After traveling for months throughout South East Asia, I can honestly say I have never been to a region of the world where the people are quite as friendly (with the exception of some popular tourist destinations in Thailand). In this post, I’ll give you an example of the kindness we experienced on our first South East Asian destination – Hanoi, Vietnam.
We hailed a taxi at the airport into the city, and when we rang the doorbell to our homestay we found out that we were in fact NOT at our homestay. Good thing Vietnam is one of the only countries our cell phone provider does not have coverage, right? A kind women on the street (who did not speak any English) tried to help, but unfortunately she didn’t understand. A women driving past on a motor bike must have seen the confusion in our faces because she pulled over and after reading the address, put us in the right direction. Our first act of Vietnamese kindness.
When we finally arrived at our homestay (almost 6 hours before check-in), we were greeted with an attack of love for Isabel and the sincerest smiles. The children of the homestay couldn’t touch Isabel enough. They felt her face and legs and gave her so much love. The owners moved things around to get us in our room in just a couple hours. We were so thankful as our 11-hour jet-lag was in full force!!
As we waited for our room to be prepared, we wondered around the nearby areas. We wandered through a park and got our first taste of the Hanoi capital craziness. Outside of the major streets, there are no stop signs, not many street lights, and no order to driving. There are no lanes, and motorbikes play a game of who can fit into the smallest space. Drivers only pay attention to what is in front of them and honk to let you know they are going to pass (they don’t look for the okay before doing so).
Trying to cross the street is like playing a game of Frogger. The motorbikes and vehicles don’t stop for you, so you must go in order to get them to start to slow down for you. We were VERY intimidated by this at first, but by the third day we were pro’s.
It was crossing the street that we realized that the love at the homestay for Isabel was not by them, but by almost all of the Vietnamese locals. People would wave from their motorbikes to her. People on the corner would come up to her to wave hi or take a picture of her. We realized, we have our own celebrity baby.
As friendly as people were to us, Isabel really drew the crowd and kindness. Women at restaurants would fight over who could get Isabel to come to them first. At the park, kids would run to her to touch hands and play with bubbles. A group of boys playing street ball would stop their game to throw the ball with Isabel. When buying diapers, the store clerk gave us a kids bowling set for Isabel as a gift.
And it wasn’t just women and children. The men were equally as enamored. They would take a break from enjoying their Bia Hoi beer on the street to wave or say hello. They would stop walking to come over and take a picture with her.
I don’t know if the kindness we received while in Hanoi was because of the baby, but I don’t think so. I think it was just an added enjoyable bonus. When we would ask for a coffee the response was always “Yes, I will get right away”. For a meal we would hear “Will 5 minutes to prepare be okay?”. Passing people on the sidewalk would induce a “Hello! Hello!”.
Vietnam being our first destination on our world trip from the US has been quite a culture shock. We spent our time in Hanoi adjusting to the 11 hour time difference and exploring the city. We are so thankful that the Vietnamese people were so kind. I don’t know if we would have been able to adjust so well if not.