Purchasing Power

Probably one of the best things about Hanoi, Vietnam in general is the amazing purchasing power the US dollar has. For instance I can get food for lunch consisting of noodles, bread, tofu, and chicken, with a coffee for under 1.50. It is a very good feeling to get so much and spend so little. The other day I also bought seasons 1-5 of lost for about 16 dollars so coming back to the US is going to be pretty hard to adjust to in that aspect. On Sunday we went to see Alice in Wonderland, and the cool thing about movies here is that they start at 9 am so if you want to catch an early movie you can catch a real early movie. Also one can buy a bucket of beer (5 beers) and enjoy them at the movie, why anyone would want to do that ay 9 am is past me but at least the option is there.

We are already in week 2 of 3 in Hanoi, it is crazy how fast time is going. After next week we will be heading to a rural home stay for a week and then we will be leaving. Very hard to believe. This week we have begun to focus on our case studies. I am once again looking at health seeking behaviors of individuals, but this time our group has chosen to focus on the health seeking behaviors or rural vs. urban people. We plan to talk to people in Hanoi, as well as travel to a rural area outside of Hanoi to obtain information on this topic.

This weekend the group is splitting up and traveling to different parts of the country. I will be heading to Sapa which is in northern central Vietnam. It is located in a mountainous region where the main attractions are hiking, and visiting the weekend markets that are set up by the different ethnic groups in the area. This area was in the past well known for it tiger population but presently there are only 100 left in the country and very few in the area, I hope to see one but I am not getting to excited about it since if I do see one it probably means that I am in trouble...

Joel