Good Morning, Vietnam!

Did I mention that I went to Hanoi over Christmas Break?  Scared of being bored or depressed on Christmas and my birthday, I made super-hasty plans to go to Vietnam with Kelsey and Anna (whose cousin lives there).  I was also thinking tentatively of going down to Laos or to the full moon fest down south after that, but missed Chiang Mai too much. Also, couldn't bring myself to spend money.

After we got back from Oceans, our dear friends from India (britta, Cathy, Ben) came up for a visit, which was AMAZING -- we lounged, we ate, we walked and talked AND TALKED.  In the dark, early morning hours of December 22nd, dashed off to catch the 6:45 am train.  How many rote dtangs are around at 5:45 in the morning?  NONE. well, one.  I made plans for one of them to meet me at Gad Suan Gaew, but didn't trust him AT ALL, so just hailed the very first one I saw. Felt guilty for a minute, but highly doubted that he would hold up his end of the bargain, preferring to sleep instead.  Especially since I stupidly tried to bargain how much it would cost from him to drive me to the station, which only further dis-incentivized him.

Awkward times boarding the train.  I thought the big "3" on the side of Car 9 was the number of the car. it was not.  It was the number of the train.  Car 9, which is about 100 Baht cheaper than the car I had a ticket for (3) is the lowest of the low class, which I gladly would have taken except that you couldn't buy the ticket until the day of, which I was very wary of doing.  As such, it had a distinctive "first come first serve" vibe to it, full of people pushing and shoving with ludicrously huge rainbow-bags and for all I know, live chickens. Forced myself into the seat I thought I was supposed to have, but then realized abruptly and horribly that I was in the wrong car.  Extracted myself from the situation and went down to car 3, which was quiet, sunny, and sparsely occupied.

Train ride was about 15 hours long, and about 12 US$.  We rocketed through the AMAZINGLY beautiful Thai countryside, mountains and fields and everything visible through the huge open windows.  Slept in the sun, read, made myself peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for all three meals.  In a burst of thrifty-ness, decided not to buy any expensive train food and brought a loaf of bread, peanut butter, and jelly.  stupidly forgot a spoon or knife, so I ended up using my comb handle.  IT'S NOT THAT GROSS PEOPLE.  I spent some time sitting between cars to get a little breeze and escape the monotone voices of the food vendors who walked up and down the cars incessantly:  "NAM PLAOW ICE WATER COLD WATER BEER COCA COLA BEER WATER"

Got to Bangkok about an hour late (at like 10 pm), caught a taxi to much-too-ritzy hotel that Kelsey and I shared for the night and gossiped with the driver, who was from Chiang Mai! about singers and which city he likes best and his kids, etc.  The taxis were really ludicrously nice. I suspect they are all from Toyota's big bust-out.  The cars had to go somewhere. Maybe they came here.

Kelsey and I caught our December 23rd 6:50 am flight to Hanoi on Air Asia, which is not as colorful as Thai Air, and probably not "smooth as silk" but has a decidedly less creepy/cloying air safety video.  We got to Hanoi, changed our money, got new Sim cards, and ignored all the taxi drivers, instead locating a big, packed van into the heart of the Old Quarter that only cost $2.  Vietnam uses the dollar a lot which was bizarre but helpful.  We shoved our way past still more taxi drivers, rounded the corner, and squatted in front of a random food place, where for a dollar we got a huge, satisfying plate of rice, egg, and garlic. SOO GOOD.  Hanoi is a spicy-smelling city, a little dirty but sweeping and elegant and exciting.  There's the smell of incense, everywhere -- the buildings have a crumbling, colorful European flair, and I thought of Barcelona immediately-- big, modern sections nestled right in next to miniscule streets lined with buildings, usually themed with what the buildings hold (like toys, Buddhist offerings, tools, etc.).  Except the art galleries, which defy themes and are EVERYWHERE, and are usually packed with very, very exquisite art.  We went into so many that we started recognizing the artists of the same paintings. Small women with big, scale-like baskets tied to the ends of long boards that they hold on their shoulders roam everywhere, usually in front of cheaper restaurants.  They sell donuts, pineapple, trinkets, oranges, everything, and try to load their baskets on your shoulders for a souvenir picture.  You really have to look them in the eye and tell them to back off, which is a little upsetting coming from a place like Chiang Mai, where if you say you don't want something to a vendor, not only do they smile and thank you, I've also heard them say "mai pen rai (that's okay)."

We found what seemed to be hotel area and spent our first night in the fake Backpacker's Hostel, which was a little bit of a scam. The rooms were nice, and the people who worked there were nice, but we noticed suddenly upon leaving the first night that the place was also a booking agency, and more than anything they wanted their guests to book a tour somewhere with them, namely someplace expensive.  Every time we left, they'd demand "where are you going??"  and every time we came back, they'd plug their travel packages like crazy, to the point that we were uncomfortable entering the lobby and would wait for the coast to be clear.  We decided to change hotels after our first night, switching to the much ritzier, $13 per night "Win Hotel" which did not force their tours on us (as they had no tours) and also gave us free breakfast.

On the 24th, we met up with Anna and her cousin Matt around noon for a crazy, crazy day.  First we took a taxi to his girlfriend Happy's house near the Thu Le zoo and ate a traditional Vietnamese meal (rice rolls with fish, lettuce, egg, starfruit, pretty much everything) and knocked back several shots of fermented rice wine, which has a touch of plum to it.  Loved Happy and her family (especially her sister Ruby, who hung out with us all day) immediately.  They took us on some pretty amazing motorbike rides through the back and side streets of Hanoi, to a gunned-down B52 American bomber from the war that was in some sort of retention pond.  Then we cruised past the diplomat district and the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, and ended up at the Temple of Literature, an ex-university where all graduated students could inscribe their names on these big stone tablets built atop tons and tons of turtle statues.

  (Quick cool turtle story -- the lake in the middle of the city is supposedly home to a giant turtle who, in ancient times, swam up to an old king of Vietnam and gave him, from its mouth, a sword that he used to defeat the Chinese.  Then, later, he was sitting by the same lake and the turtle swam up and took it away from him again.  ANNA SAW THE TURTLE.  I did not).

After that Ruby (whose motorbike I was riding) and I swung back by her house to pick up her adorable little  daughter and went to Matt's English class holiday party (he teaches English to college students), where Kelsey, Anna, and I were forced to sit in front of a totally-packed room full of eager Vietnamese students and answer questions, like "WHAT DO YOU THINK OF HANOI?  HOW DO YOU LIKE VIETNAMESE PEOPLE?  HOW DO YOU LIKE VIETNAMESE MEN? WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A MAN???"  Then we watched a series of Flash videos, each hilariously long, about Christmas.  Then the students stormed us and asked us more questions.  Then they stormed each other and held some kind of wrestling match.  Then we cut loose.

As we were heading home, Ruby and Happy slowed down and pulled over to a series of extremely sketchy roadside food stalls. "you want to try dog?" Ruby asked.  I thought she said duck. I said, "sure." What clued me in was the whole, roasted dog body, head and all, perched atop the counter of one of the stalls.  Anna (who was on Happy's bike) and I watched in increasingly horror as Happy and Ruby purchased bag after bag of dog, in every form possible - stew, roasted, meatballed, sausaged - and handed them to us to hold on the ride back.  Instead of going home, we went to Happy's friend's house since theirs was too small for all of us to fit.  The friend's house was also too small.  Kelsey and I stood by awkwardly as these very generous people rearranged what amounted to be their entire house for us, laying out a mat and setting up a big stone pot full of fermented rice wine with straws sticking out of it and all the dog in its various forms.  We ate what we could stomach, hung out as the friends smoked a bunch of cigarettes and gave us beer, and then got a taxi back to the hotel with the taste of beer, wine, and dog in our mouths.

The next day, Christmas, was cold and rainy, which almost seemed fitting.  After getting our hands on a proper Hanoi map and purchasing a very-necessary umbrella, Kelsey and I stumbled and slid down the tractionless, soaking streets and made our way towards the Art Museum, inadvertently first stumbling on the Women's Museum, where we spent a ton of time in the very fascinating Women in History room, which was comprised of a complete history of the American War of Aggression, and discussed/had personal belongings of women who had fought in that war.  We also explored the ambiguous and slightly hilarious "Birth" room and the children's activity center.

We moved on to the Art Museum, located in what used to be the French Embassy building, and saw a GORGEOUS exhibit of Katazome art, where the artist was actually visiting.  We then headed home, stopping at an interesting looking building full of silk embroidery, which ended up being like a 7-story universe of Vietnamese silk embroidery, each floor having a sort of lounge and theme and hundreds and hundreds of pieces of amazing art.  We tore ourselves away, proudly navigated our way back to our hotel, and then congratulated ourselves by getting a splendid dinner of pizza.

The next day, MY BIRTHDAY!  we joined Matt and Anna on a journey to the Perfume Pagoda, a temple in a cave.  We took a van for about an hour, then boarded a boat with a tiny, skeletal woman as our guide and took off down the cold, windy river a la Lord of the Rings.  We gulped down some hot Pho (chicken noodle soup) and fried rice and coffee, and then hiked our way up through some amazing, epic-looking temples, curly and mystic looking and full of animal statues and offerings to the Buddha, which were hilarious and ranged from a fresh bunch of bananas to a box of Choco Pies to a comb.  The Perfume Pagoda itself, compared with the rest of the temples we saw, was regrettably tacky and plastic-y, like many temples end up being - it was resplendent with neon flashing lights, electric spotlighting, angry warrior Buddhas, etc.  We took the cable car down, took the boat back, and stared confusedly at longboats lurching through the water weighed down with stones to the point that if a wave of any size at all broke over the side of these boats, they would be at the bottom in seconds.  There was literally no boat visible between the bricks and the water.

We ate dinner at a place with food from Hoi An, a city in central Vietnam, which was probably some of the most delicious food I've ever eaten - it had a deep, rich, cinammon-y sweetness, was warm and spicy and excellent and fresh.  Then we met up with Ted and went to the Factory, an arts bar for "unusual people."  Got some beers, talked, were very content.  Went to bed as a 21 year old.

Our last day, the 27th, was fun and classy.  Anna left in the morning.  Kelsey and I moved out of our hotel and into Ted's, the real Backpacker's Hostel - a $6/night, dormitory style residence that we probably should have found a lot sooner, but it was sort of nice to be pampered in a place like the Win Hotel.  We wandered the streets of Hanoi, had a balcony lunch and then roamed around looking in every art gallery that came our way, since Ted was set on buying something for his parents.  Kelsey and I intended to take him to silk embroidery world, but we were distracted by a big, excellent shop full of Communist propaganda posters and spent way too much time paging through them.  Then we headed back to our Hostel for the Rooftop Bar's Happy Hour, had a little too much rum, booked a taxi to the airport for the next morning a little drunkenly, and made friends with some Australian girls traveling throughout Southeast Asia.  We met Matt and Happy at My Me Burger, Matt's favorite burger place in Hanoi, and had a delicious meal.  Then we went to buy Anna and Ted touk-laow pipes, the Vietnamese redneck tobacco, and hung out for a little bit, and then went to bed.

We caught our flight successfully the next morning.  I called my mom (who had had to buy the ticket for me since my credit card didn't work in Vietnam, since I never really expected to go there) paranoidly to make sure she'd bought the ticket for Bangkok and not Khartoum, or wherever else the other AirAsia flight was headed that morning, but all was well.  In Bangkok, Ted and I parted from Kelsey, who was taking a flight back to Chiang Mai (we decided to take the train, which was about $70 cheaper), wandered hungrily through the Bangkok airport for a long time trying to exchange our Vietnamese money (which we never could), withdrawing baht and eating some much-missed Thai food.  Then we hopped via subway over to Hua Lampon, the train station, and bought train tickets for the sleeper car at 6:10 that night.  Sat at the train station's coffee shop trying to get over a really revolting headache whilst reading Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (which I've since finished and while I probably would hate her I actually liked the book a lot), which was were pretty conflicting ideas.  Finally broke down and bought some aspirin from the concerned-looking pharmacist (I probably looked/sounded like hell), took a shower at the train's shower station, ate some fruit, and felt 100 times better.  Ted had been exploring Chinatown all this time, so I stepped out and did some of that myself.  Got back, boarded the train, and fell asleep pretty promptly.  Got back to Chiang Mai the next morning and found McKenzie asleep in my bed, which was an adorable and very welcome surprise.  Spent the following days of break walking copious amounts and forcibly trying to acquaint myself with parts of the city which I'd shamefully never gotten to know before, even after having spent 4 months there.  Well, not really; just one week at a time, actually, since our host stays were not necessarily in the city and expeditions took up big chunks of three of the 4 months we've been here.

So that's the scoop.  Good thing I didn't go anywhere else OR this blog entry would be even more obnoxiously long than it already it.  Kindly refer to my Facebook album for pictures that accompany this story.

Later!