Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Where Do ______ Come From?

Summary

  • Sunday, Nov 28: Up early, breakfast at hotel, waited for bus which picked us up forty minutes late; bus took seven hours to Saigon; on arrival, found one of Madame Cuc’s restaurants recommended by LP, were taken to first one alternate and then another; decent room on 5th floor, no elevator but strong AC; rained really hard! Out for dinner, got a bit lost, good pizza at middle-range restaurant; then to a bar where a Vietnamese guy offered to show Francezka around the next day and then that night, both refused; up until midnight chatting and preparing for the next day; booked whirlwind Mekong tour through hotel.
  • Monday, Nov 29: Up at 6am, showered, packed, downstairs for breakfast and quick internet check; said good-bye to Francezka and hopped on bus for day tour ending in Chau Doc; saw puff rice making, coconut candy making, rice paper making; bicycled on island in Long Xuyen; ate elephant fish for lunch (not much flavor); learned about Mekong River and Delta from guide Zack; long bus rides and boat rides throughout the day, but interesting way to get to Chau Doc for border crossing the next day.

IMG_0993As the boat lists slightly to the port side, I am thinking about where things come from. We’re motoring up the Mekong River in a large boat with an open-air deck, but most of the group of thirty or so people are downstairs in the covered area. There are all sorts of nationalities: French, Spanish, American, British, Irish. The demographic is scattered too: a pair of older women traveling together; four Germans around my parent’s age, who occasionally ask me for the meaning of some English word or another; a couple from Britain traveling with their eight year old son; and several people my own age, none of whom have reached out to talk to the two single people, me and Oscar, the Spanish guy. It may be that I’m just a bit bummed about ending my travel with Francezka, who was a great travel companion, but the younger crowd here seem fairly self-centered and unfriendly.

Anyway. Where do things come from? I’ve been struck several times so far during my trip with the realization that the things I take for granted are actually made by someone, somewhere. And while perhaps much of the mass-market stuff I buy is factory made or assembled, still, at some point, people were involved.

IMG_0995Today I watched as three men and one woman worked away at making puff rice treats. First, one guy placed a huge cone-shaped metal dish over a hole in a cement oven. The    dish had black sand in it, which had been dredged from the bottom of the Mekong at some point long before. The sand heated up as he stuffed rice husks (devoid of the rice) and longang skins (local fruit much like a lychee, but sweeter) into the fire. When he deemed things ready, he tossed in a huge bucket of rice, which immediately began popping like popcorn! He grabbed the dish and shook it, mixing the sand and rice puffs and making sure none burned.

Next he poured the cone-shaped dish full of sand and rice puffs into a box with a mesh bottom, suspended from the ceiling by wire. He shook this box back and forth vigorously, the sand falling through the mesh. He does this several times to get the sand out. The sand is brushed up and put back into the cone-shaped dish.

Meanwhile, two other men have been stirring coconut milk, malt and sugar in a large bucket nearby. When the puffs have cooled a bit, they are put into another cone-shaped container and mixed with the sweet mixture in an intricate dance of the two men, each bearing two paddles and moving steadily around the container, mixing and tossing.

IMG_0998Finally, the sweetened puffs are poured into a huge cookie sheet and allowed to cool before being sectioned by a machete and carefully packaged, by hand, by a woman sitting nearby.

Have you ever bought puff rice treats at the store? Ever wonder where they come from, how they’re made? I don’t generally think of these things and, if I do, I figure it’s an automated factory. Maybe that’s even true in some cases. Here, though, I’m reminded every day that people’s livelihoods and lives center around creating so many things for mass consumption all over the world.



I’ve seen this sort of things many times so far this trip:

  1. Coffee, where the beans are grown, picked, scattered in front of homes on tarps to dry in the sun, bagged, and driven to the factory for grinding, usually on the back of motorbikes.
  2. Silk, where the silkworm larvae are farmed, gathered, cleaned, boiled and the silk extracted in a hot and sweaty factory where women stand in front of troughs, picking out silk strands and connecting them to a machine which spools the thread from individual cocoons.
  3. Bricks, in outdoor, open-air, ramshackle buildings where women shovel pits of mud into a machine which shapes and stamps the mud into bricks, then spits them out onto a small conveyor belt. A woman stands at the end of the conveyor belt and has the sole job of stacking the good bricks or tossing the bad ones back into the machine, which is about eight feet away. The bricks are then gathered, piled and eventually carried up rickety ladders to be dropped into huge furnaces thirty feet high to bake and harden.
  4. Rice, in the rice paddies romanticized in pictures and paintings. People go out and stand in mud up to their knees, harvesting the rice stalks by hand with short curved blades; toss the stalks into piles on higher ground; wrap the stalks in sacking and carry huge loads of them on their backs to a machine operated by foot pedals; toss handfuls of stalks into the machine to have the rice stripped from them; beat the discarded stalks and collect any missed rice; and the rice then gathered, sacked and carried off for selling.
  5. IMG_0989 Rice paper, where one woman mixes rice flour (previously made by men by crushing boiled and dried rice) with water and then pours it onto a griddle, puts a top over it, and then carefully scrapes it up and places it on a huge circular disk made of woven bamboo, half hanging off the side to dry. A man then comes over, turns the disk so that he can scoop up the round, wet rice circle with a long, flat wooden stick and place it to dry in another area.
  6. Woven cloth and scarves, in the complicated looms operated by women of all ages. Women sit on cement floors with one end of the looms resting in their laps as they weave, single threads at a time, beautiful scarves with a variety of patterns and colors. Or, they sit on low stools in front of six foot long setups, weaving – again, thread by thread – an impossible length of cloth in a day. This cloth is then used by others to hand sew clothing, tablecloths and other goods.
  7. Bamboo baskets, cone-shaped hats made of dried palm fronds and silk paintings.
  8. Coconut goods, including candy, milk, and carved things such as spoons, bowls and toys.

 

The list goes on and on and each time I am a bit surprised that I had never before realized the human sweat and work that goes into each product.

I hope I can remember this, although I’m not sure what to do with the realization. Maybe appreciate things a bit more instead of assuming that they just appear for everyone’s enjoyment. And maybe thing about the millions of people who live their whole lives creating these luxuries, while not having access to much of luxury themselves.

And maybe it’s a way of thinking of the bigger world instead of my own little sphere, which in turn can help me make better – or at least more educated – decisions on what to buy, organizations to support and people to appreciate rather than dismiss or feel superior to simply because of geography and opportunity.

--Z

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Travel Weary and Saddle Sore

Photos: Vietnam: Nha Trang to Dalat via Motorbike

Summary

  • Tuesday, Nov 23: Bicycled around Nha Trang, up to expensive spa and down to a temple; learned a bit about Buddhism; discussed Buddhist sayings and our different interpretations of them; strange one-hour massage at spa recommended by hotel; LP-recommended place for dinner, disappointing; found another place, much better!; supermarket visit; drinks and girl-talk back at hotel.
  • Wednesday, Nov 24: Boat and snorkel trip from 8am-1pm; lazy beach time; cold shower to soothe sunburn; dinner at Chopsticks (found night before).
  • Thursday, Nov 25: Departed hotel for Easy Rider trip via motorbike to Dalat; visited coffee plantation, peppercorn farm and minority people village; slept in home-stay bungalow.
  • Friday, Nov 26: Up early, back on bikes; visited Elephant Falls, silkworm factory, silk weaving village, green tea plantation; ended in Dalat; some scary roads and even scarier driving by Easy Riders; two-star hotel turned out to be pretty nice.
  • Saturday, Nov 27: Spent morning motorbiking around Dalat; visited old king’s villa, flower park, train station and Crazy House; parted ways with Easy Riders; went to Lang Bien and hiked along main road and dirt path for about two hours, nice views; came down; walked around Dalat, found dinner, back in room early; Skyped with parents; bought onward tickets.

 

I sucked in my breath for what seemed to be the millionth time that day.

Perhaps my death will involve the bike falling broadside onto the gravel road, sliding along and skinning my side, then dropping off the edge of the road into the rocky, vine-y and tree-filled valley below.

I was on the slightly elevated back seat of a motorbike being driven by an Easy Rider by the name of Taung, a twenty-eight year old Vietnamese kid who liked to say repeatedly, “The real fucking Vietnam!” This was invariably followed by a crazy laugh, squinty-eyed grin and arms being flung open to encompass our surroundings. Francezka and I had taken off that morning with Taung and Dao, who carefully bungee-chorded our packs and bags to the backs of their bikes, for a three-day trip to Dalat.

IMG_0664 At first the ride was beautiful: coastline whizzed by, the sun and wind and blue sky ever present, and the thrill of going on an adventure filling our minds and hearts. Our Riders were young and energetic, weaving along the well-paved road and making me squeeze my eyes shut as we seemed inevitably bound for a pothole or rocky patch of road. I tried to sway with Taung as he sped up and leaned into his turns. I tried to breathe normally. I tried to keep myself from shrieking. I was successful at all of these things, except for the occasional sudden gasp.

They gave us a break every thirty or forty minutes, stopping at scenic points where we could take pictures and walk around a bit. Usually they would point up the road and tell us they’d pick us up in a few minutes.

IMG_0688Even after we turned inland from the coast, the scenery was beautiful. We passed rice  paddies, workers in the fields, plantations of all kinds and pedestrians of all ages. As we got further from the city, people – especially the children – got more excited to see us, waving and crying, “He-llo!” I never got tired of waving back.

We sped through small towns that had huge tarps spread in front of each home, each tarp covered with coffee beans or curry-coloring seeds or cobs of corn, all drying in the sun. We visited a coffee bean plantation, learning that the beans would be green first, but 


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when they turned red they were ready for harvesting. They would then be dried in the sun for  several days before being ground up into coffee people use every day. There were yards full of tarps and beans. We saw a peppercorn farm, and I learned that the peppercorn plant is a parasite that wraps around only one kind of tree. We picked a soft, spiny green fruit that when opened showcased wet, red seeds: their coloring is used to color curry powder. 

 


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As morning turned into afterrnoon, which darkened into evening, we arrived at our lodgings for the evening: a minority village. We were shown to one of many bungalows along a single dirt path. This bungalow contained a family in the back half, whom we never got to meet, and four soft beds  on the floor in the front half. We each took one and set up the accompanying mosquito nets. Francizka and I worked our way past mud pits, pigs and dogs to watch the sunset, a brilliant bloody red affair, over the lake with fish farms dotting it. 


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The only sounds were the water lapping against rocks, dogs snuffling and barking, a tv blaring somewhere and the frogs, crickets and other outdoors-type noises. We both slept well but had odd dreams; odder still that we both dreamed of killing people. I attributed this to the extreme fear and gut-wrenching ride of the day before. 

After breakfast the next morning, we were off once again. Our first obstacle: a washed out muddy road. Dao tipped his bike, dropping Francizka off unceremoniously into the mud and dust and leaving her with a burn on her leg from the exhaust pipe. Otherwise everyone was fine and as our RIders bumped and slid along, Francizka and I walked. We saw rice  being harvested that day, walking down amongst the workers as they expertly cut the stalks of rice with small but wicked curved blades. We watched as the men put the stalks through a machine which they kept running by a foot pedal; the machine spun and whirred, getting the rice off the stalks. A woman with a baby strapped across her back then beat the discarded stalks with a large club, getting every last grain off.


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We also visited a silk weaving factory, where young women were seated behind complicated setups. They wove one thread at a time, manipulating hanging bean bags and a foot-pedals to change the patterns, and using a wooden machete-shaped tool to make sure each thread was firmly in place. There was a silkworm factory, where we saw the cocoons being boiled, the silk extracted and huge spools of thread being prepared for the weavers. It stank. About halfway through the day, our Riders got a bit excited and began racing each other, trying to out do the other by passing various other vehicles while simultaneously dodging potholes, rocks and pedestrians. 

For the millionth time the second day, I sucked in a gasp and groaned aloud.

Perhaps my death will involve a bright pink bus hitting our bike head on as Taung attempts to pass vehicles in front of us. I will be the splat of a mosquito on a windshield, but oh, so much messier.


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The scariest and most unsafe moment for me was as we were ascending the mountains on windy switchback roads. We came upon a bus and both Taung and Dao kept attempting to pass it, never mind the blind corners, narrow roads and oncoming traffic (mostly bikers like us).

All in all, we arrived safely, though saddle sore and wobbly-legged, in Dalat. Our Riders were still energetic, playing chicken with the other motorbike traffic, taking us back and forth around the city in what seemed, at the time, a repetitive and thoroughly unwelcome tour of the city. My bum was throbbing and my legs were going number. The endless drone of the motorbike seemed to reverberate inside my helmet, even as I sang to myself to keep my mind off the visions of death flowing through my mind. As we rode along the ridgeline overlooking the city, I stopped singing, opened my eyes, and suddenly sucked in my breath once more.

Vietnam: it’s beautiful.

 

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IMG_0702IMG_0883 

 

 

 

 

--Z

Monday, November 22, 2010

Beach Time is Happy Time

Photos: Vietnam: Hoi An & Nha Trang

Note: I’m trying a new format for this post. Please e-mail me or leave a comment and let me know what you think! The idea is to minimize writing all about the little details (resulting in less lengthy posts) and focus in on a thing or two that really stuck out to me. So, I will do a brief recap, and then write a post. Feel absolutely free to skip the recap if details bore you!

Recap of the last few days:

  • Nov 19: Took bus from Hue to Hoi An (~4 hours), met Francizka from Switzerland, decided to room together at pricier hotel (Phuoc An), wandered Hoi An and loved it, swam in hotel pool, found tailor shop and picked two things to have made to order, had cao lau, local specialty noodles made only with local well water, fried crisp with crabmeat and tomatoes, slept hard
  • Nov 20: Wonderful breakfast in hotel, wandered Hoi An on my own, visited tailor shop for fitting, bicycled to the beach with Francizka on free rickety hotel bikes, got a coconut palm hut and drinks and chairs, swam, relaxed, had very nice dinner out (white rose, gazpacho)
  • Nov 21: Got up at 4:30am for My Son tour through hotel, old Champa ruins beautiful in the morning light and my group was the only one there, back in time for hotel breaKfast, Francizka and I bicycled to the beach again, picked up clothes from the tailor, parted ways, dinner at Laughing Cafe and watched domestic street life with kids running around, parents chatting and chasing the kids, overnight bus to Nha Trang, got front, left, top bed, much better though still not terribly comfortable, bus swerved a lot and tool case brought out several times throughout the night
  • Nov 22: Arrived Nha Trang 7am, looked at first hotel which promised elevator (not working), room with two big windows (one was looking into the hallway) and AC (cost extra if you wanted to use it), found a hotel for $9/night with two beds, called Francizka to see about sharing, she had a much nicer one across the lane so we bunked together again, first stop breakfast (meuslix, fruit, honey, yummy!), next stop beach, swam and napped and sunned, had Italian for lunch (spaghetti), booked a three day, two night motor bike trip with local Easy Riders to Dalat, back to the beach, shower and put on new sun dress made in Hoi An, dinner out

 And now, the post itself:

IMG_0485My dad used to call me his water baby, a very accurate nickname in light of the absolute  joy I found in almost any body of water. The past few days have consisted of beaches and a pool and me swimming at both, and I couldn’t be happier. The weather has been mostly good, with passing clouds and a rain shower here and there. With my ever-dawning sense of Vietnam and the ways of the tourist trail I’m following on my way south, I have been enjoying my time here more and more.

Diving into the South China Sea at Dai Cau beach to the east of Hoi An, after a somewhat harry ride on a rickety bicycle with no gears and sketchy brakes, was such a relief! The waves tossed me about quite a bit, and I got sand everywhere, but this is what a beach visit means and I was pleased. I let myself bake a bit in the sun before ordering a coconut shake, which was part of the deal of using the beach chairs and shade. It felt like heaven! We were on the beach for perhaps two and a half hours total, but that was all it really took for me to really relax for the first time in awhile.

When I think back to Hue and my negative reaction there, I come to the conclusion that a number of factors collided. First, I was tired from the night bus experience. Second, the weather was damp and hot and cloudy. Third, my frustration with understanding Vietnam and why it seemed to me a greedy and third-world country when I hadn’t expected it, had come to a head. Fourth, my emotional discomfort with being an American, female, solo traveler in Vietnam was peaking. And fifth and finally, I had settled for a cheap and crappy hotel room.

This does not a happy traveler make. It brought to light a truth I’d read about pre-trip: sometimes you just have to IMG_0541leave a place! Hue was not for me at the time I went there and so leaving it was the best thing I could have done. A fresh start in a (to me) fresh place, meeting someone I could talk to and room with, treating myself to a nice hotel; all of these things helped me re-center and focus. I did very little sight-seeing in Hoi An, with  My Son being the only real tour I took. I was able to appreciate it, though: amazement at the history and fact that the Champa had made and mortared bricks in a way still a mystery to today’s scientists; the sorrow of knowing that B-52 bombs, dead on impact, exploded years after the war and killed several Vietnamese tourists and destroyed most of the ruins; and pleasure at seeing an ancient civilizations works that had survived thirteen hundred years, weather and man-kind’s wars.

It also highlighted a very important travel-fact about myself: going to a beach or body of water, swimming and floating and relaxing, will help me to reset myself. It’s good to know a cure for the doldrums or depression or loneliness that will inevitably strike again during this year. And so, while in Nha Trang, I plan to get my fill of the beach and sun, do some snorkeling, and enjoy what Vietnam has to offer with, hopefully, a more tempered understanding and the joy only travel can bring on. In short, I plan to be a water baby.

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--Z

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Trying to ‘Get’ Vietnam

Photos: Vietnam: From Hanoi to Hue

   *Subnote: I have not captioned these yet… wifi is incredibly slow here!

It’s Thursday evening and I’m struggling with my reactions to Vietnam so far. With the exception of Halong Bay, I can’t say as I’ve really enjoyed myself so far. It’s not that anything particularly bad has happened, or that I’m feeling unwell, or anything along those lines. It’s just… Hanoi was crowded and hot and it felt like every single sales person was trying to gouge me on prices. I can understand a higher price for tourists, but I can’t understand trying to get away with charging me up to twenty times the normal price. As I’ve headed south, it’s gotten hotter, muggier and more half-built / half-decayed. Today, though, I had the slightest of epiphanies. Whether it helps me to cope with and understand Vietnam at least a little remains to be seen.

Let me start with Tuesday, though.

Tuesday, Nov 16, 2010

Slow morning waking up, showering, re-packing and getting ready for the day. I had to be at the travel agent’s office by 5:30pm, but otherwise had no commitments. The first thing I tackled was checking out of the hotel and this was my first challenge: First, they conveniently forgot that I’d paid a deposit. When I produced my receipt (which I’d had to insist upon them giving me), they wanted to suddenly up the exchange rate for the dollar on me. You see, the Vietnamese have learned to quote prices in USD, then when you don’t have USD to give them, they tell you how strong the dollar is these days and do the conversion rate accordingly. At first look, this seems to be advantageous for me, but then as the amount of dong I owe goes up, I see how they get their extras. All of the sudden,instead of the steady $1USD=19,000VND, the hotel staff insists that today the dollar is stronger, so that $1USD=21,000VND.

Before you say, “Oh, geez, that’s less than a dime! What’s the problem?!” Just realize that every single person seems to do this, plus at minimum doubling the price – and sometimes going up to twenty times the appropriate price – and so a dime over the course of a week can get quite costly. Especially for someone trying to keep on a lower budget.

Anyway, they tried this conversion thing first and I refused, asking them to show me on the internet what the exchange rate was. They backed off and agreed on the afore-agreed-upon price at the appropriate exchange rate, but when I needed some change from them, they insisted they didn’t have it. I told them to give me the money back so that I could go get change, and they tried to give me a bottle of water instead of the change (making that the most expensive bottle of water in Hanoi). I refused and started to get upset and finally someone magically found the appropriate amount of change.

I mean, really. Can’t a girl just check out in peace?! I left my pack in their lobby and headed out. The first place I visited was just across the street: a propaganda poster shop. IMG_0273 It was pretty interesting to see some of their stuff, especially from the Vietnam/American War timeframe. I took a good twenty minutes going through the two rooms full of posters. Some encouraged wartime efforts such as rice farming, or participation by women, or joining the forces for freedom. Sound familiar? Then there were those showing a US bomber plane falling out of the sky, with the number “4,000” printed on it, showing how many planes the Vietnamese had downed. There were shadows of manacles being broken and other symbolism of breaking the bonds of tyranny. Very interesting!

I headed out and decided to eat an early lunch at Pho 24, a chain restaurant that is apparently pretty prolific in the south of Vietnam, although I only saw two of them in Hanoi. The pho (beef noodle soup) was pretty tasty! Also, I met an Australian girl there who’d just arrived from Cambodia. She talked up a tour she’d been on there through Gecko Adventure Tours and got me thinking about possibly booking with them. Good thing to look into, anyway!

I decided to walk around a bit after this, and was pressed pretty hard by a woman street vendor to buy some of her fruit. When I declined, she smiled really big and held out her baskets to me, beckoning to my camera. When I hesitated, wondering if I should give her my camera, she plopped her hat on my head and gestured again at the camera. So, I did the tourist thing and played street vendor for thirty seconds. She snapped my photo and then took her things back, holding out a bag with two bananas and some slices of pineapple in it. I sighed and asked her how much. When she quoted me six times the price I was willing to pay, I haggled her down, walking away until she agreed on the price I’d stated.

Next up a motorbike ride to see the War Museum, an eclectic, somewhat disorganized collection of wartime artifacts from throughout the ages in Vietnam. Some dated back IMG_0275 several centuries and some was from their 20th century struggles. For me, it was completely disturbing to walk out into the courtyard to be greeted by US Air Force planes shot down and then salvaged. There was also an odd pile/sculpture of B-52 bomber scraps. I wondered if I should feel angry or sad or personally affronted, although I didn’t feel any of these things. It did bring home, though, how the countries we get involved with become proud of the things we condemn them for. And I have friends today who are over in Iraq or Afghanistan. Will their planes, or vehicles, or uniforms, someday be on display in an Middle Eastern ‘war museum’? That is the thought which gave me the chills.

My motorbike driver was waiting for me outside and we zoomed on over to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and complex. I didn’t go into the mausoleum, but I did check out the front of the One Pillar Pagoda, which was a model, I believe, of his home, that people respected for it’s simplicity. Actually, I didn’t go in, because there seemed to be a religious ceremony going on. I then walked up to a huge building which turned out to be the Ho Chi Minh Museum. Curious, I paid the entry fee and went inside. There I was greeted with the most incredible museum comprised of art, craft and history, mixed in pretty interesting ways. I didn’t understand all of it; certainly, there was incredible symbolism I had no idea about. I would love to go back someday and learn about what it all meant.

Here is one of my internal struggles with Vietnam: all my life I’ve been raised with the American education of “communism is bad,” and my recollection of any history education on Vietnam has just left me with the idea that Ho Chi Minh was bad as well. Yet here I was, in a museum revering him with statuary, photos, art and poetry all in his honor. The representation of him here, of course, is of saintly good, of a man for the people who brought the country to independence and who insisted on education for everyone, technological progress and so forth. How could this be bad?

I left the museum impressed and bemused, found my motorbike driver and asked him to drive me to the area of my hotel. He tried to get me to agree to a motorbike tour of Hanoi, but I declined and he took me to St. Joseph’s Cathedral, which is just up the street from my hotel. There, he insisted that I took too long at the museum and that I owed him more than our agreed-upon price. I refused, feeling downhearted once more. It took five minutes before I could turn and walk away. I don’t like treating people like that, but my fuse is getting shorter and rather than get visible and audibly upset, I figured it’s better to walk away and ignore them.

It was time for an early dinner, so I stopped at La Place, which was just adjacent to the cathedral, and had cha ca, a Vietnamese specialty of grilled fish with shrimp paste. It was quite tasty and filling! Afterwards, I just relaxed, reading a book on my iPod and letting time pass. Finally, I decided it was time to grab my bags from the hotel and then take the ten minute walk over to the travel agent’s office. On the way, I ran into Judy and Dan, the Vermont couple I’d met in Cat Ba. We stood and chatted, discussing our various reactions to Vietnam and trying to make sense of it all. Finally, we said a last good-bye and good luck, and went our separate ways.

Later, I caught the sleeper-bus to Hue. It was quite the trip! First, a minivan picked me up to take me to the bus station. It started out with just me, but soon filled to capacity, and then beyond capacity: there were four people standing crammed next to the sliding door! We were released in front of a row of shops, one of which was the bus stop: a one room, half crumbling place where they glanced at your ticket, stamped and tore it and pointed outside with a grunt. I’d decided to just go with the flow because I had no idea what to expect. There were several others in the same frame of mind and we all giggled and shrugged as we were herded to a large bus.

IMG_0286The sleeper bus was made of up three rows of beds, one row on each side by the windows  and one row going up the middle. Each row had an upper and lower bunk. In the back of the bus, where I ended up, there were five across on both the top and bottom. These beds are made for Asian sized people, which at first seemed good for me, since I’m short. They’re narrow as well, though, and don’t leave a lot of room for stretching out. Most of the beds have a cubby where you stick your feet, in fact. I was in an aisle bed, meaning I had someone immediately on my right and immediately to my left. Good thing I’m not claustrophobic because it was quite, quite cozy. The first picture to the left shows my bottom-bunk, back-of-the-bus cave. These were the three people to my left. There was one person to my right. The second picture to the left is a picture forward from my bed. I think there were about thirty beds in all on the bus. We filled the entire thing in Hanoi and then began our fourteen hour trip to Hue. IMG_0287

The overhead lights were kept on until about 9:30pm. We made one rest stop that evening and another in the morning around 8am. I had an incredibly difficult time getting comfortable, but finally figured out that lying on my side was my only hope. The last row of beds were slightly more inclined than the others in the bus, and oddly proportioned to boot: the inclined part of the bed was maybe five feet long, and the flat part where the legs go was about a foot long. My butt kept sliding down, no matter how I’d push myself up, which would force me to bend my legs quite a bit, and push my feet against the metal "footboard.”

Until the lights were turned out, I decided to attempt to write postcards. My apologies to those who get these… my handwriting is pretty terrible. It seemed as though the bus driver were aiming for only the deepest potholes. One time, the bump was so bad that everyone flew out of their beds a couple of inches. Since I was sitting up, my head slammed into the upper bunk. After that I lay down and tried to get comfortable. I did actually get a little sleep, interrupted by the occasional bump or swerve. I swear that at one point the bus leaned tremendously to the right. Whether it actually went onto two wheels or not, I can’t say: my eyes were tightly shut as I swore to myself.

If this description reminds you of the Harry Potter night bus, well… it should! That’s exactly what was in my head the whole night.

Wednesday, Nov 18, 2010

We arrived in Hue the next morning around ten thirty am, just an hour or two later than expected. We were greeted by rain and a crowd of touts who started shouting and grabbing at us as we exited the bus. In the next five minutes, I was shown a room in a hotel, offered water, offered a motorbike tour, begged to switch hotels and had no less than three pieces of paper advertising city tours. When the guy who’d shown me the hotel room asked me for my passport to check in, I held up both of my hands, palms forward, and said, “Give me ten minutes. Please, stop, give me ten minutes to just… just…” And then I walked out. I was tired, sweaty, grungy and somehow also mildewy. I needed time to wake up and figure things out.

First, I went to another hotel that Dan and Judy had recommended. I was followed for three blocks by a guy pedaling a bicycle with a basket in front, until he finally understood that no meant no. The hotel looked nice, but was twice the price of the first hotel and not that much noticeably nicer. So I went back to the first hotel and checked in, promptly locking my door and sinking on to the squeaky, noisy bed. I took more than an hour to get myself organized, decide on what I wanted to do for the day, which wasn’t too much but involved finding lunch, locating the place I wanted to have dinner, and then just walking around a bit.

For lunch, I really wanted pizza. There was an Italian place mentioned in my guidebook, so I set out to find this, shaking off the dozen sales pitches for water, cheap lunch, motorbike rides and tours of the city. I found a different place and settled there, having my slice of mediocre pizza and a mango shake. When I left that place, I immediately spotted the Italian place I was aiming for… go figure! The place I wanted to go for dinner was described in my book as having traditional music performances in the evening, so I went and found it, looked at the menu and confirmed the music details. Then I decided to head back to the hotel for a nap.

IMG_0297Before I had gone a dozen paces, though, I saw what seemed to be a women’s craft center. I went in to take a look and am so glad I did! The atmosphere was serene and the artwork was incredible. My favorite was the silk embroidery pictures, which ranged from portraits to animals to landscapes, and were exquisite. 

There was also a clothing shop with wonderfully embroidered pieces, the conical hats famous in Vietnam, and silk pajamas. I didn’t buy anything, but it was a struggle! I must have spent about forty-five minutes in the small complex, admiring the work and watching a room of women as they worked at the embroidery.

Finally, my energy flagged almost completely and I headed back to my little hotel. I napped for over an hour, which I must really have needed because I awoke feeling more like myself. I putzed around on the computer for a bit and then decided to head for the dinner place. It was dark out, though, and I felt unaccountably nervous about walking to the restaurant by myself.

This is another feeling I haven’t had so strongly as in Vietnam: unsafe. Again, I don’t quite know if this is because of actual signals I’m getting from my environment or if it’s my foggy understanding and accompanying discomfort of being an American in Vietnam, but there it was: I felt unsafe being a single female walking around after dark.

So I promptly flagged down a motorbike and negotiated a price (probably too high, but worth it to me). On the way, he chatted me up and tried to get me to agree to a night tour of Hue via motorbike, but I declined somewhat nervously. No Vietnamese has ever made a move that makes me feel vulnerable or physically uncomfortable, but still… he could just drive into the middle of nowhere with me hanging onto the back of the bike!

This didn’t happen and I arrived safely at the Tropical Garden Restaurant. I was early for the dinner crowd and was seated at a table for two off to the side of the massive dining area. It wasn’t air conditioned but was cool anyway, thankfully. I ordered a pineapple juice and then read my book on my iPod until other diners started to trickle in, primarily tour groups. Then I ordered a set menu, treating myself to an expensive meal (expensive being IMG_0311about $15USD). It was fascinating and, accompanied by the traditional music, was quite enjoyable. The only downside was that I was alone. It was a decidedly lonely evening, surrounded as I was by tour groups chatting amiably amongst themselves and couples at other tables. However, the girl bringing my dishes was very sweet, smiling at me each time she passed and taking great pains to explain what each dish was to me.

Also, the traditional music was just awesome. I had a front table seat, so I had a great view of the five musicians. There were four women and one man and each played something different. The girl closest to me played a stringed instrument like a guitar which rested on her lap and had many more strings, which she plucked with her fingers. The next girl played a stringed instruments with two padded sticks. Next was the man, who played a stringed instrument that had a thin handle which, when manipulated, would make the sound warble. Next to him was a woman who used two small wooden sticks to keep a beat and make different sounds when tapped against each other. And on the end, an older woman had what seemed to be two porcelain teacups in each hand. She would rattle these together in a jingly way, making them sound at times as if they had bells inside! Here is a video of them playing:

After dinner, I caught a ride home, showered and went to bed. Whew!

Today, Thursday, Nov 18, 2010

Today I went on a city tour of Hue, taking in all the tombs of ancient monarchs as well as the Citadel, a former city center where huge ceremonies would take place and the king, IMG_0345 queen, concubines and other royal personages lived. The tombs were pretty, being actual areas that the monarchs would design, then stay to relax there, and eventually be entombed there. It was the Citadel, though, that gave me pause. So much of it was in ruin, with a structure here or there having been recently revitalized. It hit me near the end of our quick Citadel tour that Vietnam is still recovering from it’s 20th century struggles. Both France and the US beat the hell out of Vietnam through bombing, assaults and all kinds of other warfare. This means, essentially, that many landmarks and city areas were destroyed or at least partially ruined.

Even though that all ended about thirty years ago, it takes longer than that for a country to recover. First the people must recover and rebuild their basic living means, and I suppose that the people themselves had to repopulate a bit as well. Most of the renovation being done at the Citadel was due to it’s being named a UNESCO World Heritage Site and being given funds.

IMG_0444 Somehow this struck me and made me ashamed that I’ve been so unimpressed with Vietnam. Of course it’s not booming and modern! And of course there’s an odd contrast between old style and new. It only makes sense when you think that they have been dealing with other things, as an entire country, than keeping up living standards and technology. They’ve been struggling just to catch up to where they would have been had they been free to develop.

I don’t know if my minor insight will help me to enjoy Vietnam more or to understand it better, but at least I feel like I gained some kind of insight. It took seeing the Citadel, ruins next to rebuilding, to really understand. The effects of war don’t end because peace accords are signed. It makes me wonder if I’ll ever see an Iraq or an Afghanistan that isn’t ruined. All these countries have places that are – or were – really old to begin with, and preserving them would be difficult. Then have them bombed or shot at or attacked… it’s incredible that heritage is actually preserved!

Well, it was interesting and a tiring day. Tomorrow I head to Hoi An in the morning – just a three hour bus ride, hopefully! For now, I’m going to venture out to find some dinner, repack, and head to bed.

--Z

Monday, November 15, 2010

Cut Short

Photos: Vietnam: Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island Trip

IMG_0196 After my last post, I went to bed and slept the whole night through. I had set my alarm to see sunrise, but after a cursory look and a few clicks of the camera, I went back to sleep. The morning brought some beautiful weather and a breakfast of white bread, jam, eggs and bananas. Then it was up to the sun deck for some morning views, which were fantastic!

A bit later, we headed back to Cat Ba Island and were bussed with some other tourists to  Cat Ba National Park. There we did a trek that I hadn’t really expected. It took about two hours and we basically clambered up stone steps for thirty minutes, then climbed rocks for another thirty minutes, waited for people coming down, IMG_0251climbed rusted out ladders, clambered over more rocks… and made it to a rusted out tower. We climbed the steps that wrapped around the tower to look out over Cat Ba National Park, but the wind was strong enough to send the few remaining flaps of aluminum that served as a roof a-clanging, and that sent me across the loose wooden floorboards to hurry back down to the base of the tower. Scary!

Our guide on the way down hated our little group of four, because we weren’t going fast enough. He would periodically disappear and then reappear with a really impatient, annoyed look on his face. Fortunately, he didn’t speak English and none of our little group spoke Vietnamese.

After the trek, we were bussed to three different hotels: I went to the Sunflower One, which was billed as a three star hotel but was quite a walk from any of the beaches, didn’t have working AC in the rooms and served mediocre food. It wasn’t bad, but it just wasn’t all that exciting. At lunch, I had lunch with another couple staying at my hotel: Judy and Dan. They’re Americans from Vermont who are really into biking in different countries. They’re in southeast Asia for five months to bicycle around! They’d just started in Vietnam, but they’ve been rained out in the south and so they decided to take the Halong Bay trip to relax and then try again from Hanoi. They’re really nice folks and we instantly connected.

IMG_0252 After lunch, I went up to my room and relaxed, playing on my computer, reading and eventually falling asleep for about an hour. I decided to head to the beach, which I’d heard was just an incredible beach. Unfortunately, it was cloudy and windy out, so although the beach was pretty, and the water was a nice temperature, I can’t say that I found it incredible. Judy and Dan were there, however, and we ended up sitting and chatting for quite some time. They hung out while I went for a quick swim and then we walked back to our hotel together.

I showered and relaxed some more in my hotel room, then met up with the Italian couple (Yana and Stefan) and the Vermont couple to go out for a local dinner. We ended up at a place called the Green Mango. It was nice but took over an hour to get us our food: a pizza and two desserts. We all got along great and told travel stories and exchanged thoughts on various world issues. Finally, we all headed our separate ways and I once again slept like a baby (albeit a hot one, with no AC!).

Today, we were bussed from Cat Ba Island to the Halong Bay harbor, got back on our boat IMG_0256(yay!) and had about an hour to enjoy the sunshine. We were all surprised that the sun had come out, since the morning had been fairly gray until we got to the bay. I spent about fifteen minutes on the top deck getting sun, then headed down to sit at the front of the boat and just watch the scenery go by. At one point I noticed some little white fish, long and skinny, that would swim along and jump out of the water, much like dolphins keeping pace with a boat but on a much, much smaller scale. I spent the rest of the trip alternately watching the water for these fish and watching the sky and karsts. It was very peaceful!

We arrived at Halong Bay City, disembarked, waited for a bus and headed for lunch. Unfortunately, we didn’t get lunch on the boat, which would have been far better than the mass-feed we experienced in the city. After lunch, we piled on a bus (I avoided the wheel-well seat this time) and started our four hour trip back to Hanoi.

In Hanoi, I arranged my bus ticket for tomorrow and then headed for my hotel. They promptly showed me to my room, but it was not the room I’d booked. In fact, they had shown me two when I made my reservation and the one I picked was more expensive ($18 vs $15USD). They were going to give me the smaller, cheaper one, though, and I insisted that I wanted the room I’d been shown. They walked me back downstairs (we’d climbed three flights of stairs to this wrong room) and tried to talk me into taking the smaller, windowless room, which I firmly declined. Then they informed me that they could give me a room like the one I’d reserved, but on a different floor and it wouldn’t be ready for thirty minutes or more.

All I wanted was to put my stuff down and maybe shower! It was not to be, however, so I called Yana and Stefan and Dan and Judy and we all decided to meet for dinner. That was fun and we all said our good-byes (Yana and Stefan head home tomorrow evening and I head to Hue). Then we headed back, I checked in to my room (which is just fine) and now I’m ready for bed once again.

Some thoughts and impressions:

  • Cat Ba Island was completely overrated, in my opinion. Granted, there’s no helping weather, but the town isn’t interesting (only hotels next to hotels next to karaoke bars, with a restaurant or street vendor every now and then on the street). The one beach I went to was pretty but not incredible and my hotel was disappointing. And on the way to the beach, I walked past some bored men in hammocks hung from trees along the sidewalk, one man peeing off the side of the road, and bored shop vendors. I’m not sure why everyone howls about how wonderful it is!
  • I would come back to Vietnam purely for Halong Bay. I DO understand why people rave about it. If I were to do this trip over again, I would book several days on a boat in the bay, with opportunities to swim and kayak each day. It was just absolutely fabulous – the views, the rooms, the food and the swimming and kayaking. Awesome!
  • Everything feels a bit like a fight in Vietnam. I mean, the motorbikes overcharging me by five times; food vendors overcharging me by twenty times; taxis taking the longest possible windy route to destinations; and hotels not giving me the room they expressly promised me. It is detracting from my experience and I’m trying to figure out how to not give up on the country! As I head south, I’ll be hitting touristy areas, which will probably promise me more of the same.
  • I was commenting to Megan on the bus ride home today that Vietnam gives me the impression of a place that is in the middle of reconstruction, but have left their projects half done. We drove past several areas that looked like hotels, homes and stores were being built… but the half-built structures were rusting, crumbling and flooded as if they hadn’t been worked on in a long time. The people also seem stuck in a weird transition: barefoot in streets, cooking street food with dirty hands and utensils and serving it on stuff that’s washed with dirty water, but talking on cell phones and watching televisions. Megan said, “I guess that’s why they call it a ‘developing counry.’” Is that really what it is? I’m not convinced, but I also don’t think I really considered Vietnam a developing country. Perhaps I need to adjust my understanding of where the country is at.

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--Z

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Floating in Halong Bay, Achieving Travel Bliss

Photos: Vietnam: Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island Trip

Above me are familiar shapes: Cassiopeia, the Pleiades, Taurus the Bull and Orion, just peeking above the karsts of Halong Bay. All around me are other boats, humming generators and bright pinpoint lights making it impossible to pretend they’re not there. The lights reflect in the water, making the night picturesque, even if the cool air has the tang of diesel fuel in it. Below me the boat hums slightly with its own generator, but that noise is buried beneath the Vietnamese karaoke going on in the dining area.

It has been a good day and ending it on the top deck of a boat, open to the sky and wind, surrounded by eerie projections of rock islets, is absolutely fitting. Of course, it didn’t start out this way…

At 6:45am, my alarm went off and I quietly changed, packed, tidied up and left Michaela and Andy’s apartment. They were fast asleep, having been out quite late the night before at an Austrian ball put on by the embassy, so I assume that they had no idea when I left. At least, I hope so!

My big pack on my back, my day pack on my front, I headed down the street towards the Van Ho Hotel, which is where I’d asked to be picked up. On the way, a young motorbike driver called to me, and it wasn’t until I’d absently replied with my usual smile and “No, thank you!” that I registered his words: “Halong Bay?” I turned around and went back and sure enough, this was my ride to the tourist agency shop in town. My big pack was too big for his bike, so I wore it, making it a more precarious ride than usual because of the tail-weight. We made it, though, and he was a friendly enough guy, chatting with me the entire way in halting English.

Once arrived, I checked in and was told the bus would be coming by at 8:30am, so I had time to go find breakfast. I went across the street and ordered the only thing that I thought I understood: beef steak omelet. It turned out to be eggs in a big hoagie-type bun and it tasted all right, if a bit plain. That done, I went back across the small street and started chatting with some other arrivals. Particularly, there was a couple, Yana and Stephan, who I connected with pretty quickly. They raised their eyebrows when I told them where I’d eaten, and thirty minutes later, I had to question my own sense.

My stomach was roiling slightly, so I asked the tour agents if they had a bathroom. One guy pointed up some pretty steep wooden steps and said, “All the way to the top of my house, please.” So I climbed… and climbed… and climbed. It turned out these steps went up through four trapdoors on four successive floors, each floor containing a small room, maybe ten feet by ten feet, and each room with a function like a regular house that I’m used to. Oddly enough, in the bedroom there was a white man laying stretched out next to an infant, who was fast asleep. He held his finger up to his lips and pointed up, so I climbed further. The kitchen, bathroom and dining room were on the fourth floor.

Fifteen minutes later I headed back down. Everyone was gone and I saw Yana banging on a window from the inside of a small bus, waving at me frantically. I grabbed my packs and ran after, clambering aboard the still-moving vehicle. The only seat left was one with the wheel well IMG_0086 jutting up into the foot space. I cringed. My knees haven’t been feeling the greatest and the thought of a four hour ride with my knees up to my chin didn’t sound good. To make matters worse, we soon picked up even more people, meaning that the seat next to me was filled with a six foot behemoth from Germany. I put up with it until our first rest stop, about an hour and a half or so, and then I figured out that I could unfold an aisle seat. We reached Halong Bay City about four hours after we’d left Hanoi, all passengers relieved to have survived the two near miss accidents our driver nearly caused. Our tour guide had collected all our passports earlier, so we clambered off wondering what was next.

We stood around, waited, and were eventually told that our passports would be returned to us when we checked out of the boats we were sleeping in the next day. Then we were led along past several vendors and finally to a dock, where we waited another fifteen minutes.

That was the end of the stressful and crappy part of the day. From there on out it was fantastic! We were taken on a small ferry boat to our main boat: the Halong Bay Pearl. It’s IMG_0094what is called a “junk boat,” and it’s made of wood. It has three decks, with the top one being open to the elements as described earlier. We were promptly seated for lunch, which I felt was pretty danged good and better than I was expecting: prawns, a cucumber salad, french fries, and a host of other dishes. Our boat only has eleven passengers, seven of whom are Vietnemese and Korean and don’t speak English. There are four of us who can chat with each other: Yana, an Italian from Canada living in Switzerland; her boyfriend Stephan, an Italian who lives in Rome; and Megan, an American with Chinese ancestry who has been living in China for the last five years. And me! Pretty interesting crew!

After lunch we were shown to our cabins. I have a double all to myself and I love it! It’s two full beds pushed together (but with a gap in between), a night stand and a bathroom. Small, like you’d expect on a boat, and no open window, just wooden slats at an angle across an opening that might have once been a window. Seriously… I love it!

IMG_0126 I quickly changed into a bathing suit, shorts and a t-shirt and went up to the top deck to soak up some sun. Yana and Stephan were there and Megan joined us soon after. Then we were called down for the day’s excursions: first, kayaking. I shared a kayak with Megan and we had a grand old time paddling around the karsts and gaping at the gorgeous views. Unfortunately, we got a bit carried away and our tour guide, whose name sounds like “Juan-Juan,” had to come chase us back to the floating boat dock. We were then shipped to “The Amazing Caves,” which consistrd of some pretty incredible, cavernous and beautiful caves inside one of the karsts. We were there for about an hour, following a well worn path and having to wait as the tourists clogged up the place. It was still  pretty, though, and the views from the landing once we climbed lots of stone steps was worth it all.

We were then shipped back to our boat and told we had free time and could swim if we wanted. Well, I love the water and so in I went, jumping off the side of the boat. It was absolutely gorgeous, cool water but not cold. The sun was setting and the landscape… seascape?…bayscape?!… was absolutely majestic. It hit me that I was well and truly dazzled by everything. I was swimming in a magnificently strange bay of Vietnam, and everything about the experience was right. I floated and I dove and I jumped off the boat again. I had achieved travel bliss and it was good.

IMG_0165Once I wore myself out with swimming, I hauled myself onto the boat again and showered. My bathroom is a toilet, sink and shower hose with a head on it, all in one small cube, but the water was hot and it felt good. I think that I really have gotten a bit tired of traveling and that this trips was serving it’s purpose: to remind me that I was doing and seeing something foreign and amazing.

Dinner was delicious and I ordered a glass of Vietnamese white wine from Dalat. I can’t say it was particularly good, although I liked it enough to finish it. Our little English-speaking group chatted for quite some time after everyone else left, which is how we were invited to partake in karaoke with our tour guide and, eventually, the boat crew. I sang “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” “Barbie Girl,” and “The Gambler.” Megan sang a few too and we even got Yana to sing one. Then the boat crew started with Vietnamese songs. We listened for a bit and then everyone was ready to retire (except the boat crew).

That’s when I came up here to enjoy the top deck, which I have all to myself. It’s barely 9:30pm and I feel like it should be midnight.

Orion is fully risen now, hunting Taurus and chasing after the Seven Sisters. What a great sight to bid a cheerful: good night!

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--Z

Friday, November 12, 2010

Turtles and Literature

Note: Please note that I’ve posted twice today! So there are two new posts, this one and “Welcome to Hanoi.”

Photos: Vietnam: Turtles and Literature

This morning I woke up around 7:30am and started getting ready for the day around 8am. When I left the apartment, it was with Andy, who gave me a ride on his motorcycle to VimCom Towers, a massive two-tower, several-story-high mall. Then he went off to work and I went off to shop. My mission this morning was to find something – anything! – to treat my chafing welts. I managed to pantomime a baby crying from diaper rash and they pointed me to something called “baby cream” in a nice little jar. I bought it, along with a baguette, some Laughing Cow cheese and a bottle of water. That was all in one supermarket-like store. Then on my way downstairs, I saw a sock store… seriously, that’s what it was called. I went in and bought myself a set of pantyhose, which was recommended by a friend of mine who is a U.S. Marine. She told me that Marine recon personnel often suffered from chafing and wore pantyhose to prevent it. Hey, I’ll try most things at this point!

Luckily, when I woke up this morning the welts had gone down and the chafing wasn’t bothering me so much. I put on a belt, in the hopes that it would hold my pants up around my waist and keep the crotch where it’s supposed to be instead of rubbing my thighs raw.

IMG_0033Enough about chafing. After the mini shopping spree, I went to Ngoc Son Temple in Hoan Kiem lake. It’s a tiny islet connected to the mainland by a pretty red bridge; the same bridge, in fact, that I’d admired my first day in Hanoi. I paid my entry fee and walked in, immediately coming upon some kind of family ritual, where a mother took her little child up some hilly steps to a shrine. This was before crossing the bridge to the islet. Then I crossed over, admiring the view to either side when I was in the middle of the bridge.

The story of Hoan Kiem lake, which translates to “Lake of the Restored Sword,” is quickly related as this: long ago, a king in need of help against invading enemies was given a sword from the gods. He kept this sword long after the battle was won. One day, as he was rowing around the river in a boat, a huge tortoise arose from the deep and snatched the sword, taking it back to the gods who’d given it to him in the first place.

IMG_0050Appropriately, there is an exhibit on the islet of a huge tortoise. I believe my guidebook said it’s actually the embalmed remains of one of the lake’s tortoises. Also, these are one of several holy animals here. The islet was pretty, with a shrine and statues inside, representing (I think) Confucius. There wasn’t much else to do but circle the islet, which took only a few minutes, take a look at the scenery and the temple proper, and then head on back over the bridge. It was a scenic little walk.

Because I was in the general area, I went to see if I could buy a ticket to a water puppet show, which is apparently a well-known Vietnamese craft and specifically recommended for watching in Hanoi. Unfortunatley, when I went to the box office to buy a ticket for a show this evening, I saw that they were sold out through Sunday. This helped me solve a dilemma, however: I decided to go see if I could find a reasonably priced hotel room and, if I could, to come back and buy a ticket for Monday night or Tuesday early afternoon.

Off I went to attempt to find the hotel the Canadians had recommended to me the day I arrived in Hanoi. I saw a few backpacker hostels but they looked a bit rough, so I didn’t stop to check them out. I’m sure they would have been cheaper, but it turned out that the hotel the Canadians liked was well-priced ($18/night because I picked one with a balcony window on the street) and available for Monday night, so I booked it. Then I went around the corner to confirm my weekend trip with the travel office and to tell them where to pick me up tomorrow morning.

These chores completed, I caught a motorbike to Van Mieu-Temple of Literature, a one thousand year old campus.

An aside about the motorbikes: called xe om (pronounced ze-ohm), you can find these guys waiting on their bikes – sometimes sitting, sometimes laying on them, sometimes sleeping – on almost every corner in Hanoi. Many times they’ll call, “Moto? Motobike?” as you pass by them. The more aggressive ones will ask where you’re going and follow you a little bit. There seem to plenty of nice ones, though, who upon seeing your interest will jump off their bike and see where you want to go. The good ones charge about 20,000 dong for a five to ten minute ride, more for longer trips. Today I found good ones! They have an extra helmet and you can choose how you’d like to ride: straddle or side saddle. I don’t know how to side saddle and so I always straddle and hold onto the back of the seat with one arm. It’s an adventure every time, because no matter if your driver is fast, slow, careful or reckless, it’s the other drivers you’ve got to watch out for. I mostly close my eyes when things get hairy and so far that’s worked out great.

IMG_0054 Anyway, I got dropped off at the Temple of Literature, bought my ticket and walked on in. It’s an open air grounds, with successive gates leading into different courtyards. It was quite pretty and I took my time wandering through and reading the signs, which can be found in English, Vietnamese and French, although not always together. My favorite was a courtyard containing a large square pond with turtles in it. It was called “The Well of Heavenly Clarity.” In the last courtyard, I sat on a bench and enjoyed some music, which turned out to be live music. I realized this when I heard applause and so I went to investigate. Sure enough, there were about four women on a small raised dais in the last temple area, playing on traditional Vietnamese instruments.

IMG_0076They only played for about two minutes after I arrived and then they were done. People were encouraged to go look at the instruments and try them out. There were interesting string instruments and something a bit like a xylophone, but made of wood.

After getting my fill of the grounds and starting to feel slightly glazed over, I left the area in search of KOTO on Van Mieu, a restaurant my guidebook said was responsible dining because it’s a social reform business, training kids from the street in the culinary arts. I had tiger prawns, which were presented very prettily and which tasted wonderful, and an apple juice with ginger and lemon. I took my ease a bit, reading some light stuff (“My Man Jeeves”) on my iPod and enjoying the quiet and coolness of the restaurant. IMG_0082

Relaxed and fed, I headed back to the Hoan Kiem lake area to attempt buying tickets for the water puppet show. Unfortunately, by the time I got there they were sold out through Tuesday. I’m going to go to their website and see if I can book there, and if not, I’ll try to call and book over the phone. I was bummed, but decided to just see how it plays out.

IMG_0053 After walking around the Old Quarter a bit, finally seeing St. John’s Cathedral head on, I decided to walk over to a vegetarian restaurant my guidebook recommended. I was hungry but not for street food and I figured this would be interesting cuisine. The whole premise of the place is to follow Buddhist thought, which means no harming living creatures but also respecting all people as equal. The idea is, they make the food there to look and taste just like meat, so that they can follow all of their tenets.

While I can’t say I would have confused the tofu for meat, I really did enjoy the meal. They had set menus you could choose from or you could order a la carte. It was a small, hidden away place and I was the first customer in for the evening. I ordered the first menu, which had cooked greens (turned out to be baby bok choy), mushrooms, tofu with tomatoes and chicken with ginger (not real chicken, of course). There was also a soup and some steamed rice. It was fantastic! The baby bok choy was sweet, the mushrooms were wonderfully chewy and salty. All of it was quite tasty, with the only thing not being quite to my taste the cinnamon pate. I also ordered something called lassi, which turned out to be a yogurt drink that was also very good.IMG_0084

When I’d first come into the restaurant there was a cameraman and a professional Vietnamese woman filming right out front. They ended up coming into the restaurant proper and taped an interview with me about the food as well as another diner who’d come in later. Maybe I’ll be in a documentary or advertisement!

Another lone diner asked if she could join me, and so Ash from Ashville, NC, and I ate together. Ash has been in Vietnam for almost six weeks and will head back to the US next week. She clowns and tries to do rehab through clowning at orphanages, hospitals, old folks homes and other places. She’s twenty-five and quite serious about her word. She was fun to chat with and eat with. We walked out together and then parted ways after exchanging e-mail addresses.

With that, I headed back to Michaela and Andy’s apartment. They’ll be out late tonight because the Austrian embassy is holding a ball, which they attended. So I’ve been repacking, catching up on my blog (duh!), applying the baby cream to my thighs and in general, relaxing.

It really felt like a good day today! I can’t wait for the tour to begin tomorrow…

--Z

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Welcome to Hanoi

Photos: Vietnam: First Days in Hanoi

On Wednesday morning, I woke up at 4am, just four hours after having fallen asleep. After putting on fresh clothes, packing up and double-checking the room, I retrieved my passport from the hostel lobby desk and went in search of an ATM to pay for a cab to the airport. On the way to a 7/11, which there are bazillions of in Thailand, by the way, a cab driver flagged me down. I told him I was going to an ATM and he waited at the corner for me. He wanted 500 baht, which is silly since the standard price from almost anywhere in Bangkok is 350 baht, and I argued him down to 400 baht. We made it there pretty quick, so I ended up giving him the 400 and calling it good. I checked in to my flight, sent off a few post cards, got a bit to eat with my last couple of baht, and waited for my flight.

You won’t be surprised that I slept from take-off to landing, a mere one hour and forty minutes, but it really did end up reviving me enough to attempt taking on Hanoi.

Arrival was quick and easy: my bag was one of the first off the conveyor belt and immigration/customs was easy. On second glance, I realized that a bunch of maps and a Top Ten Bangkok book that Jeff had given me, which I’d stashed in the side pocket of my big pack, were all gone. There’s no way they could have fallen out, so I’m bummed to say that I think they were taken. Boo!

After grabbing a map from the information center, I got out 400,000 dong from the ATM and went to purchase a sim card for my phone. As it turns out, 400,000 dong isn’t much: only about $20USD, in fact. The sim card cost 250,000 dong and so I had to go take out more cash. Once the sim card was installed and working, I headed out to find a way into the city center. I got lucky and caught a minibus for pretty cheap. Sure, I was seated on a stool squeezed into the corner by the end of one of the rows of seats, but whatever!

My first impression of Vietnam was how flat it was. I didn’t realize I’d gotten used to Thailand’s rolling landscape! On the way from the airport into the city I saw what I think were rice fields, with workers in them, and thousands of motorbikes on the road. The ride was about forty minutes and left me standing in part of Hanoi’s “Old Quarter.” From there, I just started walking.

The couple I was planning to stay with via Couchsurfing were busy during the day, so my plan was to just wander slowly and explore during the day, find somewhere to relax as it got later, and meet up with them for dinner. What I didn’t bank on was my exhaustion coupled with a pretty intense culture shock, plus carrying around both of my packs and the heat.

So I just started walking, turning down the dozen immediate offers of “Taxi?” and “Moto?” from people standing on the sidewalks. I figured out where I was on the map and saw that I was near St. John’s Cathedral, a landmark in the area. That helped me find what direction I should – and should not – go in. As I wandered, I spotted a tour guide office, which turned out to also be a hotel lobby, open to the street. I was perusing their tour offers and thinking of signing up when an energetic older guy started chatting with me.

"Going to Halong Bay? You should go to Halong Bay! And if you need a hotel, you should take our room here, it’s awesome! It’s… here, let me show you.” And he ushered me outside and then turned me around and pointed up to where balconies overlooked the busy street.

“Some people said it’s too noisy but we love it! Don’t we, honey?” At which point an older woman bustled out behind us and stared up at the balcony adoringly.

“Oh, yes, it’s great to look down on the street and see everyone going by. Are you going to Halong Bay? Don’t book here, go to Sinh Cafe and book there, it’s… oh, honey, where is it again?”

These were Canadians Phil and Nina, who adopted me on sight, apparently.

They gabbled back and forth cheerfully as I stood there, a bit dazed. At length they decided to walk me over to where they’d booked their tour, which they’d thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated. On the way they gave me the card of the hotel they were staying at, in case I wanted to stay there; and told me about a great tourist information center, a Citibank ATM where I could withdraw more than at other ATMs, and told me about their upcoming Sapa trek, which they weren’t going to do originally but their absolutely fantastic tour agent had convinced them and they were leaving that very day.

Well, they left me at Sinh Cafe, with Phil popping back in twice after leaving to remind me about and give me directions to the tourist info center and the ATM. The tour agent, whose name I can’t remember, was nice and booked me on the same three day, two night tour of Halong Bay and Cat Ba that the Canadians had so raved about. She also educated me on the open bus ticket, which gave me unlimited access for one month on a bus that makes stops between Hanoi and Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), daily. According to her, it only allows thirty people on at a time and is a “sleeper” bus, meaning the seats actually turn into beds. She showed me a picture and if it’s realistic, then this bus should be much more comfy than the one between Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Time will tell. I booked the ticket and hopefully it works out well! The total damage for the two things she booked me for was about $130. I have no idea if I got ripped off but it didn’t seem to exorbitant to me.

After that, I went to the tourist information center, the highlight of which was the free internet and computers. I spent about half an hour catching up on a few things, then got a map and perused their other freebies. I then went out the opposite side that I’d come in, because I saw a pretty lake with benches around it.

This turned out to be Hoan Kiem Lake, which makes up the southeast corner of the Old Quarter. I plopped myself down onto an empty bench and just stared out at the water, letting everything sink in. It was really a very calming lake, with a pretty, arched red bridge going over to a small island. I decided to just chill for awhile, eating an orange that the tour agent had given me and looking through my guide book. A woman came and sat next to me, attempting to sell me a conical hat and some post cards. Before I’d left the US, I had read a book called “Lost Girls,” about three girls around my age who traveled the world. In Vietnam, they learned that smiling when declining offers seemed to help, and so I employed this technique. While she didn’t leave right away, she did eventually, so I’m going to smile at everyone trying to sell me something so that it doesn’t get combative.

At some point, a couple from the Philippines sat next to me and starting up a chat. The man spoke decent English, but the woman didn’t seem to speak any. He told me I’d been cheated on my tour price (although I don’t really care, I think $70 for three days, transportation, accommodation, food and tour guide included, ain’t bad!) recommended the water puppet show nearby, and in general tried to teach me about always, always bargaining with the Vietnamese since they tried to scam foreigners at all costs. He felt the Vietnamese weren’t friendly and only wanted money. This surprised me quite a bit, although I suppose he was just irritated from recent attempts to overcharge him.

They were fairly nice but I got tired of the negativity and excused myself to go search for somewhere to eat.

I wandered a bit more. Crossing the street is absolutely terrifying here. It’s a constant stream of motorbikes, buses and cars, all honking at each other or at nothing, seemingly, and ignoring what the street lights show. I’ve since learned that inching across the street is the best way to do it, never going backwards and rarely stopping or moving faster (you only do this when a car or bus is coming, since they can’t maneuver around you like the motorbikes can.

Anyway, I sat down at an open air food place and ate what I believe to be some kind of pho, although I’m uncertain of the meat that was in it, which was shaped into small patties. It tasted fine and satisfied my hunger, which was good. I copied another guy sitting near me and shredded some of the greens they had given me on a plate, mixing it into the soup. There was basil, I think, and other tasty greens.

After this I decided to head back to the tourist information center, use the computers and ask for a recommendation on a place to purchase a camera. They showed me on the map where a place called “Pico” was and off I went. On the way, I chatted with an Australian named Andrew. He’d been to Vietnam three times and loved it every time. At this point he was just wandering around Hanoi and he walked me to the camera store, at which point we parted ways. Once inside, I had to do some quick math as I perused the cameras. They had the exact model that I’d lost in Chiang Mai, but it was over $100USD more expensive than when I’d originally purchased it, about a month ago.

I ended up buying a model slightly less sophisticated, 12.1 megapixels instead of 14 and without the HD video. It cost me around $230USD, which hurt, but they threw in a 2 Gig memory card for me, which was nice. About the time I was paying for the camera, my stomach started to roil. I asked for the bathroom and they pointed to the stairs and held up four fingers. That was a tough three flights to climb! Turns out, the street food didn’t particularly agree with me.

Twenty minutes later, I was out on the street again. I needed somewhere air-conditioned, with something cold and clean to drink. I found Ciao Cafe and went in, ordering fresh pineapple juice and minestrone soup. They had free wi-fi so I distracted myself with that as I cooled off and relaxed. I ended up spending about an hour and a half there, ordering a water, grilled cheese sandwich and french fries to ensure I wouldn’t get rushed out. I hate to admit it, but at that point I needed familiar food, however, sub-par.

IMG_0005 Relaxed and feeling better, I went to sit on one of the park benches. My chafing problem had returned so I didn’t want to continue wandering. Also, it was starting to get dark and I was uncomfortable, not knowing where it might be safe to hang out with my packs. I considered going back to Ciao Cafe, but then Michaela, my couchsurfing hostess, called me and we made plans to meet up. I was to head to her apartment where I could shower and clean up a bit, and then we would go out for dinner. She coached me on how to relate my destination to a taxi driver or a moto-bike. “Just say, Die Co Viet, Van Ho.” She also told me to expect to pay 20,000-30,000 dong for a moto-bike, more for a taxi. She also recommended a specific taxi company to use, who wouldn’t drive me around the long way.

I watched the street for a bit when suddenly a guy on a motorbike rolled up and said, “Moto bike?” I looked at it doubtfully, wondering how my bag would be balanced, and shook my head no. He waved at me and showed me that he would put my pack between his legs (it was like a Vespa-type bike). Suddenly I wanted to do it, so I agreed and asked the price. He said 100,000 dong. I declined and said 50,000, figuring that it was still double what I should be paying. Then a Vietnamese lady walked up and asked if I was ok, if I needed help. After talking with him, she told me it was fine, I should go and it would be 50,000 dong. So I hopped on nervously behind the guy and off we went.

I think I held my breath for the first half of the ride. To be fair, he was nice and didn’t drive wildly, but that didn’t stop the other crazies from zigging and zagging, swerving and zooming, all around us. At several points when we were going quite fast, I could have reached out and touched the face of other moto-bike drivers, they were that close!

We made it safe and sound, just after having nearly hugged the broad side of a bus. He then demanded 100,000 dong. I was too wigged out to argue and paid the guy, who looked inordinately pleased with himself.

Long story short, Michaela came to meet me and walk me to her place; I showered and powdered and wore a skirt to dinner; we went to a cafe she liked afterwards; and I slept on the floor on a couple of yoga mats and a sleeping bag.

I slept until 10am this morning!

Today, after lunch out with Michaela and Andy, her boyfriend, I walked back to the Old Quarter and visited the Women’s Museum and Hoa Lo prison (called the Hanoi Hilton by American POWs during the Vietnam war, called the American War here in Vietnam). The  IMG_0028 former was really interesting and the latter was disturbing. Their depictions of the happiness of the American prisoners, who got to know the culture and the people and regretted having attempted to destroy it, were at extreme odds with what I’ve heard from POWs at various military functions. An interesting (and ironic) factoid about that, though: Hoa Lo prison was actually built by the French (and called “Maison Centrale”) to hold Vietnamese political revolutionaries! In fact, the prison/museum now focuses primarily on that, and on the atrocities committed against the Vietnamese people there, with just two rooms dedicated to the Americans. As my dad mentioned, it’s like the recent Iraqi prison atrocities… built for one population to abuse another, then used by the abused to further abuse others.

At that point I decided to walk back to the apartment and the chafing started in again. It was getting pretty painful to walk, even taking short steps, and of course I got lost. When I finally made it back, I changed into shorts and decided to stay in for the rest of the evening. The chafing had raised big, red welts on my inner thighs. Ugh!

My main impressions of Hanoi so far:

  • IMG_0016 Very pretty parks and lakes. When you enter the parks or walk on the pathways near the lakes, the din of the city and traffic seems to fade away a bit. It’s still there, in the background, but it’s like the volume has been lowered by remote or something.

 

  • Traffic. Imagine US-1 in Miami, during rush hour. Now, change all those cars into motorbikes and have them all honking and beeping, nonstop. That is what the streets are like here almost all the time. When a traffic light turns red, you see about fifty motorbikes inching into the intersection,ready to take off. Crossing the streets is terrifying. IMG_0013
  • The Vietnamese like to overcharge. I don’t mean a few thousand dong, or even doubling the price. I’m talking about them charging five, six, ten times what you should be paying. A lady tried to sell me two donut-hole looking things for 20,000 dong tonight. I ended up paying 2,000 dong and I think that I was still overcharged. Granted that $1USD=~20,000 dong, but still… it gets a little irritating.
  • Vietnamese youth seem to enjoy practicing their English with English-speakers. Yesterday a group of teenage boys stopped me to say “Hello!” and “Hi!” and “Where are you from?” And they seemed pretty excited that I responded. Today, a group of girls in school uniforms, sitting at a picnic table in a park, called after me to speak with them too. I enjoy talking with them, although when they do in individually it’s usually a prelude to trying to sell me things.
  • I love seeing the street vendors who carry their wares on a pole over their shoulders, with baskets balanced to either side or, more often, in front of and behind them.

 

--Z