Have fallen in love with Vietnam!

Greetings from Vietnam!!!

So, apparently we have come just in time for some major holiday celebrations! All of Vietnam is on a 4 day national holiday celebrating their independence, making the city streets even busier with the locals coming in to celebrate! We have included a couple of videos to get a sense of the magnitude of this celebration. And boy were there fireworks!!!!! And LOTS of them! AND, we are pros at crossing the street! We barely even look anymore...and flinching is at a minimum!

We have just returned from an overnight stay on a private boat in Halong Bay! It is recognized as a world heritage natural site and it is completely obvious why! You can see in the pictures, from the water juts up giant rocks, islands and there are thousands of them all around this bay. One of which has monkeys!!!! And yes, we saw the monkeys. We actually kayaked to the spot where they are. We were so close to them as they ate, ran and interacted with one another. It was incredible. They are just jumping and clinging on to this rock through the trees, it felt like we were in National Geographic or something!

First of all, we must send our love and gratitude to 2 VERY special people! Loan Nguyen and Ngoc Phung!!!!! WE LOVE YOU GUYS! THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROSITY AND FOR SHOWING US YOUR BEAUTIFUL HA NOI!!!!!

Also, thank you Loan and Ngoc for teaching us so much! Loan works at our hotel and from day one helped us speak some Vietnamese and find restaurants and also find our cruise to the Bay. Ngoc was our tour guide from the boat and she was wonderful! She taught us so many Vietnamese words and phrases while we were on the boat. At one point, we literally docked the boat for a festival they were having and just sat on the back of it as people walked by and we said hello, goodbye, nice to meet you, and a couple others here and there in Vietnamese and it was SO much fun! We were really the only out of country tourists there and people were just completely shocked that we were speaking their language and we were foreigners, obviously we stick out a bit! At one point, we even had a line of people waiting to speak to us and take pictures with us! The people here are incredibly friendly and we think are not used to the effort of other people trying to learn their language since it is so hard. But we are doing relatively good for only being here about 4 days now. Ngoc is a great teacher for sure! And incredibly patient with us!
The chef on the boat was so great! And every meal was beautiful, we took pictures of most of the dishes. And even after, they had a cake made special for us that said "happy honeymoon!" All of the crew really went above and beyond for sure! There were even roses for Sara when we first arrived! One of our most favorite things was to be invited to eat with the staff, where we got to try traditional foods and eat like a "family" with the crew on board. It was so special. We even tried...wait for it....fish stomach!!!!!! We split it with Ngoc and apparently it is the best part of the fish. It was interesting...kind of chewy.

The boat experience was great and when we came back into Hanoi, Ngoc and Loan took us out around the town for some traditional foods. We had a rice pancake and some street pastries. The hospitality of these two is overwhelming...they took care of everything and always with a sweet smile. We all have much to learn by this show of generosity and kindness. They are near and dear in our hearts and will remain our "Ban" forever. (that is friend for all of you non-speaking Vietnamese).

What a beautiful trip to Hanoi and tomorrow we will head to Hoi An!

Love to you all!!!!!
xo
p+s
**as we finish this, we are actually in Hoi An...loving it here! Sorry about the delay on the Halong Bay, but we are having troubles with our internet! We could only post a few pics and the video isn't working, but we will try to get up more asap! xoxo