We began our day meeting three young University students from Hanoi: Heng (Hung), Hong (Home), and Linh (Ling). They served as our tour guides and guardian angles for the day by negotiating everything from taxi rides to shoe prices. They took us to the University of Literature that served as the first University of Hanoi that began over 1000 years ago. Today, it serves as a museum and temple where students come to pray before their final exams. If prayer is not enough, some students will rub the head of one of the ancient stone turtles for luck and good fortune. We then made our way across town to Salt Lake to visit another temple. This temple was unique because it was in the middle of the lake and featured a cremated turtle. Taking in the culture of the temples was truly a unique experience, and one I am sure we shall never forget.

Then we made our way to the old market a few streets over. Not only did we learn to look both ways before we crossed the street, we learned to look left, right, back, front, sideways, and occasionally diagonally. Each street sold something different and of course, as ladies, we hit the shoe street…hard 🙂 A Vietnamese water puppet show ended our outing in the old market. It was excellent way to see a different side of the Vietnamese culture even if we had no idea what was being said. One thing I learned from today is that all around the world people your age think about the same things. For example, Heng and I walked out of a silk shop and she mumbled, “Tell me why.” I quickly added, “Ain’t nothing but a heartache!” Here we are literally half way around the world singing the Backstreet Boys. It completely blew my mind. Through that conversation alone these three ladies made me realize that even though we may all be different, we are all connected in some greater way. After a long hot day, we said our goodbyes to our fearless tour guides and opted for a quick dip in the pool before our last meal in Vietnam.
Thank you for all of your prayers as we continue our journey to Cambodia tomorrow morning at 6:00a.m. Now the real work begins!