For all my “followers” (aka my mom and grandmother), sorry that it’s been a while. As I’m sure my dad will make fun of me for saying, it’s very difficult to keep up with this when you have class twice a week (and travel the other five days).
So backtracking a little, last weekend I left the heat of Singapore for the heat of Phuket Thailand. When I arrived there on Wednesday, my friend Talia and I decided to take a minibus to our hostel. It was only 200 baht a person (like $6) for a 1 hour drive so we figured it would make the most sense. Of course, between waiting for all the seats to be filled, the “reststop” at a tour agency so they could try to sell us day trips and boat tours, plus dropping everyone at their hotels, it was a few hour ordeal. It was definitely an experience, and we were happy to finally arrive at our hostel. We found a highly rated pad Thai place on TripAdvisor not too far away, so we decided to get lunch there. After braving the ten minute walk (there are no sidewalks, traffic lights, etc.) to the restaurant/shack on the side of the road, we had to wait about 40 minutes for our food, but it was definitely worth it. I’m going to be honest, I haven’t had a lot of pad Thai in my life, but this was by far the best. We then went to the beach, met up with some of our other friends who were on a later flight from Singapore, and walked around.
On Thursday, Talia and I spent the morning at the beach, before heading on a tour. We booked the tour that morning at a random place on our street, because transportation is pretty difficult in Phuket, so we figured it would be the easiest way to get to the temple, the big buddha, and the viewpoint that we wanted to see. The lady said it would go to these places and to see a baby elephant, but that was it. However, after getting on the tour bus (which I was slightly surprised actually showed up), it was clear there were many more “destinations” on this tour. In addition to what we actually thought we were going to do, we went to a cashew factory, a bee factory, and had a “coffee break” which meant walking through a large gem store, and you could get a free coffee or soft drink when you reached the end. While all these extra stops were obviously scams to sell us stuff, the cashew factory was actually cool- they had free samples of over 30 different flavors and they were amazing. The rest of the tour was good, with the exception of 2 annoying guys who were late every time we were supposed to meet at the bus, causing us to miss most of the sunset at the viewpoint. Overall, a successful day, but they definitely have the tourist thing figured out in Phuket.
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| Big Buddha |
On Friday Talia and I went to meet my parents (who had been traveling in Vietnam and Thailand for a few weeks) for a boat ride on the Andaman sea. We explored a cave, went kayaking, and went swimming on a private beach. It was really beautiful and relaxing.
We made a stop at Chabad on our way to the hotel to get food for Shabbat, and then had drinks on the beach at sunset before eating dinner. I got to pretend to be my sister for the weekend in order to reap her hotel benefits (including freee drinks), so thanks for that @rebecca. Saturday we enjoyed the hotel breakfast (also thanks @rebecca) and spent the whole day at the beach and pool. After Shabbat we went to a market, had some street corn, accidentally ventured onto a street with ping pong clubs (don't look up what that is), and finally made it to a quiet vegetarian restaraunt, before ending the night with Thai ice cream.
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| Our ride home in a tuk tuk |
Talia and I left for Singapore early Sunday morning (a few hours before my parents). We were one of two tables at breakfast at 6am, so the other people there asked if we wanted to share a cab to the airport. After talking for most of the cab ride, we realized we hadn’t exchanged names, which led to the classic questions about my name. “What’s the origin of Zimi? Is it short for something? What does it mean?” After I answered “Zimrat, it’s Hebrew” the guy said “So, are you going to be in Singapore for Passover?” All I can say is it’s a shame my mom wasn’t in the car because she would’ve had a field day.
After a busy 2.5 days in Singapore spending time with my parents (thanks for visiting!) and going to class, I was back at the airport heading to Hanoi, Vietnam. I made a nice Vietnamese friend on the plane, got there in the evening on Wednesday, checked into the hostel, and found a good vegan restaurant for dinner. The lobby of our hostel basically turns into a club every night, but we went to bed early because the next day we were getting up early to go to Halong Bay.
After enjoying our free breakfast at the hostel (great value considering it cost $8 a night), we boarded the 4 hour bus to Halong Bay. Don’t worry, this trip also took a rest stop at a gem factory, in case we needed any more after our trip to Phuket. We arrived at around noon, boarded a boat, and had an interesting vegetarian lunch before exploring heaven cave. Pictures of the cave won’t do it justice, but it was really cool. After some more time on the boat we went kayaking, and then headed back to the port. In addition to the tour being beautiful, we also made some vegetarian friends from Taiwan and Finland, so we got dinner with them once we got back to Hanoi. 
Friday I did another day trip with 2 friends, this time to Tam Loc in Ninh Binh province. This trip was also really cool- we got to see a more rural village and rice fields (which mostly look like mud at this time of year). We went on a bamboo boat ride and biked a little bit. The only downside was that Friday was very cold, and not at all sunny like it had been the day before.
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| Tried to take a nice picture but this man in our tour group wasn't getting the hint |
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| Bamboo boat on Tom Coc |
Saturday, I went on a walking tour of the old quarter in Hanoi, before going to the Women’s museum and the Hoa Lo prison- both very interesting. On the walk back to our hostel, many streets were closed off from cars for the weekend. Just for reference, on a normal day there are motorbikes coming at you from every direction. Our tour guides advice for crossing the street was to close your eyes and pray. Because there were no cars, there were lots of street performances going on around the river, which was fun to see. After resting a little and enjoying the free hour of beer that our hostel provides, Talia and I went to a vegetarian place that my parents had reccomended. We got a hot pot which was so good but so much food- the waitress kept coming over and serving us vegetables in our soup bowl to make room for more stuff in the pot, so I had to keep putting vegetables on my plate to make room for noodles. Priorities, right?
After a long dinner we walked through the night market and got some souvenirs. We ended the night with egg coffee, a Hanoi specialty. It’s unclear to me whether it actually has raw egg in it, but it was really good (it also came in a chocolate dipped ice cream cone so...).
Now I’m on the plane waiting to go back to Singapore, where I need to catch up on sleep, schoolwork, and hopefully see some more of the city. I woke up at 6 am today for my flight so its nap time for me, and maybe for you too if you made it to the end of this!
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