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Hue is a good place for those who want to be in the real Vietnam, getting away from more westernized areas like Saigon (TPHCM) or even places that are away from the city but booked with lavish resorts (Hoi An). There are tourist areas, locations for westerners, but it’s a great place for renting a motorbike and just traveling around.

Even though there are a million plus living there, Hue feels small. And I like that.

I’d been here once before, about 5 years ago on EAP. Unlike TPHCM and Hanoi, however, Hue has changed a lot slower, it still feels more quiet, more laid back.

Travel Logistics:

Hue’s in Central Vietnam, about 50 minutes plane ride from Hanoi. What’s much more pleasant about the plane ride, though, is the trip from the airport. Getting to town takes only about 20-25 minutes, and the roads are nice. In TPHCM and Hanoi, however, this trip is more like an hour, and the ride is nauseating and tiring.

The plane trip from Hanoi cost around $100 round trip, but it could have been cheaper if we had been willing to take the 6AM flight. 3-4 flights around the day, both ways. A solid hotel can be found for as little as $12 USD in the main tourist areas, but you can feel free to go to a higher end hotel nearby, which will cost $40+.

For a Hotel, I stayed and recommend the Green Bamboo (Tre Xanh) on Hung Vuong. It’s only $12 a night.

Attractions: I’ll be writing about some of these in this post, and more in the next few posts I do to keep the length for each article not too long. Hue is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which seems to imply it’s something special. But the big places here are the various tombs of past emperors and the Thien Mu Pagoda. There are even some really nice beaches within driving distance, which I’ll discuss later in this post.

Nightlife: Pretty much non-existent

Hue: City and Food

Hue is pretty distinct for its food. It’s spicy and has a distinct (sharp?) taste that comes with the types of plants they use. I really like the food there, and it’s really hard to find the same food in TPHCM or Hanoi, no matter how authentic they claim to be. I’ve found that the taste outside of Hue is degraded for the local palate rather than trying to stick to the original formula.

Food is cheap here, with a big meal closer to 30K VND ($2 USD). A simple way of telling that Hue has not “progressed” as much as Hanoi and TPHCM is that there’s only 1 KFC here, and it’s not popular despite it’s central location. KFC is very very expensive compared to a normal meal in Hue, but in Hanoi, KFC is actually one of my cheaper meals now. After 2 years, KFC already has over 10 locations in Hanoi and keeps on growing. In TPHCM, KFC is almost like your neighborhood McDonalds.

(For whatever reason, Wordpress comes up with errors if I use accents/diacritics, so sorry)

Here are some meals to look for:

• Bun Bo Hue (I’m not even going to translate these into English, just go for it!)
  • Locations:
    • Quan Ba Hoa: Quan 11, Truong Dinh
    • Bun Bo Hue: 17 Ly Thuong Kiet (this one is fairly week known among locals)
• Banh Hue
  • Quan Ba Hoa: Quan 11, Truong Dinh
• Chao Bo 
  • 01 Nguyen Cong Tru (this place actually is in a tourist area)
• Com Hen
  • Quan Ba Hoa: Quan 11, Truong Dinh
• Bun Thit Nuong
  • Hoang Anh: 140 Kim Long (along the river, on the way to Thien Mu)
• Che Hue (this is actually a dessert)
  • Dong Ba Market
  • There’s also a place called Che Hue that’s been franchised throughout Vietnam, but I don’t have the street. If you ask around, I’m sure a taxi or xich lo driver can get you there easily.

As you might expect, try for local places, away from tourists. You’ll get much better pricing and more authentic food, that way. Just drive around and check out a place.

Hue is most distinctive for the Perfume River, Song Huong. The river runs all along the city, and in fact, if you go see the city’s sights, you can visit all the tombs and Thien Mu Pagoda solely by taking a riverboat. Hanoi is most distinctive for its lakes, Hue has Song Huong and the Perfume River Bridge.

Like I mentioned before, renting a motorbike (around 100K VND/$6 USD) to travel around is the way to go. Feel more free, and you pick your travel plans.

You can get around by the usual taxi or xich lo (which is basically a bicycle taxi, two people riding in a front carriage, driver pedaling in the back), but these actually are much more expensive than renting a motorbike.

Dong Ba Market:

Dong Ba Market is in the central area of Hue, next to the Perfume River Bridge. It’s probably the most famous market here, and still is super packed on an everyday basis. Especially for tourists, however, keep your backpack in front of you and wallets in your front pocket. Pickpockets are definitely around (I was told by someone there to watch out), so be careful. At night, people will set up food and che outside.

Perfume River Bridge:

The pictures below were taken at night, and the bride is a beautiful sight. The bridges flashes different colors during the night, and it’s very popular to set up cameras and take pictures, like I did. Also in the central area.

Thuan An:

Thuan An is maybe the best kept secret about Hue. At least, it was to me. I think even my friend H?ng, who is from Hue, hasn’t been there, even though he’s been to Lang Co, which is much farther away. Thuan An is about 15 KM away from Hue, and you can take a taxi or bus there, or just go by motorbike. When I came, it was completely empty, but that’s probably because I went on a weekday and came around noon (Vietnamese people don’t hang out on beaches around noon – 2PM unless they’re hoping to get heatstroke). It became more crowded by 4PM, but was not super crowded by any means. The beach is clean, super clear. The waves are friendly. You can eat on the beach if you like, but one thing to note is that the facilities are definitely low end, as in made for Vietnamese budgets.

I didn’t eat any meals here, but I had m?c m?t n?ng, which literally means squid that’s been drying in the sun for a little. This is completely different from kho muc, which is thin, dried squid. Muc mot nang is fresh squid that’s been out in the sun, still white and thick. Tastes delicious! I’ve never seen this anywhere else, and highly suggest getting it if you can. It’s not cheap, however, where dried squid is already somewhat expensive, . Muc mot nang will cost you $8 to 12 USD. Thuy and I had two.

Lang Co:

Lang Co is not super well known, but it’s another fantastic beach. If you like motorbiking, this is a good trip. It’s about 2 hours south from Hue, 75 KM. To get there, you’ll go through the countryside and travel through mountain roads. It’s a lot of fun, but it is really sunny out there, make sure you have serious protection from the sun. The Lang Co beach is another clear beach, very clean, just generally outstanding. The big difference between Lang Co and Thuan An are the waves. Lang Co has big time waves, not surfing waves, but much larger, more powerful waves. The waves and beach area also extend out far. You can see 3 layers of waves at a time, and you can walk a far distance into the water and you will still be at standing height.

I’m not sure if there is any public beach area, or if its all reserved by beach resorts, but we did share the beach with normal non-resort people.

The beach “resorts” themselves sucked. We spent a little more money (around $60 USD) to stay in a nicer room, and it felt like it was half completed. Crappy AC, bugs in the room. There was a jacuzzi tub in our room, which sounded great until we noticed that we didn’t have enough hot water to fill it up. Even before we decided to stay at that resort, the other ones were similarly too expensive in terms of value. Even the low end rooms at these places are $30, and those rooms suck. They’re worse than than the $12 rooms in Hue. Next time, I’d just stay at a hotel that’s across the street, without a private beach area, and walk in.

The food here also sucked. I’m sure somewhere, there’s someplace good, but it wasn’t obvious to me. Lang Co is almost pitch black at night; you can’t really just travel around and see where the locals eat. The hotel food was expensive and just blah.

I can’t even remember the exact name of the one we stayed at, but stay away from all “high-end” beach resorts in Lang Co.

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More than 1,000 prospective MBA students who paid $30 to use a now-defunct Web site to get a sneak peak at live questions from the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) before taking the exam may have their scores canceled in coming weeks. For many, their B-school dreams may be effectively over.

On June 20, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted the test’s publisher, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), a $2.3 million judgment against the operator of the site, Scoretop.com. GMAC has seized the site’s domain name and shut down the site, and is analyzing a hard drive containing payment information.

GMAC said any students found to have used the Scoretop site will have their test scores canceled, the schools that received them will be notified, and the student will not be permitted to take the test again. Since most top B-schools require the GMAT, the students will have little chance of enrolling. “This is illegal,” said Judy Phair, GMAC’s vice-president for communications. “We have a hard drive, and we’re going to be analyzing it. If you used the site and paid your $30 to cheat, your scores will be canceled. They’re in big trouble.”

Small Advantage to Test Takers

GMAC sued the operator of the site, Lei Shi, for using it to distribute copyrighted GMAT-related materials without GMAC’s permission. Shi, who has reportedly returned from the site’s base in Ohio to his native China, is under investigation by the FBI, GMAC says. Shi, who did not have legal representation for the GMAC lawsuit, could not be reached for comment.

While the consequences for students may be severe, the advantage they gained by using Scoretop is almost inconsequential. Unlike other GMAT test-prep sites, which use retired questions, Scoretop and others claim to provide access to “live” questions that test takers might encounter when they show up for the exam. Participants on the site would debate the proper answers. But the GMAT uses a computer adaptive format that generates a new test for every user based on responses to previous questions from a stockpile that contains thousands of possible questions. “Even if a site is illegally able to obtain some real questions, it is extremely unlikely that a test taker will see the same questions on the live exam,” says Larry Rudner, GMAC vice-president for research and development.

Scoretop has been in operation since 2003. Visitors to the Scoretop Web site before it was shut down would have encountered posts from happy users and a list of “test experiences,” users’ firsthand reports about the most recent test questions. But on June 23, they found this message from GMAC: “GMAC takes cheating very seriously, especially attempts to obtain access to live test questions in advance of an exam. We also take very seriously any unauthorized distribution of our copyrighted GMAT preparation materials. If you are caught disclosing, accessing, or using ‘real’ GMAT questions your GMAT score will be cancelled [and] you may be subject to a civil lawsuit or criminal prosecution.”

The news about the cheating scandal was the talk of the annual GMAC conference in Chicago over the weekend, where the organization’s President and CEO David Wilson described the latest developments for an audience of 700.

It’s unclear how individual schools will respond. More than 4,000 graduate management programs use the test as part of the admissions process, but many of those using sites like Scoretop seek admission to the most competitive programs. So the fallout is likely to be limited to top schools.

Several schools, contacted June 23, said it was far too early to determine what fate awaits students or prospective students whose scores are canceled. “It’s impossible to say at this point what that means,” said Ed Anderson, Duke’s associate director of admissions.

Some Scoretop Users May Have MBAs

Joe Fox, director of MBA programs at Washington University’s Olin Business School, said a lot depends on what information GMAC can provide about individual students, especially the frequency with which they used the site. “There’s an infraction, that’s for sure,” Fox said. “At a minimum it flies in the face of our code of professional conduct. We could do anything we wanted—from a slap on the wrist to expulsion from the program—and we’d be well within our rights.”

Since the Scoretop site has been in operation since 2003, it’s possible that students with tainted GMAT scores are in the application process, currently enrolled, or already graduated. For those in the application process, the applicants may be rejected, and for those currently enrolled, expulsion is a possibility.

Several years ago, when a Chinese national was caught taking the GMAT for dozens of prospective students, one Olin student who had the test taken on his behalf was dismissed before he could complete his degree, Fox said. That’s a possibility this time around, too. “I think it’s fair to say we’ll take this seriously,” he added. “It could be the end of the line.”

I’ve taken the GMAT twice, once in 2003 right before (like, days) coming to Vietnam on EAP, and then again in 2005, first getting 680 (90 percentile) with a perfect writing score, and then 720 (97 percentile) but a 5.5 (/6.0) on writing but 90+ percentile in both math and English.

Before I took it in 2005, I probably prepared on and off for over a year, but hardcore for at least 5 months.

I knew virtually everything there was to know about the test, how to take it, the best materials to use, the best time and place to take it, and so on.

I can’t remember if I knew of Scoretop, however, but my guess is I had to have known. I know I didn’t pay $30 to access the site though.

The absolute best place for preparation is TestMagic: http://www.urch.com/forums/

Erin, the guy who runs the site runs a prep company out of San Francisco. I didn’t enroll with them (I self studied), but would have had I been in SF (I lived in San Jose).

The four simple keys to success:

• Read TestMagic Forums
• Participate and Help others in the forums (helping others really improved your own skills)
• Use official GMAT questions to analyze your skills. Real questions are much different from simulated ones from Kaplan, Princeton, Arco, etc. The consistency isn’t there with 3rd parties, especially in the accuracy of the answer logic.
• Sleep a very good amount (9 hours) before the exam (I virtually feel asleep the first time taking it, and the second time faded towards the end as well)

Then again, you could ignore me and be like my sister, who got a 750 (99 percentile) on her first try with half the amount of studying I did.

One more thing, for people who may feel “disappointed/angry” in the people who are going to get kicked for cheating, don’t. You yourself are probably full of it.

Just view the Business Week BSchool forums. It’s made up of a lot of egotistical and shallow a**holes who also happen to be getting into Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford, etc. despite their weaknesses.

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One of the things I regret over the last six months has been not getting out to play basketball. Right, now it’s a good time for it too, temperatures around 60 degrees F, but a combination of a heavy/tiring workload and getting used to not playing has got me stuck in this rut of no ball.

Haven’t really played since I came back from the US in May, and before that I had been going to Cong Vien Lenin to practice my handles a decent amount. Now, it looks like I play again when I return to the US in two week’s, but after that…I don’t know. I can be hopeful, but I’ll need to find a way to get out and make it a habit again.

A couple of weeks ago, right before my birthday, played in a 3 on 3 tournament with Vinh and Hung, 3 out of shape Viet Kieu, over at Dai Hoc Hanoi. Waking up at 7:30 AM after a Thanksgiving Friday dinner (I do not wake up at 7:30, period), heading out to the school, 5 hrs later (that’s when we left the school, play actually finished much earlier) we had 3 games under our collective belts, 2 wins, and a 3rd place finish, all of which earned us a prize of nothing.

But we just wanted to play.

Game 1: HMV vs Bach Khoa Killers (BKK) (Maybe score of 9-4?)

Favorable matchup, basically a gimme. We were pretty scared actually, before the game. We were facing Bach Khoa killers, and we were convinced we had the tallest team (all over 6 feet). Instant elimination meant we’d be going home after 1 loss, and they seemed like trouble. Think of 3 Vietnamese Yi Jianlian’s on 1 team.

Instead, we lucked out and faced a team of 2 guys and a girl. I think the girl was from EAP. Jon and EAP 2007 organized the tournament but I had been told we didn’t really need a girl, it was only encouraged. But when we played BKK, I knew it’d be only fair to pick a girl in and have Hung sub, and luck for us, Hien, a girl I used to coach, was around, so we picked her up.

BKK turned out to be a weak time. Nice kids, but just not skilled. Gave them a lot of moving violations (travels, carries), but we won in the end. The difficult part was we played losers (ball goes to the team that gave up the previous score, not the one that scored), and you can’t go on hot runs like that. We took forever to pull it out, us being slow and out of shape.

Game 2: HMV vs (3 x Yi Jianlian)  (Maybe 9-15?)

Ah, so we escaped the first round, but lost this one. It was not a blowout, but we couldn’t really face up considering the out of shape-ness and lacking polished skills. They, on their end, were reasonably athletic, but played more of a finesse game. They were tall but sloppy, more fancy than legit. I started slow, and I’ve always had trouble playing height, especially if the taller man is not too slow. I got cruelly rejected on a reverse due to 1) lower rims- because of the angles lower rims give taller people a bigger advantage 2) not quick as I would if I were in shape.

Vinh tried his best, Hien, I’m not sure, she may not have played because they played 3 guys, and Hung made some nice shots. Overall, we could man up 1-1 but on rebounds and put backs, couldn’t get there. They killed us on those, and I didn’t do squat all game. Couldn’t handle well enough to do anything with the ball.

I challenged one of the Yi’s to take me on 1 on 1 with a Keanu to Agent Smith wave and he tried. And I picked him. And I felt good about it. So good that I am writing it here. I think even in my shape and no practice, I could consistently defend them 1 on 1 on drives and kill them. He wouldn’t try to drive on me after that.

All during the day, I kept slipping on any kind of move (go for a loose ball, a cut, a stop, etc.). It must have looked like I was Charlie Hustle the way I hit the ground. And this is blacktop mind you, so my legs were messed up after everything. It really hurt us though and I couldn’t do much of quick movements without losing the ball.

Vinh thinks that if we normally played the Yi’s 10 times, we’d win 4. I agree. They’re truly all height.

Game 3: HMV vs. (Lebron-wannabes and Ha) (Maybe 15-12?)

I call this team the Lebrons because they were wearing some Lebron-branded mesh jerseys. Ha is one of my friends who was another student I coached back in the spring. Hung started with Vinh and Hien, Vinh was really tired, so we actually got behind 7-2 or so. I switched with Vinh, and we started to make our big run. I tried to play good defense, and we slowly made our way back to a 8-8 tie. One of the Lebrons tried to take me 1 on 1, but I owned him. PWNED him. One time, I stuck with him the whole time an delivered a vicious block as soon as he tried to shoot on the drive. Disgusting, I mean. It is potentially one of the top 2 blocks of my life. And yes, I do remember fantastical blocks. It was one of those blocks where you should feel so embarrassed as to never try to drive on X person again.

But he did not learn his lesson. I suppose no fear/stupidity can be commended. The Lebrons were big on fancy dribbling that got them nowhere (many kids are) and 3’s. What was silly for them is that all shots were worth 1 point, but they shot 3’s anyway.

Later on, when the same Lebron from before drove on me, he got by me, but I came back for the catch-up block.

And there it was. He went up for the layup, I blocked it.

On his head.

I did not mean to do that, but he was going up, and I had to go down with the block. I ended up hitting up on the head, but the block came first and was clean. I tried to say I was sorry, but he was pissed. Because he sucked. I like to think that anyway. To me it was no big deal but another sign he should not try to test me.

Ha told me later that they (not her) felt we were cheating because we were so physical, but I call BS to that. They kept slapping at us, trying to push away, and we were just physical in order to protector ourselves and the ball. Hung got hit a lot, he told me, and we definitely gave them a lot of calls. I definitely do not play physically (see a picture of me and you will understand), but I made an effort to protect the ball and not let them mess with me.

Around 10-10 or so, I was trying to get us to pull away, but I was getting tired, they were making some of their 1 pt 3’s, and having loser’s outs was really slowing us down. We switched Hung with Vinh, and we made a last push to finish the game out. We knew we could win, but we just needed to get those last points. I really, really, did not want to lose.

Conclusion! (This post is done!)

All in all, a painful experience (took me a week to recover, and two weeks later, I still have scabs from the falls). But fun! I’m pretty happy with how everyone played, and the effort, I wish I had not slipped so much and been able to do more. I think we could have taken 1st.

Hmm, maybe we had home court advantage because Gerard and I paid for the whole thing, but get no credit for it. Unappreciative DH Hanoi bastards. (joking)

Also, no pictures yet. Hoping Jon will get some from the EAP kids and send them over.

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