We learned a fair amount of Vietnamese history and customs before our trip, but I feel like we could've studied more of the language. I think that I only knew 3 ways to say 'cheers!' and what I'd gathered from pho menus before arriving. The interesting thing was that I was able to pick up some words from the ones I already knew (namely 'pho'). For example, I learned that 'com' means seafood as there were a lot of 'pho com' signs (some with pictures) on our trip to Halong Bay.