Sun 04/01/09 23:39

Vinh is straight out the 70’s, it’s poor, depressing, and had some of the friendliest people we’ve been in contact with yet. The town is not on the regular tourist path so the people of Vinh don’t see very many Westerners. The people seemed to be genuinely curious about us, maybe more than we were of them this was demonstrated when we would be outside. Just walking around we would be approached by the locals, sometimes it was just saying hello, other times it was asking for a handshake. One girl on the tour, Carina, was at a market buying snacks, and the cashier just kept staring at her with a stupid smile, the cashier would give her candy and not ring-up her purchase. Carina got the feeling that the cashier thought that she was a fairy or something. Most of us though didn’t get that type of treatment, I had people coming up to shake my hand, and people everywhere saying hello. Our group was followed by three Vietnamese women after I took their picture. They must have followed us for about 5 minutes just giggling. It was really an experience though, our group of about 12 people walking along the road, with motor bikes going by, people waving at us and yelling hello as they rode by. It felt that we were a parade going along the sidewalk.

From Vinh we headed to Hanoi at about 8pm that night.