands a 100% chance of being duplicated/ mimicked/ repeated. So it seems like, it's time for Hubster and me to behave ourselves and mind our language, more specifically our grammar when we speak.

6. The parents landed mid-week. It was my first ever time taking the train to the airport, to pick them up this Wednesday evening. While deja-vu's of being on the NYC Subway flashed before my eyes, especially as the train wound its way from being underground to coming above land, my mind played games with me, making me think for a minute that I was entering Queens instead, enroute to JFK. Except this 'Queens' was spotless; as was the train compartment I was traveling in. Gosh! No this could'nt be my Queens, I said to myself, immediately causing my thought bubble to burst. My Queens was beautiful and too full of chaos to look this plain and ordered! Reality check!

7. The parents naturally loved everything about Singapore, in a way that most Indian's always do (Dad has been here before but Mom has'nt). With an Airport like Changi to welcome you in, what's not to like? Besides they were with their daughter a mere 5 hours after having taken a flight from Mumbai, as against the 15 hours they had to fly earlier, into Newark.
Distances have shrunk which means we see more of each other now than before. It's funny then, when Mom starts narrating an event/ episode to me, like I dont know about it and I go all "You've already told me that Mom last month when I was in Mumbai..." on her. Pat comes her reply - "So what? I am not used to having you live so close to me anymore, so hear it again!" Oh well, the flipside of living too close!

The next week will be spent among much family madness, as stated above - pampering and getting pampered by the parents and most importantly seeing my next generation bond with my previous one!
See you soon!
Love,
Shweyta
 

Singapore Suitcases: Week 14 - Of Chinese New Year kinda tolerable 'Red', Thai beach-hopping & ambitious 5 year plans!

1. Our fifth Wedding Anniversary is coming up over the weekend, aka as our latest excuse to travel. Not that we need an excuse anymore, considering it's weird now to not be packing on a weekend. We thought it'd be nice to spend a landmark Anniversary someplace relaxed and beachy, hence Phuket, Thailand got picked, to be our destination later this week.

2. I love the sound of sirens in a city. To me, it is an inherent sound of a busy, rushed, high-on-adrenaline city. One that puts a sudden flurry in your step urging you to stop dead in your tracks, scurry to the side or quickly cross the street before the fire-truck/ police car runs you down!
Call me a weirdo, but I miss that sense of urgency instilling man-made cacaphonia. In Singapore, one does not hear sirens as much as one does in NYC.
What is pleasant though, is sirens have given way to cuckoos instead. It feels like a contradiction of sorts - as I stare outside my balcony each evening - at a dense, high-rise, concrete, cityscape that comes accompanied with a cuckoo's coo-ing soundtrack, day after day. In a strange life-comes-a-full-circle kind of way, this cooing, which was very much a part of my childhood even in a city like Mumbai (along with the chirping of the sparrows; another welcome sound one hears often here) is now a part of the daughter's as well, who goes "Cooo.." each time she hears the sound!

3. The over-the-top, gaudy, extravagantly lit, Christmas decorations all over the city have given way to plastic Spring blooms, stunted Mandarin Bonsai's and bright Red Chinese lanterns, all in celebration of the Chinese New Year (lovingly abbreviated by all to CNY) coming up in early February. Come to think of it, I'd rather have the CNY kinda Red over the "annoying-red-hearts" kinda Valentine's Day Red, found everywhere at this time of the year!
CNY decorations feel so much more appropriate and blend in so beautifully with the cultural and physical demographic of this city-state. While Christmas felt so out of place and "implanted"  here, in Singapore, CNY could not have been more comfortably at home.
While the locals prepare for this long weekend, well in advance, a strange fact that I learnt about recently was the concept of a 'CNY surcharge'. Some businesses such as a few hair salons, restaurants etc raise their prices by 10-20% in the period just before and after the CNY, to cash in on the demand. How ridiculous would it be if say a Hair Salon charged you more just before Diwali in India or Thanksgiving in the US? While some clients dont fret over the surcharge, as it's a festive time there are others who make sure to avoid these largely Chinese & Malaysian businesses, during this time.

4. The process of transitioning the daughter into her own toddler bed has started. While she has slept in a crib for the whole first year of her life and in a ground-bed, for the last 6 months, we now hope to move her into her own room gradually. This change-of-room hesitation is really more from our end than hers, on account of my pure laziness from having to get out of bed physically at night, lest she wake up (As she sleeps on a low bed, next to my bedside right now, I literally peep down at her if I hear a sound or two)
The Bed-Rails were purchased with much hope, trying to convert a Twin Bed into a Toddler one. All our hopes came crashing down when during the first trial, the daughter happily climbed over the rail and jumped off the bed, running right out of the room, waving out a "Byee" at us. Oh well! Seems like we've clearly underestimated her, AGAIN!!

5. The Deloitte Expat Club (as we call ourselves now) met again for dinner Friday night at Cha Cha Cha - a Mexican restaurant in Holland Village. As is known to most, Mexican cuisine is best avoided in Asia, if one does not want to be disappointed. Sadly, this is one cuisine, which Asians have far from perfected (We've basically written off Mexican from our palates until we go States-side again) Thus our reluctance justifiably so, when we got invited here, Friday night.
Possibly because of our low expectations, but Cha Cha Cha stood well above any of the other Mexican restaurants that we've been to here, promptly making it's place in our list of 'may-go-back-to' food joints.

6. Hubster's close Uncle & Aunt are longtime Phuket residents - a fact I'd long forgotten and re-learnt this week, while planning our getaway there. Worked to my advantage, as they took over and booked us a classy, top-floor suite in their friend's hotel (Patong Resort), overlooking the Patong Bay and steps from the beach (For once, I did'nt need to do the research and could happily delegate to a trustworthy source).
We flew to Phuket Saturday morning and blissed out all weekend long, hopping from one beach to another. The baby swam, Hubster slept and I voyeured myself out! Together, the three of us sank our souls in incredible Thai cuisine of all types - off of the streets and superb sit-down restaurants. Trips to Thailand have only just begun and we cannot wait to return here often, for the food, above everything else!
Anniversary Celebrations started off with a long brunch followed by our most fave family activity - swimming/ lazing in the pool. Half a day later, the baby sitter took over, as Hubster and I indulged in two-hour long massages followed by a long, lovely, dinner on a hill, overlooking the Andaman Sea at Rice - The restaurant at Baan Yin Dee!
We realised the highlight of our marriage this far, has been our Travel (About 10+ countries, together in the last 5 years). While there were a lot of other events that came close (Buying our first home/ Running marathons & races together/ Climbing up our first ice-mountain/ Starting a family/ Career moves etc) none were as constantly recurring as the travel. So we wrapped up our evening with a happy 5 year plan - to take this number up several notches high, by the time we hit our next landmark celebration - at 10 years! Hoping to reach lots of new places together, one country at a time!

The parents land here mid next week for a short 10 day visit. They will be our first official house guests in this city. Cannot wait!
Love,
Shweyta

 

Singapore Suitcases: Week 13 - Of Passions turning into Professions, Asian stereotypes & our Tagalog family extension!

1. The New Year started on an exciting note.
I am finally turning a lifelong passion into a part-time profession. Starting Mid-January 2013, I'll be writing a weekly column for a Mumbai based daily news site, that talks about everything that makes Mumbai tick - The Metrognome. My column titled 'Outside In' is designed to be a weekly series of expat diaries, reflecting my perspective of life, travel and everywhere in between, from the outside-in. While this is going to be a fantastic new gig for me, it also comes with it's own set of challenges, such as writing with a deadline looming over my head - something that I ve never done before. Do stay tuned for my first post and all the subsequent ones too and wish me luck in successfully fulfilling my New Year's resolution - of having a faithful and ever expanding readership this year! Amen to that!

2. An omnipesent stereotype in Singapore (and I ve been told it's found all over SE Asia too) is the 'White man-Asian woman' (Read: Old fat Asian man-young hot Asian woman most of the times). This city-state is full of them.
Naturally, most Asian countries being expat-magnets, draw white men from all over the world (with or without families) who end up meeting single, independent, workaholic Singaporean career women. Sometimes it starts out as a fling and ends up an affair; at others it starts out as an affair and ends up in divorce and/ or re-marriage. Eitherways, this issue has become a source of major worry to expat wives - those that have moved here with their husbands or those that have stayed back in their home countries, living long-distance marriages. Parallel industries that feed off of this stereotype are booming - such as private detectives, divorce lawyers, marriage counsellors etc. I've even seen/ overheard White women, (Mostly American & Australian. The Europeans are classier about post-marital flings, me thinks) at classic 'Expat Wife Meet-ups' (annoyingly always organised at cafes I frequent to write in), discussing animatedly their strategies of avoiding such personal calamities from ocurring in their lives. It's like a show of  'Expat-Housewives' being filmed right next to my table! (Overhearing their episodes can get you hooked. Leaves me thinking how I would love a DVR option on this one, so I could watch later)

3. Surfing through music channels, bored of our usual Channel V/ MTV chartbusters to dance away one lazy afternoon, the daughter and I found our latest love - K-Pop!
It all started when in an attempt to put her down, for an additional hour or two, I'd taught her a new game. We were to shut our eyes and change TV Channels, until we heard a tune we wanted to dance to. It was a unanimous choice; love at first sound and addiction at first sight. While I've also now learnt to appreciate Korean slow songs, the daughter still prefers Pop I think, as it goes better with her dance moves.
With her affinity for Japanese anime, Korean Pop, Balinese & Khmer instrumental bands, Vietnamese rural theater sounds, Bollywood Top Hits, Tamil & Marathi item songs etc, this little American seems to be on an Asian sub-culture roll these days.

4. Our family of two and a half just expanded. (And before you make any assumptions - No, we're not having another baby. This is not how I'd announce it, even if we were). Our first ever live-in staff joined us this week, and she is the newest member of our family, atleast while we're based here, in Singapore.
Janet, is a 50+ stocky, well-built, smart, energetic, English & Tagalog speaking Filipina, who moved in with us this week. While we're not really into hiring help older than us, we made an exception in her case, considering the other 'plusses' she came with. For starters, she is a great cook - Indian, European, Pan-Asian, American - it seems like she's made the most of her years working with expats from all over the world. She's also a good catch in a market full of docile, will-bow-before-you-O-Master sorts; being a level-headed, independent thinker, yet abiding by professional boundaries all the time. And she has stellar references, all of whom wanted to take her with them, when they moved out of Singapore. Life promises to be spoilt and breezy here-on and if this first week is anything to go by, it might also be a plate full of deliciousness, at each meal!

5. Much planning and taking care of pending tasks got done this week. New itineraries were charted and travel plans for families/ friends to come visit, were drawn up. Before we know it, our time here will come to an end and we would'nt want that to happen, without our families having visited, atleast once. So the next few weeks will hopefully be full of house-guests and if we get lucky, then perhaps some travel itineraries including them, too.

6. Weekend brunch was at a long-lusted-at place called Jones - The Grocer. Our relaxed 4 hour laze-session with Hubster's bosses and colleagues got me thinking how often all of us end up hanging out together, here in Singapore. We've become a clique of sorts - Deloitte expats with families, all who've moved here from various parts of the world.
This is the first time we, (Our li'll trio of Hubster, Baby & I) are living in a place where we have a relatively smaller social network than back in the States. And it's a relatively unfamiliar place, considering our previous home was in a city where we'd lived for a decade. Add to that the fact that we spend more time outside of this home, than inside it, to bother about getting to know it any more than we need to.
So while we've sincerely plotted weekend/ week long escapades to lands near and far from here, there has'nt been much local exploration to write home about. What has changed though, is the incredible amount of time the three of us now spend with each other; be it in or outside of this city. It's not something that I could have claimed, had we continued to live back in the States, where we were always socially busy. Having said that, I do miss my social circuit from NY! You know who you are - Cant wait to come back to all of you soon!

7. Our movie mania (Hubster's & mine) is now back on, thanks to the new family member - Janet. The two of us, were thrilled to go watch a new Bollywood flick - 'Matru ki Bijli ka Mandola' this week, leaving the daughter asleep at home. That is the REAL reason we need full-time help at home, honestly - to get our nocturnal escapades back into our lives, without having to be back in time to relieve the sitter. Of course the fact that the IMAX Theatre is across the street from us, might just mean movie nights got better - I am going in PJ's next time!

8. The Daughter turned 18 months old on Sunday, January 13th 2013. A year and a half has flown and in keeping with my monthly-birthday-celebration-style, I made her a dessert - Rich Chocolate Pudding. Well, let's just say it was meant to be a pudding, had I found cornstarch in one of the five stores that I went looking in. Having been spoilt by the variety of great baking ingredients available in any supermarket in the States, I was not prepared for this downer. One can find Potato Starch & Corn flour in most stores here, but Cornstarch is hard to come by.
Finally substituting ingredients, I came up with my sinful tasting (thankfully) Chocolate pudding which ended up too thick, looking like ice-cream instead.
While the daughter sang 'Happy Birthday' on repeat, for herself (She starts at the sight of a candle/ bonfire/ forest fire/ gas flame - anything lit up); Janet & Hubster devoured the delicious 'ice-cream' and I shamelessly grinned at their compliments, happy to put another month behind me. For those of you wondering how long this 'monthly birthday celebration' is going to go on - I think I ll stop when she turns 2! If for nothing else, perhaps just the fear that she might grow up thinking birthdays are to be celebrated every month, not every year! Not that there's anything wrong with that......

On that note, it's a wrap! Time to go buy some 'pre-school essentials' for the daughter, as school starts next week!
Take care and keep reading!
Shweyta

Singapore Suitcases: Week 12 - Of letting Saigon's be Saigon, Marketplace turn-ons & a New Year full of more wanderlust!

1. In addition to our own suitcases, each one of us brought pre-established notions with us, when we arrived into Vietnam. Hubster thought it would be even cheaper than Cambodia, Daughter thought it would be even more loving and I thought it would be as warm (climatically & personably speaking), since it's still just next door to China, not really China itself (You can tell how I've been prepared for China already by the rest of Asia) Of course, all three of us were wrong!

Breaking News - Vietnam is not as cheap as Cambodia. Expecting the Vietnamese to be as nice as the Khmer, is pure arrogance with respect to their history and political alliances. Plus there's something about having more money that makes one lose their innocence perhaps? And Northern Vietnam, especially Ha Noi and the foothills of mountains near it, are much colder than most of SE Asia. Something I had totally skipped in my pre-travel research. And for starters, our hotel charged us a whopping sum of 82 USD for an airport pick-up, which we thought was for free until we checked-in; an unheard of scenarios in any of our travel itineraries thus far. Welcome to Vietnam, we told ourselves!

While we overlooked the above, we did do our homework when it came to certain other facts - Vietnam's strict communist regime, it's North-South divide stemming from it's troubled past of war within and of course it's limited, hesitant American-isation as compared to other Asian cities; a still lingering effect of the US-Vietnam war! Also most Cambodians we had met, did not think highly of the Vietnamese. According to them, if seen on the map, Asia starts getting ruder, meaner and more selfish as one inches closer towards China. Since Vietnam borders China on its North, the people act and even look more Chinese. An interesting fact, that an Asian traveler learns very early on, when traveling in the non-Chinese parts of Asia.

2. Ho Chi Minh City (aka HCMC, lovingly referred to as Saigon even today) was our first stop in the country. We brought in the New Year here.
Saigon is Vietnam's largest cities, which had to embrace communism and a new name -  HCMC, after it lost in war to Communist Northern Vietnam. On an urban level, Saigon is divided into several Districts, District 1 being the main CBD area, where most tourist destinations are located, within walking distances of each other. My research appropriately pointed out that a day and a half is more than enough time to see/ savor this city.

The first thing the Hotel concierge told us when we were ready to step out was, to avoid carrying a sling bag and a huge camera, for fear of pick-pocketeers. A small Q&A session later, I decided to take his advice, thrusting cash in my shorts' pocket and convincing myself an Iphone camera will do! Of course a few hours later, I felt as though I could've totally overlooked what he said, but it's an important tip all the same, to keep in mind when one is here.
Our over-the-top gaudy 5-star hotel (We went with Hubster's 5-star preference over mine this time) - The Windsor Plaza, in Saigon, was located in the Heritage district/ Chinatown area of the city. Instead of resorting to the hotel's buffet breakfast, we decided to take a walking tour of the area and grab breakfast like the rest of the city; at a local 'Pho' restaurant. Needless to say, it was the most delish Pho we've ever had. The daughter, like us had never had Pho for breakfast before and when she slurped it down to the last drop, we knew this was going well.
Coffee however took some getting used to. I must confess that living in Singapore, I've still managed to steer clear of 'Kopi tiams', the only reason being I am not into as much sugar. For some reason, SE Asians love their sugar so much, they start their morning with dark coffee in sweetened condensed milk. Vietnamese coffee shops serve you the above (only in a fancy drip-coffee apparatus, where the black coffee drips drop by drop into sweetened condensed milk), when you order a coffee with milk. Ordering it 'black' with milk on the side, is not an option, since they rarely stock regular milk (forget fat-free). Though I haven't ditched my java completely, this is another reason why after having moved to Asia, I prefer herbal tea over coffee.

3. You know how I wrote in my last week's post about the whole city of Phnom Penh coming at you on two-wheelers? Well, that times 2 in the case of Saigon. So much so, that it's impossible to cross the street here. I finally understood what my expat friends in Mumbai went through, the first time they tried to cross a street there. Only, in Saigon, it's so bad that even a oversmart Mumbaikars such as Hubster and I, found ourselves cluelessly playing dodge, with the traffic, that too with the daughter in a stroller.

4. Once we'd learnt the art of navigating ourselves with stroller through two-way traffic, we were the kings of the road. We went sight-seeing everywhere possible on foot and ended up at that spatial type which gives me the biggest high - Markets. Saigon has a large central market called "Old Market" and the afternoon was spent walking through it's various stalls selling spice, coffee, tea, fruit, meat, vegetables, flowers, jewellery (Lovely additions to the global trinkets box were made here), artifacts etc.

5. Traveling with a baby entails stopping at local supermarkets at times, (another spot to soak into local life), to stock up on those essentials that might not be available in temple-shops, mountain-top shacks or street-side local vendors (where we usually eat when on the road), such as Pure Milk. You'd be surprised how rare it is to find 'Pure Milk' tetra-packs (the to-go kinds with straws stuck on their backs) while traveling in Asia or even in the States for that matter. Unsweetened, unflavoured, just regular, Plain Milk (not fat-free or 1% or 2%) - Jeez, that certainly isn't asking for a lot now, is it? But most of the world (Singapore, Mumbai and some other parts of Asia thankfully excluded from this list), believes in drinking altered or flavored milk, on-the-go. Its a good thing we gave up on using just 'organic' in her case a long time ago or we'd have to end up flying with extra luggage each time.

6. We decided to ditch our hotel's elite roof-top New Year's eve soiree, for a randomly chanced-upon, last minute dinner place we found through our research, called Monsoon. This restaurant, first established in Yangon, Burma in 2004 had recently opened in Saigon, earlier this year. Specialising in pan SE Asian cuisine, they serve a delectable variety of dishes from the regions of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar & Thailand. There could not have been a more appropriate last dinner of the year for us, going by the current travel agenda of our life. The daughter, as she cleverly does on certain important occasions, called it a night early, leaving Hubster and I to celebrate our phenomenally dynamic year (year-end especially) over a brilliant dinner and some rare, good Asian wine! As was becoming the norm with us on this trip, what with a non-traditional Christmas day spent biking in the Cambodia countryside, we thought why should the first day of the new year be any different? So the plan was to take another similar early am trip, through the Vietnamese countryside, the next morning.

7. January 1st, 2013 saw us rising at 5:30 am, when most others perhaps go to bed; for a day trip to the Vietnamese part of the Mekong River Delta & the village of My Tho. We boarded the bus from the city centre, the first stop of which was at - a Buddhist temple called the 'Vin Thrang Pagoda'. The temple complex welcomes one with a spectacular, towering, huge statue of Buddha. Once one decides to take eyes off of it and look to it's left, one sees another similarly towering, stark white statue of the Laughing Buddha, a few metres away (The Hubster was templed-out by the end of this trip, I think). But humongous Buddha statues have a draw about them, one that even non-religious 30-somethings such as us, cannot be spared of. To top it, the daughter's insistence on wanting to go see what she thought was the "Moon" from far, as she pointed to the shiny, round white, bald head of the Laughing Buddha (I swear this has nothing to do with the way we talk about bald people at home), left us with no option but to inch closer to the statue. At some point the Hubster had to drag me by the hair, back to the bus to stop my portrait-shooting frenzy.

The tour group moved on, to board the bus which took us to a ferry next, to sail through the extensive network of rivers and waterways, which are a result of various headwaters throughout SE Asia, that ultimately reach the South China Sea. This region, we were told harvests three different kinds of rice annually and its rice production is more than that of Japan and Korea put together!
Afternoon lunch was with local farmers, at a village eatery where we visited an in-house factory that made products from all parts of Coconuts. Post-lunch was spent playing with the village's pet python (Well the Aussies among us did) and drinking our soothing herbal teas.
While Hubster once again proclaimed his 'Been there done that'-ness to me (he's grown up seeing coconut factories, rice-fields etc in his native village, thus seeing these on our Asian adventures seems mundane to him), the daughter seemed to have taken our 'going local while going global' mantra to a whole new level. We found her sitting in the lap of a random village woman, happily being fed, what was supposedly lunch meant for her own children. The woman's poor kids gave me a "What just happened.." kinda look, which in turn made me wonder, if I should be feeding them lunch now, in what would only seem as an appropriate and fair exchange. Thankfully before I could consider this seriously, the local farmer band appeared out of nowhere and decided to belt out some folk-lore, happily distracting the daughter away.

The tour concluded in private canoe rides, where being true tourists we all donned our Non la's (the conical Vietnamese leaf hats) as we sailed through a small tributary of the great delta.
On the way back to Saigon, the daughter had made enough friends on the bus (read babysitters, for us), so the return journey was a relaxed and a mostly seated one! After all, we had a plane to catch to Ha Noi after all this.
The first day of 2013 was not really planned such, but turned out to be spent on an extreme travel note - since it started off with us riding a car to a bus to a ferry to a canoe to a bus to a car to a plane and to a car again, finally until we reached our last hotel of the itinerary, in Ha Noi. They say what you do on the first day of the year is symbolic of how your year is going to turn out to be. Amen to that!

8. Non La's (the conical leaf hats) are omnipresent in SE Asia, more so in Vietnam. While they serve as intelligently and ergnomically designed, devices to defend against the heat and rain, they have adaptable uses; as baskets to carry light groceries, as hand fans if it's too hot and even make stylish hair accessories! They have become the quintessential souvenir, a must-pick-up, when one visits Vietnam.

9. Tired from our 12 hour long day trip, we barely noticed that most of our co-passengers on the flight from Saigon to Ha Noi, were carrying thick jackets. Once we landed at the Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, is when we realised that we were perhaps the only ones under-dressed in shorts and t-shirts.
All we could see around us were puffer jackets, gloves, hats, mufflers, boots hiding human faces behind them. On coming out of the airport and into the city, we realized these temperatures were pleasant, more like at the onset of Fall, far from the winter temperatures we are used to, having lived over a decade in North-East USA.
Interestingly, most of Asia feels cold really easily. I remember my Mom telling me last year, how she needed to take out her woollens/ shawls in the month of December, in Mumbai. I've jeered in the past, at women who've been on my flight to Mumbai in December and emerged from the aircraft wearing boots, as I strode past them in flip-flops. I mean, Really?
But one man's Fall is another man's Winter. As we walked around Ha Noi, baring our half-naked selves, we saw some locals sitting around bon-fires and others shivering underneath thick woollens. Startled shop-keepers, much to our amusement, tried to usher us indoors, to buy fake branded jackets. (We finally caved in and being precautious, bought the daughter one for the next day's trip up further North to Ha Long Bay. Of course she refused to wear it all the time there as her 'cold' quotient takes after the Hubster's. Both have eskimo-like tolerances to the cold).

10. Ha Noi is the capital of Vietnam and perhaps that is why, it has a more disciplined, two-wheeler culture, making it easier to cross the streets here.
The Old Quarter, which is the heart of the city, is a maze of streets, laid out in a millenium-old plan, lined with  family-owned shops that sell everything under the sun. Bargaining is key here. One look at the market and Hubster knew his 'bargain-loving' wife is going to have a blast here. You bet, he wasn't wrong.

Most Old Quarter streets are lined with shops selling similar wares; so while one street sells only shoes, there was another that sold only curios and a third that only dealt with clothing/ fabric/ silk and so on. This is an interesting remnant of a historic event - When the emperor Ly Thai To moved his capital to Ha Noi over a century ago, a community of craftsmen followed him here and set themselves up in the format of each guild-per street. That explains the segregation of trades by streets, which makes for an interesting precursor to modern day commercial space planning.
While most of the shops have adapted to present-day needs and sell pirated goods, one can also find a few stores that sell 'rejected' export cotton apparel with labels such as H&M, Gap etc on them.
To think all these years I wore clothes that were tagged 'Made in Cambodia/ Vietnam' and here I was, in these countries, seeing them made at source!

The Old Quarter is merchandiser/ buyer/ shopper/ tourist heaven, especially as the ratio of the USD to the Vietnamese Dong is 1:20,000 making the dollar stretch very far, here too. However unlike Cambodia, Vietnam can also be more expensive, so one needs to be a little careful, especially if you come here after visiting Cambodia, like we did. Suddenly everything seemed expensive (If I had to do this all over again, I would probably visit Vietnam first and then go to Cambodia, to end my vacation on a pocket-pleasing note!) 

11. I missed tuk-tuks here. Cyclo-rickshaws are more popular in Vietnam, the kinds driven by a cyclist driver; only unlike the cycle-rickshaws in India, the passengers sit in front of the driver in this case. That might be scary considering there's nothing between you and the traffic, but it seemed like a fun experience. We didn't end up taking one, as they are too small to accommodate two adults and a half.

12. Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the Quang Ninh Province of Northeastern Vietnam, bordered by China on the North. A day trip to the Bay and back from Ha Noi, is a 12 hour affair, as it takes one 4 hours each way, to and fro, in addition to the 4 hours on a cruise ship/ kayak ride that winds through the mammoth limestone monoliths of the bay. (Another deja-vu occured with a similar day-cruise we'd taken a few years ago - through the Matanuska glaciers in Alaska. Except those were ice glaciers and islands, while these were limestone. And of course, that sail really required puffer jackets, for this one a thin jacket was plenty).

Lunch was a traditional yummy Vietnamese fare, served on a boat - a local fish steamed with scallions and garlic, pork shumai, fried tofu and a hot, clear sea-food and clam soup, with 'Hanoi' beer, followed by fresh watermelon, mangosteen and dragon fruit as dessert. (SE Asian beer of choice on this vacation was 'Angkor' in Cambodia and 'Hanoi' in Vietnam, although Cambodian local red wine is pretty good too). 

The limestone monolithic islands have vegetation growing on their tops, as they make a grand emergence from the sea. Most islands hide hollow caves within, one of which is the Hang Dau Go - the largest grotto in the islands, with several stalagmites and stalactites within. Since this was my first stalagmite/ stalactite experience, I was excited to see this grotto, until we entered it and saw it lit up in multi-colored lights (The closest analogy I could draw was of a 'Ganpati pandal' in one of the Sarvajanik Ganesha's in Mumbai). Its a pity when man decides how nature should be presented to the rest of mankind. Lit up in a plain simple yellow neon, could have done the job too. Adding colour to the caves, honestly only took away from their largeness and surrealism.
It seems like the daughter didn't appreciate the color either as she napped on top of Hubster's head, while we explored the cave.

13. Being previous French-Indochine colonies, both Cambodia and Vietnam have colonial remnants. I found it interesting that in both nations, the older generation speaks fluent French, while the younger generation speaks the local language and gets by with broken English. Imagine if that would've happened in India? All our grandparents would speak impeccable English while we would be hard-core Hindi/ regional language speaking youngsters?
In Cambodia, almost everyone speaks broken English, whereas in Vietnam, almost no one does. Thus, getting around in Vietnam highly relies on how good you are at playing 'Dumb Charades'. After a point I found my subconscious hands doing a descriptive dance every time I talked, much to the amusement of the Hubster. That's how much sign language you will end up using, when speaking with locals in Vietnam.

14. I could'nt leave the country of 'Banh Mi' without having one atleast, (Yes I know my fellow foodies are going to be disappointed to know I had this just once in my entire time there. But one cannot afford to replicate one's lunch, in a land that has so much to offer on it's plate, quite literally).
For the few of you that don't know, the Banh Mi is the Vietnamese term for a single baguette, although it is used to describe the entire sandwich. The single baguettes can be bought off of street vendors and make great snacks to munch on-the-go, being crisp and freshly baked. A symbolic remnant of the French, the single baguette, is stuffed with delicious meat or vegetarian fillings topped by handfuls of cilantro, making for absolutely incredible sandwiches.

15. Our flight back from Ha Noi to Singapore was the sixth and last flight of this two week long itinerary. While we were happy to be back home, there was also the feeling that a lot still needed to be seen.
There are several other places within Cambodia and Vietnam we wished we could' ve visited. Hence going back there, at a later date in the future is unavoidable. Perhaps when the daughter is slightly older. Traveling with a baby on this trip and having only two weeks in hand, left us with no choice but to fly everywhere, as much as we would've loved taking the train or bus intermittently. We cannot wait until the daughter grows up a bit more, to begin doing the latter with her and hope to return to these countries as backpackers.

For now, it's time to begin the New Year on a new note. I see exciting time ahead, what with all this travel, a new occupation in the works and the baby starting school soon. More on that in the next update! Hope you've had a very happy start to the New Year too!
Love,
Shweyta