Vietnamese Massage.... is there anything better?

Ok, I am not good at it. I can't keep my promise to assure a daily presence here in this blog. Maybe the fact is that nobody is adding their comments or maybe it's just because I am lazy... Certainly, if somebody is reading this blog, I will be happy to get their comments or questions...

Yesterday, after practically an entire day spent at the hotel sleeping and getting some rest, I went with my colleagues to a "healthy bar". A healthy bar is a place where they give you some food and where you can get a massage. Somebody from the local company I am working for suggested it. The place was really naif... After 45 minutes on the taxi in the over croweded streets of Hanoi, we arrived to this place which is located next to an agopuncture center. In there, it was possible to find only Asians, and that was part of the fun. Apart from the man at the reception, nobody else was able to speak in English so we had to communicate with our gestures... an activity which is not so difficult for those coming from the "Bella Italia"! The reception was located on the ground floor. It consisted on a big room with some tables, a television showing a football match between two Asian teams and a sort of kitchen. I am not able to classify this place into a specific category. It wasn't neither a bar nor a massage center as we know them.... They asked to sit down and wait for ten minutes. I started observing this place with a strange feeling inside me, a mixture of excitement and strange impression which I can't even describe. I noticed the presence of an Hochi Min picture on the wall and a cooking board on each table. I thought that those cooking boards are used to cook hot pots and other kind of foods which need to be eaten on the go.
A girl brougt us a cup of tea (with lemon and some strange granular poweder inside) and some fruits (banana and a no-classified other fruit). We waited exactly 10 minutes before somebody called us and asked us to go upstairs.
In there, after an initial moment of emabarassment, we had to get naked and put on a special brief. Then, shower and:
- 10 minutes into a sort of cask barrel with very warm water and some perfume (special herbs);
- 10 minutes into an idromassage bath tube;
- 10 minutes of turkish bath;
- 10 minutes of sauna.

After a shower, we went into a corridor with different doors opening into some small rooms with a bed in the middle. A hole on the top of the bed was present exactly on one extremity, in order to place the face. A young woman entered and she started the massage. That was my first time in my life.... All my muscles were  relaxed for more than one hour. A final touch consisted with a succession of hot and cold towels pressing my body amplifying the pleasant sensation...

I went out from the "healthy bar" happy, relaxed and with the idea to come back!

Jet Lag go away!!!

I am finally back. I haven't written for a while. Exactly, 5 days passed since my last showing up on this  blog. The question is that the whole thing is something preatty new to me and I need time to "digest it" and convert it into a daily task.

I am in Vietnam now and I am writing from my 15th floor-room in the Sofitel Hotel (see the current view from its window at 18,00 local time). After a Thai Airlines flight from Rome, a short stop in Bangkok, and exactly 14 hours of travel, I can feel, on my body and mind, the burden of the 6 time zones I crossed. Actually, the travel was ok. The airplane wasn't fully loaded so it was possible for me to find three free seats in a row where I lay down and tried to sleep. I forced my eyes staying closed with a eye mask but it wasn't helpful. I even tried to withdraw myself listening the entire cd of Susan Boyle, but nothing!!!!
Only after my arrival to the final destination, I started feeling tired.
I am currently sleepy but I can't sleep. I have to avoid my bed until it's the right time. In this way, I will speed up the adaptation of my biological clock to the local time. I have to resist for at least three more hours before I can hug my pillow and pass out.

What is my first, pardon, second impression about Hanoi? Even though I haven't seen pratically anything so far, I have found a city which is slightly different from the one I knew. In fact, when I came here last July, temperature was higher and sky was blue. This time, on the Vietnamese capital,  there's a sort of white blanket which filters the bright sun light and converts it into matt and weak light.

I planned, with my colleagues, to meet up at the reception at 17,30 in order to go to the gym or to the swimming pool. Of course, no one respected the meeting: we are too tired!!! Tonight we will go (maybe) to a typical... DING DONG!!!

Well, a pleasant old lady has just knocked on my door interrupting my writing. She is the housekeeper who already prepared my bed and left a couple of chocolates on the drawer. I am going to eat them straight away!!!

Well, where did I hang my previous sentence? Ah, ok, now I remember... I was saying that tonight I am going with my colleagues to a Vietnamese restaurant to the city center. I hope we will all have the strenght to cross the hotel exit, take a taxi and enjoy some of the genuine Vietnamese cuisine!!!

Will we be able to do so? I'll keep you updated!

P.S.: I don't know if that's the effect of my weariness, or the excitement of being in Hanoi, but I found out that my scare of heights wasn't there when I had to reach my hotel room at the 15th floor through a transparent elevator!! I hope this unespected but appreciated collateral effect will stay there forever!

Hẹn gặp các bạn!

Hello World!

"Hello world!" is the sentence tipically displayed on the screen when you learn how to program (those who know some programming languages know what I am talking about; if you are not a programmer, you can get an idea typing "Hello world" in the search field of Wikipedia.... :-)  )

"Hello world!" is also the title of my first post on my brand new blog. In fact, starting from today on, I am officially a blogger! Will I be a good one? You will tell!!

What will you be able to find in this blog? Well, main topics will be travels and life in general. In addition, I will put in anything else which comes along the way and which I consider interesting.

Since I am travelling a lot in this part of my life, I will start sharing my professional and personal experiences around the globe with all of you.

My next destination will be Vietnam and I am sure it will be a thrilling experience! In the next blogs I will give you more details about my life and about my last 5 days of preparation before joining the Vietcongs!

If, by chance, you have entered into my blog, I will be grateful if you leave your comments or questions.

Thank you for reading!

Good night!