A morning in Hanoi - Thanksgiving 2025 trip

We just got back from a 10 day trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. The last part of the trip was planned in January. We knew our friends son was getting married in Phuket and we were going. It was post thanksgiving week given the stars aligned for the kid and his bride to be a week after!

Having put in for the entire week after thanksgiving off, our planner in chief had plenty of time to decide what to do in the run up to the wedding in Phuket. She did change things a few times and came up with a Hanoi-> Angkor Wat -> Chiang Mai -> Phuket plan. 2 days to 2 1/2 days tops for each location. I was asked for a wish list of places to see and apparently my plan would need a month, not to mention underground caves needed permits that were not available. As usual, all I had to do was follow instructions!

One tip before going to anyplace these days. Do not bother looking at facebook feed. Had barely checked in and was waiting at gate when FB told me that Ho Chi Minh city was under water and what we need to do to prep for it. This was not a one off thing. Before we went to any place or as soon as we landed we got the worst negative fake news about each place be it floods, fires, wars, etc. Total BS! Facebook needs to do something about this nonsense soon. or folks should take them to task for this blatant misinformation. At this point these bastards maybe responsible for most wars around the world if they stream this type of fake news and create unnecessary panic. It was good I turned off my wifi and having no international data plan also helped. used the phone pretty much as a video camera for the trip.

There was no direct flight we could find. So we went SFO -> Seoul , Seoul-> Ho Chi Minh city with a very tight connection on Korean air (gladly we made it as did our luggage). We had a 6 hour wait in Ho Chi Minh city and took a taxi to a airport hotel (5 min ride from the airport). We took a shower, had some wagh bakri chai at 3AM local time and took a 45 min power nap, charged phones and were back in the airport to check in bags on a domestic flight in Vietjet to Hanoi.

Given our crazy plan, we had arranged a personal car/driver. The driver was supposed to speak English but he knew 4 words and used google translate. It was painful as he would drive and use his phone which made us really nervous throughout the trip. Our suitcases were in the back of the car and we went straight to sightseeing. The plan was to see the main places.

1. The lake area and the temple with turtles in the middle of the lake in the old quarter

2. Temple of literature built for Confusious

3. drive by Ho Chi Minh memorial

4. One pillar Pagoda

5. drive by the railroad street

The time budget for all this was 4 hours. This was to be followed by a max one hour lunch break and then we were to drive out of the city for 2 hours to HaLong bay in Vietnam traffic.

We actually did everything in spite of a 45 min waste to try and find the entrance to the one pillar pagoda. Our guide was told he cannot park near pagoda entrance. He had also said that given the security check and crowed we would only drive by the memorial. Turns out that the entrance to the pagoda is through the same complex and we had to go through the security check. We walked around all over the place and leaving voicenotes in English for the driver did not help. The cops on the roads had no idea either till we showed them the image of the pagoda. Finally a cop directed in sign language that we had to go through the check to see Pagoda! No English anywhere. These are the most interesting experiences in stretching our communication limits. The highlight of the morning was watching toddlers walk through the temple of literature as part of a school tour. They were sooo cute and adorable!

Here are two sets of pictures from the morning (haven’t edited them either). I am severely jet lagged and writing is post is keeping me awake. It is also refreshing my memory a bit. The heat and humidity, rickshaws, the lake, the agarbathies, the pagodas, the street vendors, the red sickle flags, kind of felt like a cross between Mumbai, Chennai and Cochin all at once.. Hanoi was very clean!!

First photo is an example of the bullshit fake posts that we saw at every location. Truth is dead!

Here is a video highlights reel of the morning..

Was still scared of getting allergies on day 1, so played it safe and ate pizza while san tasted local veggies cuisine. Then we were off to Halong bay!

Will write about that tomorrow..

An eventful weekend - A year of college, 25 years of marriage, Father's day

This week marks 25 years of our marriage.. the original events happened between 10th June to 16th June.

Everything we did and are doing in this time frame is being called a celebration! I am happy with that. 

We also had the kids finish another year of college and celebrated Father's day!

On Friday both San and me had to take the day off to go vacate the little one from her freshman dorm. Thankfully she goes to live in an apartment with three friends starting next year. 

Given so many schools along the coast all having graduation ceremonies this weekend( as well as dorm vacation deadlines the same weekend), we expected 101 S to be a zoo.. and it was!

Started driving before 5AM, made it to Santa Barbara by 9 AM, got the kids room cleaned out and van loaded in under 2 hours. Most of the time was spent waiting for elevators on a 10 story high rise building where everyone has a cart with stuff loaded and waiting for one of two elevators.  The eleveatorshold two carts and two people max at one time, and serve a gazillion students and parents. 

Then the little one had to go study for her finals. We got her something from Chipotle, dropped her off at the library and had time to kill till she finished her finals. 

The kid suggested we go to Apna kitchen and hang out in State street. So off we went. The food and chai were excellent in this place. We also had some ice cream from a local ice cream place right near the restaurant that was downright yummy (McConnell's) . We still had time to kill.

Gandhiji providing some quality cognitive dissonance... 

There was a movie theater near the restaurant and we decided to sit down in air conditioning for two hours. My legs were killing me after that morning drive and I had to do the entire drive back. San was still recovering from her muscle tear!

We saw a Will Smith movie. I dozed off in the middle of the movie and it was too slow moving for a supposed action flick. Then I got a kick in the ribs right in time to see some action scenes. Apparently she loved it. At least one of us got paisa vasool.

Did I mention that we were the only two people in the theater for the entire movie!!! They ran a movie and trailers just for us!

We left the movie and literally picked up the kid right as she got out of the exam hall and drove back. Had a 20 min stop to eat the tamarind and curd rice that San had made. It tasted so good.. we had to gobble it up and start driving. We made it back by 11PM.

Legs are still recovering from driving 11 hours and walking around all day. That movie was a good decision!

Apna was interesting.. Gandhiji wearing coolers and endorsing beer... Kaliyuga is well and truly here was my thought. The bay area is overrun with "kudigara pappans".. something I tell my wife all the time. It is the times we live in. That is not the topic for this post.. so will leave it at that. The food was great! 

Jr. drove back from Irvine by herself without a stop! Was very worried but happy when she pulled into the driveway. The best 25th anniversary gift is that we are all in one place!

We went to an Italian place (Rollati in downtown San Jose) to celebrate this morning. The little one had scouted this one out. The food was delicious. Ate a full pizza and am in python mode right now as this post is being typed. Strongly recommend this place. Great food and great service! 

After this we decided (San did) to walk around SJSU as she was showing us where she went to school, her library, her cafeteria, where she had her graduation etc. etc. The kids have not seen this nostalgic side of San. Neither have I .. it was fun while it lasted. We did take a "bench photo" at SJSU. 

We wrapped it all up with a dinner at Sri's kitchen. The dinner was simple but great! Also ended up visiting my first ever job location which used to be a walk from this strip mall. The whole place has changed as have we over the years.

It has been a great week of "celebrating". Let's see what the next Quarter has in store for us.. 

In the middle of all this I did work on a collage for my dad to wish him.. not sure if he can see it properly! Pretty much all highlight photos of him (from the photo of his wedding) to the last one we took with him during our visit to Chennai in February on his 85th birthday. 

Spent a lot of time looking at pictures today! If anything, hope my kids keep taking pictures every now and then and store them!

This should go without saying.. but the credit for us rolling on smoothly for the last 25 years completely goes to Sangeetha. I was hired as the #2 employee of Sangeetha Inc. 25 years ago and the small startup has released two successful products and the company is still going strong under her leadership!

I lucked out big time in this birth!

Unattainable...

As of last week San and me have been together 11 years. A very short time compared to my parents (39) or my grandparents (73 years when grandpa passed away), but long enough for us to understand a postponing of the celebration because work.. work.. work.. came in the way.

Just like Indian festivals, birthdays, etc. etc. being pushed to the nearest weekend, the wedding anniversary plan was to go to Livermore Temple and say a prayer with the kids and San's parents.

We knew there was a Kumbhabishekham going on at the temple and we expected the crowd. It was a good walk to park and finally when we washed our feet and went to the entrance, the god's appointed bouncers asked us:

"are you kalasA sponsors?"

Me : No.

GAB : Sorry Sir. Today the temple entrance is for kalasA sponsors only. If you are a sponsor you can take the kalasA and go inside and come out.

Me : !!!!!?????!!!! We have come from south bay and my father in law is here only for three weeks. Can we go in and come out real quick?

GAB : very sorry sir. they are making arrangements for the puja tomorrow. regular devotees have to come back tomorrow.

So now we were "regular devotees". It did bother me a bit and got to thinking of how this blog got started and how the blogger mellowed out over time.

We drove all the way from Cupertino to Livermore and back without as much as going into the temple. This was a first with this temple.

They could have mentioned the prominently in the website or the folks who were regulating the traffic outside the temple could have asked us the same question and could have turned us around. Would have at least saved an hour, changed plans and driven my in-laws to some other place to celebrate. The Ghirardeli chocolate factory was actually our other(usual) choice.

God is in chocolate! God is in Vanilla! He is in every flavor is what we have always been saying.

Next year, the ritual changes. We celebrate at our usual favorite spots. The GG Bridge and some great ice cream.

Balaji Ummachi, why do you make me have this love hate relationship with you? Why?

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