NVA Irregular

Craven "A"

This is actually the brand name of the cigarettes in Vietnam. Tempting, isnt it? Anyway, here are a few disjointed, rambling observations about Vietnamese culture...

The culture, in spite of all the english speaking and fancier cell phones than we have, is still very foreign. The women wash the restaurant dishes in the streets and tend the shops and hotels while the men tinker with their motorbikes and occasionally do real work. The men also have inch long thumb and pinkie nails, for what purpose I have no idea. Women also seem to be always doing some strange calisthenics in the insanely -topiaried parks at night (the regulated economy gotta employ everybody here), while the men play badminton constantly on any street or sidewalk they can find. The men and women also seem never to interact, and the women seem to work, so the men can "study" though they are mostly seen lounging around on their motos. I even see them sleep on the motos! Women actually wear the conical straw hats, and here in Hanoi anyway, the men all wear green pith helmets to complement their various bootlegged designer gear (plyboy, abercrombie and finch, crocodile, etc. My personal favorite are the items like backpacks that are both nike AND north face). Everyone actually spends their time squatting, even the infants seem to learn how to squat before they can stand or walk. We also must be near a bag factory because everywhere you look there are Ikea bags, and I have yet to see any ikea furniture anywhere. The buddhism is less apparent than in Thailand and Cambodia, almost no monks, though I did see a few- one even wearing the brown robes and wool hat that is recognizable in well-known monks like Thich Nhat Hanh. They practice Mahayana, not Theravada Buddhism, which might just be more subtle outwardly than the wear it on their sleeve religiousity of the other countries, though they still all have shrines inside their houses. Apparently all the religions, Catholic, Muslim, Cao Dai and Buddhist here engage in ancestor worship of some sort which I dont fully understand.

And the toilets are certainly foreign, often just the squat hole, with no paper and just a bucket and ladle beside it. The more modern ones might have a hose, and thankfully most hotels we've stayed in offer western style toilets and paper to accompany them. Haggling over prices is nonstop, fun at first then tiring- probably for the locals as well as us foreigners. The moto thing is also insane- Hanoi is a city of 3 million people and 4 million motos, which is odd considering that they carry anything on them, giant sacks of rice, piles of bricks, twenty foot lengths of gutter pipe and up to six people families, the kids just clamber on like its nothing. Oh, and while talking on their cell phones. Certainly none of our fear, and they are well trained not to burn themselves on the exhaust, unlike almost every westerner here who has a telltale bandage on their right ankle.

I think I've done a decent job describing the food- generally phenomenal, and extremely fresh ingredients, herbs not spices, etc. though I havent described the coffee, which is also delicious when not too sweet. They deliver to your table a small cup with a tablesppon or two of condensed milk in the bottom, and then an aluminum contraption that drips an espresso-like (and sized) viscous and very strong coffee into the milk. Stir it up and you've got vietnamese coffee, and perhaps pour it over ice and its incredible. I suppose its basically the same as thai iced coffee, but here it only costs a quarter. (coffee-with-cream color incidentally, is the exact color of the mekong river) Advice to travellers getting sick of Asian food- every attempt at western food we've encountered has generally sucked (with the exception of french), but the two indian meals we've had have been excellent. And the french food- pastries in particular, have been improving the further north we get in Vietnam and helping us regain some of the weight we lost in Cambodia. The food is better in the south though, and seems to always be best in the dirtier resturants, preferably those with plastic lawn chairs, metal tables and dozens of vietnamese sitting around smoking.

Most people in the south seem surprisingly friendly towards americans, and all have impressive English language skills. Both tour tour guide and one hotel owner were translaters for americans during the war, and very open to talk about the war, their expereinces and how much they missed their american friends. Amazing considering they also spent years in reeducation camps following the fall of Saigon, which they described in surprisingly matter-of-fact terms. The people still drive american (in the south) and soviet (in the north) jeeps and trucks around, we even saw a crane that said "US Army" on it constructing a building on the side of the road. They, like everyone else we meet, are constantly remarking on how thin we are for americans. Some utch we met actually asked us if we had trouble buying clothes in America because all americans are so fat.

Our last day in Hanoi we tried to go see Uncle Ho's embalmed corpse laying in state, but unfortunately he was not taking visitors after eleven AM, so we'll just have to return to see him again some other time. Wandered around in the sweltering heat for a while lost, found a nice park full of vietnamese couples getting their wedding photos taken, and took it easy for the rest of the afternoon. Did have a decent lunch near the military museum, and an excellent dinner. We ate at "fried fish" where the menu is "friend fish" and nothing else- but a charcoal brazier is brought to your table with burning embers a bit too close to my face, and sizzling oil frying up, well, pieces of fish. They dump some dill in and then you mix it up with an assortmnent of noodles, shallots, peanuts, mint and a few other garnishes they leave you. Thankfully, it was another instance of plastic chairs and mostly vietnamese people eating there, and they were real experts at their one dish.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Hanoi - Ha Long Bay

We made the decision to save money and overnight bus up to Hanoi, which was supposed to take 12-14 hours, and took about 18 or 20. The busride from hell was wretchedly uncomfortable, and then stopped for hours in the middle of the night with no explanation for the first two of the hours, until we finally heard that a train had crashed, the upside of which was we hadnt taken the train because it was sold out. Still, it was highly unpleasant and uncomfortable voyage to Hanoi. They also shut the bus and AC off in the night, leaving us to the mercy of jungle heat and bugs. At least no one was shooting americans like they were thirty years ago. Our drivers were also about 15 years old, and though I was relieved to see them chugging red bulls at dinner, I cant say I wasnt a bit disturbed to see them drinking Saigon Lager with the same relish as they finished up their meals.
No matter, we made it to Hanoi in one piece physically if not mentally. Hanoi itself is truly charming, unlike Saigon or Phnom Penh. The streets are narrow and cute, there are lakes everywhere, the French quarter actually feels charming and French. We did an extensive amount of walking until a crazy monsoon struck, around the old quarter where the same shops have made and sold the same goods for five hundred years. We also saw a water puppet performance, which was a lot more impressive than I expected, though they obviously did not get the memo about not lighting fireworks inside crowded theaters. I suppose it was a water stage but still.

Yesterday we took a tour out to Ha Long bay, which is the bay of giant crazy islands that probably comes to your mind when you think of "asia" and "ocean". The trip out was beautiful, more rice paddies which I am obsessed with taking the perfect picture of, and dozens of garment factories sprouting of them along with giant limestone outcroppings. Ha Long is another place, much like Angkor, that words cant do justice to. Giant solid rock islands coming out of the fog, floating fishing villages, kayaking through limestone caves with blue water, incredible sunsets, everything you could imagine. Our boat, though beautiful old teak Sampan with red sails, had miserable food and rather cramped sleeping quarters that we shared with rats and roaches. (Although I kept my obersations from Olivia until this morning) Sometimes "adventure" is great when youre travelling, other times you remember that "adventure" and "off the beaten path" means rats, terrible food, stomach ailments, bugbites the size of eggs, etc. But- it was beautiful and I can bore you to tears with all those pictures later.

Same-Same But Different

We got onto thereunification express train to Hue, which was utterly filthy. I noticed the people in front of us were just spitting their watermelon seeds onto the floor. A few minutes later, everyone was throwing their garbage onto the floor, and we realized that they just hurled their trash on the floor, and soon someone came to sweep it all up. Not exactly up, because they then just swept it out the door of the moving train.

Hue itself was a bit of a disappointment. The imperial city is certainly grand- Vietnam being a more chinese culture, the emperors who ruled from Hue for hundreds of years built a miniature version of the chinese forbidden city here, and left behind enormous mausoleums as well. The city has multiple concentric walls and incredible moats of lotus blossoms, yet sadly much of the city was destroyed during the tet offensive in 1968 when it was occupied by the VC and pounded with american artillery. There are still bulletholes in the ancient ramparts, and I even found a rusted bullet shell laying on the ground. Thankfully, there is some rebuilding effort underway, but the whole thing was almost completely razed by warfare. We ate lunch at a restaurant run by deaf mute family, another amusing effect of tourism on these types of economies is that as soon as lonely planet or someone writes up a place, all the other places on the street take the same name and menu. This place went as far as a block of restaurants with all the employees pretending to be deaf-mutes.

Currently reading :
The Honourable Schoolboy
By John le Carre