Vietnamese are some of the most hospitable people in the world. When my friends heard that I was coming to visit, they planned activities for me while I am here. They take turns making sure that someone is taking me out to meals or I have something to do. They were planning on a weekend trip to the beach but that did not work out. So we settled for an overnight stay at a mountain resort area called Tam Dao, about 3 hours away from Hanoi.
There were 12 of us in the group. We rented a passenger van, which picked us up at the IBM Office at 8 am on Saturday. On the way to Tam Dao, we stopped for breakfast and picked up a friend who lives nearby. After a bowl of pho, we were on our way up the winding road towards the mountain resort area. Getting away from the heat in Hanoi is itself worth the trip. I think most people come here to just get away from the city. There is also a golf course nearby, where I've played a couple of times. There is not much else to do here - just buying stuff from the street vendors, eat, and at night, get a massage or do karaoke. One thing you noticed when you drive into town is the number of locals selling a certain kind of bananas and a vegetable. The bananas are called king bananas because they were the favorites of one of the Vietnamese kings. The locals sell them in a bunch for about US$2. Yes, that's right. There's about 50 bananas in a bunch for US$2 and they really taste good. The vegetable that they sell resembles a little like spinach, although a little lighter green. They just braised it and add some garlic to it. It'd taster better if they put a little oyster sauce on it, just like Chinese restaurants adding oyster sauce to "kai lan" or chinese broccoli.
This area somewhat resembles Sapa, a mountainous area close to the Chinese border. However, Sapa is a much bigger and expansive area with wonderful views of the mountains and rice paddies. Sapa is also populated by minority ethnic groups. The bad part about Sapa is that it's about 10 hours by train away.
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| King's bananas - each bunch costs around US2 |
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| Vegetables popular in this area |
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| Purple Sweet Potatoes - they are very good |
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| Sticky rice cooked in a bamboo |
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| Catholic Church in town |
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| A view of the town |
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| Vendor selling food |
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| Town Market |
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