From Sapa to the Crappa

Sapa and Ha Long Bay definitely rival one another for most beautiful places in the world. I can't decide which wins, but they both definitely top the list. Our four-day "Homestay and Trekking Adventure" in the Northern Mountains went off swimmingly--figuratively and literally. It was an amazing time. All-in-all, we hiked about 35km through the mountains over three days, staying in hill tribe villages for two nights along the way.

The hiking was intense. Some of the up-hills definitely put my rather-out-of-shape father (His sizeable belly created a bit of a stir on our travels, and the best comment has to be the motorbike taxi driver that pointed and said "Like Buddha.") to task, but we all made it through. It started raining the first night we were out, continuing intermittently through the second day and night. By the end, we were all connoisseurs of mud, which comes in a surprising number of varieties in the mountains of northern Vietnam: there is the red sticky clay, which which coats your shoes and everything else, but has the advantage of sometimes being too sticky to be slippery; then there is the black sticky mud-clay, which is both slippery and coating; the brown mud-sludge is child's play, it splashes more than it sticks, and a simple spray with a hose will get it off; the charcoal gray clay must be respected, however, as it will quickly build into 6-inch platforms on the bottom of your shoes, the one advantage of which is that once you stop trying to scrape off the extra ten pounds of foot baggage, you find that the shoe extensions can actually create portable steps for going down the steep inclines if you position your foot properly; I could go on.

Of the five people in the tour group, I am proud to say that I ended up the cleanest, not falling on my ass until our final decent, which was basically 1.5 hours straight down a mountain side, more mud skiing than walking. Slogging in a line through a muddy, narrow mountain path, surrounded by palms and bamboo, and growing gradually soaked as my sweat and the drizzle communed with one another, I felt like I was truly in 'Nam. The perennial diatribe of John Goodman's crazy Vietnam vet character in The Big Lebowski--"I didn't watch my buddies die facedown in the muck to..."--kept running through my head, and I hoped that I wouldn't be watching any of my buddies do the same.

Our final homestay was in a Black Tay village, a tribe closely related to the Thais of Thailand and the Lao. I paid 15,000 dong (about $1) to have the youngest son run to a neighbors house and get a 1.5 liter water bottle filled with homemade rice vodka. One other member of our group, my father, our guide, the father of family we were staying with and his eldest son, and I sat up until the wee hours drinking the rice vodka and smoking the thuoc lao, a wooden bong that is used to smoke strong tobacco in massive doses (anyone who knows my father knows that he was not partaking in the thuoc lao, as he would die). Communication was slightly awkward, as the family spoke only Tay and Vietnamese and my father and the other group member spoke no Vietnamese, but I think a good time was had by all. One of the village water buffalos had fallen off the road in the rain and died, so everyone in the village had purchased some of the meat and was up late eating it and partying. We were served some of said buffalo, which was delicious. Once we went through the jug of wine I purchased, the father brought out the half liter that remained of his own brew, and we polished that off as well. The only awkward moment was when our guide looked over to me as he was lighting the thuoc lao for the woman from our group who was joining us and started telling me in Vietnamese how he thought is was terrible when women smoked and drank and that that was why he could never marry his English girlfriend. Embarrassed, and lacking the language skill to really engage the topic, I just kept repeating "Van hoa rat cach nhau"--"The cultures are very different."

We arrived back in Hanoi at around 5am yesterday. After a long nap, we did a little touring, and then met up with Tu, my tutor from when I studied here. I wanted to show my dad a quintessential Vietnamese Bia Hoi night, and we did it to the nines: 23 beers, one plate of salt-coated shrimp, a plate of chicken intestines and ly flowers, and a massive lau, which is basically the same as a hot pot. We got the mixed lau, which comes with a hot plate of boiling broth and vegetables and a variety of meats, greens, and noodles you cook in the broth. Our meats included beef, fish, snails, eel, chicken, pig liver, chicken liver, beef stomach, chicken intestines, and a gallbladder and pool of blood of unknown origin. It was all delicious and/or interesting, but, unfortunately, I think we treated my father to his first bout of welcome-to-Vietnam diarrhea, and our touring today is limited to brief sprints of site-seeing, with frequent "rest" breaks back at the hotel.

My dad headed back to the hotel after dinner, but Tu and I went out for a night on the town. He took me to Ho Guam Xanh (Guam Lake Green), a club that normally has live rock, but we were lucky enough to show up right after a visiting South Vietnamese pop star took the stage. (OK, so it sounded like karaoke to me on the way up the stairs, but this guy is huge.) I just realized that one very important detail that I forgot to include in my account of Nathalie's visit is that we were sitting in the bar car on the train from Saigon to Da Nang when a Vietnamese music video was being filmed, and we were asked to serve as extras. Basically, we were supposed to sit at our table and talk, ignoring the spiffed up dude sitting next to me, lip-synching a ballad to the camera. SO, this being my second brush with Vietnamese celebrity, I was able to play it cool, but I couldn't help a breathy giggle when he came around to our side of the stage and grabbed the hand I reached out (following the lead of Tu and the two girls sitting next to us) and gave me a little point and wink.

After the club, Tu said he wanted to take me to a traditional Vietnamese wine house. We took a cab across the city, finally stopping in front of a small alley on a street I have never seen. Walking down the alley (it was 1am at this point, way past Hanoi's bed time), we reached a door advertising karaoke, and I had a moment of panic that Tu had brought me to a brothel. The reality proved much weirder than that, however, as the door opened onto a dark room, empty except for a woman sitting at a bar in the corner, below a television set playing the Michael Douglas movie Falling Down with Thai subtitles. Most of the floor was taken up with a slightly raised hardwood platform, empty except for an antique baby carriage in the middle WITH A BABY ASLEEP IN IT! To the left, one wall was covered with a weird string spider web, adorned with three large, carved, wooden shields, and something like a bust. The other wall was blank except for a bunch of large signatures, graffiti'd in marker. Tu and the woman had a sort of whispered conversation that I barely understood, and she led us over to a stack of short, Japanese-like tables in the corner, putting one on the floor and instructing us to sit around it. Seeing my baffled expression, Tu explained that this was an all-night wine house, very popular among local artists. Apparently, it is normally packed, but was sort of closed today because the woman had just given birth and her husband, also an artist, was on a trip to the south. However, Tu was a good customer, so she promptly served us a bottle of a black wine purported to cure stress-induced anger, unwell greenness, and a whole bevy of other ailments I couldn't translate. I was still thoroughly confused by the situation, so I did the only thing one could do: I drank up. Tu and I caught a motor bike back to my hotel around 2:30am. The door was chained with a bike lock, so we had to knock and yell until we awoke the bellhop sleeping in the lobby, who very cheerfully opened up the door, retrieved Tu's bike, and ushered me to the elevator. I love Vietnam.

I just realized that nearly every post on this blog mentions excessive drinking in one way or another. Um, sorry, mom. Hopefully the intense cultural experiences attached to nearly every instance are coming across too...

So many things

I just finished a marathon week of travel from one end of Vietnam to the other with Nathalie, and I am getting ready for another mad rush with my dad. I am not even sure where to begin with last week, it was all so incredible. Nathalie and I met in Saigon. We were there for slightly less than 24 hours, so we didn't see a whole lot. I did like Saigon a lot better this time than I did before, but it's still a little too glitzy and crowded for my taste. While it is definitely a Vietnamese city, it seems westernized and modernized to the point of basically achieving generic city status.

The highlight our time there was probably the little street girl who came up to us in a restaurant trying to sell books. She asked if I wanted to play a game: first person to win ten rounds of rock-paper-scissors wins. If I won, I got a free book; if she won, I bought a book. I agreed, and then won a narrow, 10-9 victory. Of course, she was none-too-anxious to give me a free book, and she knew that I wasn't going to press the issue. I tried to compromise, asking her how much she had to pay for them and that I would buy one for that, but she refused ("No way, Jose!"), so we called it a draw, and there was no exchange.

From Saigon, we took the overnight train to Da Nang, and then a car to Hoi An. The train was fun. We arrived to find that our four-person sleeper cabin already contained five people--two women and two small children--but everyone was quite friendly and the kids were quiet and cute as hell, so the ride went well. We spent a night in Hoi An, a beautiful little river town, before flying up to Hanoi.

It is interesting to see someone see Vietnam for the first time. Arriving at night, Nathalie thought Hanoi looked like Paris. The city is full of tree-lined boulevards and lakes, and summer heat means that the streets blow up at night with walkers, bikers, loungers, and performers. Under the light of day, the city is distinctly more third-world, but it still maintains a sense of culture and character Nathalie seemed to find missing in the number of other Asian cities she has visited in the last month. There is almost a sense of validation in having other people find appealing and exciting that which is special to you, so it was great to see her find something special in Hanoi. I felt the same way when my dad arrived yesterday. He jumped out of the cab totally enthused, talking about how much the traffic, and general sense of the city, he saw as he drove in reminded him of Sicily when his family moved there in the 60s.

The geographic highlight of my trip with Nathalie has to be Ha Long Bay. No matter how many times I see it (this was trip 3), riding a boat through the green bay, surrounded by weathered limestone peaks that spring abruptly from the water, never fails to fill me with a sense of complete awe. We slept on the roof of the boat, under a nearly full moon that was bright enough to cast the islands into stark black relief against a navy sky, but not so bright that it obscured the three shooting stars I saw before drifting off--the first ones I've seen in my life. I woke up already sweating from the sun that was just peaking over a mountain, but was able jump immediately into the bay.

My dad and I leave for Sa Pa tonight on the overnight train. We are going to do four days of trekking through the mountains and valleys (hopefully more valleys than mountains), staying in the homes of various ethnic minority (VN government's term, not mine) villages, before heading back to Hanoi for a couple days. More to follow.

Cambodian Keggers

So, I found out yesterday that Cambodian keg parties are remarkably similar to American ones: you spend a long time trying to get everyone together; even longer trying to find the place; then you get there and find that the beer's gone, and everyone is drunk and asleep; then you go find a bar.

I ran into my friend Ming on the street by chance last night. He is a Cambodian student that lived in the dorm next to mine. I had thought he graduated last year, but it turns out he just did this year. It was great to see him. He speaks English extremely well, and even faster than I do, which is saying a lot coming from a northeasterner. He invited me to a graduation party some of his other Cambodian friends were holding at the Agricultural University. I soon found out that the Agricultural University was at least 10km outside of Hanoi, which is pretty far on a 100cc motorbike carrying a fat American on the back. It was my first experience on the highway on a motorbike, but it wasn't nearly as harrowing as I expected. You have to share the road with all the huge trucks bound for Hai Phong, picking up shipments from Hong Kong, but the far right lane is pretty safe for slow motorbikes.

The ride was beautiful, and well worth the time spent and the aching ass, even if the party was a bust. We crossed over the Red River on Chuong Duong bridge, a notorious make-out point for Vietnamese couples, and the whole right side of the bridge was full of stopped bikes with couples holding hands. Alas, Ming didn't seem to want to stop. Once we got past the chain of "Karaoke Bars" and "Rest Houses" (read: brothels) immediately outside the city, it was just open land and rice paddies. The university was a maze of fields, rice paddies, irrigation streams, and slightly colonial-looking yellow buildings. It's amazing how much you can appreciate the fresh, country air outside the city.

After we realized the party was over, we headed back to Hanoi and had some bia hois with a group of Ming's friends. I met a guy who studied on my program the semester before I did, and it was amazing that we had both concocted the same twisted conspiracy theories about the guy running the program. (Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy, and extremely capable, but he is weird.)

Off to Saigon in a couple hours to meet Nathalie, and we will come back north by train and plane, stopping in Hoi An along the way.

It's only a flesh wound

The heat finally broke today, which was quite a relief. It is still a lot hotter than I would like it to be, but you can make it more than three steps without feeling dizzy. For the last few days, I have been going outside in sprints: an hour or two around town, and then a swift retreat to someplace with air conditioning. It has actually become a sort of fun game. At first, I was going to cafe's, but then you have to buy something, and the A/C is normally pretty feeble if there is any at all. Then I realized that I can wander into any five-star hotel and plunk myself down in the lounge without any trouble--I guess there are some places in Vietnam where being obviously foreign works to your advantage.

Based on a tip from an ex-patriot I met in a bar, I have also begun exploring the culinary options at fancy hotels. According to him, you can normally find an amazing dinner buffet with drinks for about $7. I don't think I found the real hot spots yet, but I did have an excellent lunch buffet today for $12, complete with gourmet foods from around the world (there's nothing quite like mashed potatoes and kim-chee) and an amazing dessert bar. I justified spending as much as my room will cost for the next two days on lunch by trying to eat enough to hold me through dinner.

I attended a graduation party for some of my Lao friends on Sunday, where the theme was "chua say, chua ve" (you can't get home until you're drunk). It turns out that "drunk" really meant "essentially unable to stand, or, failing that, we have run out of booze." I thought I was in the clear when the last keg got kicked, but then the rice vodka appeared. We capped the evening off with a late-night banquet of duck's neck and pig's feet. Pig's feet (actually, I think we might have just had the toes) are surprisingly delicious if you can get over just how much they look like, well, pig's feet. Needless to say, I spent most of yesterday curled up in my bed reading a book, venturing out for a single meal, where I became quite nauseated when a table nearby ordered beer.

I watched a police bust of the foodstalls on my street today while I was sitting in a cafe. Most eateries have small tables and chairs out on the sidewalk for patrons, and the police occasionally sweep through, confiscating any tables the restaurant owners are unable to rush inside quickly enough. Policing in Vietnam is very strange. Most of the time, while you will see uniformed police at every other intersection of the central city (wearing hideously green, military-esque uniforms with red trimmings), they turn a blind eye to almost everything. When they do come down though, they come down hard, and for extremely minor violations. You can see the schizophrenic nature of policing reflected in the way people obey traffic laws. The streets are generally a melee of weaving bikes, frequently entering the lane of oncoming traffic. Traffic lights are advisory at best: typically, traffic will continue through a newly turned red for a good 15 seconds, and then a number of people will just stop for a second before going through anyway. However, when people do stop, they make sure to stay well behind the stop line, generally by about 2 feet. According to one of my Vietnamese friends, crossing of the stop line is a favorite justification for a shake-down.

In motorbike news, I got my first nasty muffler burn today, a veritable right-of-passage, based on the number of bandaged and blistered calves I see around. It must have been a pretty funny scene to all the people watching me. I was parking my motorbike across the street from a pho restaurant, and the space was a little tight. Getting off my bike, my calves touched the hot muffler of the bike next to me. Unfortunately, my position was such that I was basically wedged between my bike and the one next to me, and I had to delicately avoid putting any weight into either bike, lest I cause one of those comedic-for-everyone-who-isn't-me-or-an-owner-of-one-of-the-bikes domino tipover, while slowly lifting and pushing my bike over enough to get out. Thank God for the well-stocked medicine bag Jessica and Henry gave me before my last trip.

I am flying to Saigon on Thursday to meet Nathalie, where we will begin what promises to be an excellent adventure north.

Vietnamese Heartthrobs

And so it begins...

This is my third day in Vietnam, but it feels almost like the first. Exhaustion, jet-lag, and the residual effects of my cold had me a bit under the weather the day I arrived; and jet-lag, the residual effects of my cold, and a hangover from my reunion with my Vietnamese friends had me pretty low-key yesterday.

I am safely ensconced in good old A2 Bach Khoa. My room is actually what was the classroom for my Vietnamese History and Contemporary Vietnam classes last year, which is kind of funny, but it's great to be back. My air conditioner works blissfully well, which is a welcome relief from the muggy, hot, jungle air outside, but I have already begun to get used to sweating 24/7. Hostel rooms are always funny because of the random relics left behind by prior guests. There is a framed map of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia on one of my walls, leftover from the room's prior life as a classroom. On the facing wall, I am treated to a generic Vietnamese heartthrob poster. He's a respectable man, the kind you could bring home to your mother: in the main picture, he is posed fully-clothed, innocently leaning on the shoulders of the beautiful (but not too beautiful) woman who is clearly is long-term girlfriend/wife; it's so comforting to find a man ready to settle down.

The headboard of my bed is graffiti'd with love notes to, ironically enough, me. In one heart is says "Hi John! I love you!" and in the other: "I love you so so so so much!" I actually know the origin of this graffiti. There was another program visiting from Connecticut College while I was here, and one of the students was named John. He started a rather controversial relationship with one of the Lao students in the next hostel, controversial because no one really believed he fully understood just how much his perception of serious relationship might differ from hers. I don't know what ever became of them, and, knowing the back-story, there is something slightly disturbing in the notes, but I try to put the reality of them out of my mind and tell myself that A2 is just welcoming me back warmly.

Hanoi is largely as I remembered it, but there is a tangible air of development and added prosperity. What were construction sites or empty lots are now shiny new high-rises. There are more cars on the streets, and even more motorbikes. Locals have begun to look down on the cheap Bia Hoi Ha Noi (Ha Noi brand draft beer), and Anchor Bia Tuoi (Anchor brand fresh beer) is all the rage, with a number of clean new locations--featuring full-sized tables and chairs! A number of shopping districts are slightly rehabbed, and I even saw a boutique wine shop(pe) called "Bordeaux." It is amazing that only a year can bring a sense of overarching development to an entire city.

I just spent two hours driving around Hanoi on my rented motor bike. Being on a motorbike in Vietnam is when I feel the least foreign. One of the things that I realized most reuniting with Hanoi was that, while everything looked exactly as I remembered it (with the exception of the economic development discussed above), the overall feeling of being here was something I had largely forgotten. Being in Hanoi is a lot of things. On a number of levels, the city nearly assaults the stranger--the dust; the heat; the smells, good and bad; the persistent hum of traffic and beeping of horns, foreign-sounding interpellations and conversations and songs. But more than anything, for me, is the persistent feeling of being watched. Everywhere I go, I can feel the eyes, the silent questions, the judgments, to the point that the congested, headache-inducing tourist area around Huan Kiem Lake becomes almost welcome because, while everyone is trying to sell me something, they're not just staring a me in pregnant silence.

The nature of space in Vietnam compounds the issue. In Vietnam, you are always in someone else's space. Life is lived on the sidewalk, so there is no wide boulevard for the pedestrian to walk in a private bubble. You are constantly stepping around a family eating dinner, two old men playing chess, a tea stand, or a motor bike parking area. Avoiding these obstacles, you step into traffic, along with the basket ladies, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, and fellow pedestrians. Overall, the effect is one of cooperation and community, and I find it refreshing from the sterility of American streets. If you are honked at when you are in the street, is meant as a "Hey, I'm coming up behind you, so don't do anything stupid," not "Get the fuck out of my way; the cruise control is on!" People expect you to walk in front of their bicycles and motorbikes (and cars too, but they can be a little less forgiving, contending with a sea of smaller vehicles as it is), and they compensate for you patiently. But when you are a sore thumb that feels like a sore thumb, this constant, forced interaction is hardly ameliorative.

Riding a motorbike in Hanoi, I feel like I achieve some kind of "one-ness" with the city. My horn doesn't have an accent, and I rarely stutter over lost vocabulary when weaving and merging along with traffic. While I would think the site of a big, white guy on an 80cc "Angell II" would be at least as funny and weird as one walking down the street--if not downright scary ("does he know what the hell he's doing?!)--I never seem to get a second look, or at least not that I notice. My ride today was meditative, and I feel like I became re-acquainted with Hanoi to the point that I can feel my agoraphobia already fading.

I wish my Vietnamese were better, but a lot is already coming back to me, and people tend to be sympathetic when I make the effort. Luckily, my end of most casual conversations is pretty simple; it goes something like this:

-"I am an American."
-"I am 22 years old this year."
-"Yes, I already have a girlfriend."
-"I arrived on Wednesday, I am here for a few weeks to visit."
-"I studied Vietnamese in Hanoi for four months last year."
-"No, I am not looking for a wife. I have a girlfriend already."

Pretty simple.