Goodbye Vietnam

Throughout Vietnam, there is one man who is revered and respected on a level which surpasses even that of Ronald McDonald. Nowhere else is this more apparent than the National capital of Hanoi, the final resting place of Ho Chi Minh, or Uncle Ho, as he is lovingly referred to by the populous. Uncle Ho's smiling face appears everywhere in Vietnam, on every single bank note of every denomination, on countless propaganda posters, and above the entrance to nearly every school. Not surprisingly, his mausoleum is a mecca for supporters, traveling from far and wide to pay their respects. Following in the communist footsteps of Mao and Lenin, Uncle Ho's 'actual body' is supposedly preserved in a clear glass case, and annually shipped to Russia- the world leader in 'keeping dead people looking alive' technology. Viewing the body is a surreal experience, more for the formal procedures undergone before entering the mausoleum, than actually getting a glimpse of Uncle Ho. A strict dress code is in full effect, part of a long list of strange, liberty infringing rules like no hats, no putting your hands in your pockets, and no improper behavior like smiling or talking. Along the red carpeted path to the body, heavily armed guards stand at every turn, some remaining statuesque, others patrolling the crowd and barking instructions for proper conduct to rule breakers - "hands at your sides!" Rumors abound as to whether or not this is really the body of Uncle Ho or a wax replica. I have my doubts.

Hanoi's famous old quarter is where all of the tourists are concentrated, coming to explore streets named after the goods that were once sold there. For example, fried fish street, metal pipe street, and tombstone alley, which these days are more likely inhabited by bootleg shoes, purses, and stuffed animals. These 2 square miles may be the least walkable urban area on earth and its narrow passages are demonstrative of a nationwide phenomenon - a complete and utter lack of personal space. Buildings are so small and packed to the brim that living rooms, workshops, kitchens and basically anything which can be moved outside, spills out onto the sidewalk during business hours. On the one hand, it's entertaining to walk down the street and essentially get to see through the walls and catch a glimpse of all the day to day activities that would be kept behind closed doors elsewhere. On the other hand, having your leg hairs singed by sparks being spewed onto the street by soldering irons and ducking garbage bags tossed from second story windows can begin to take its toll on your sanity.

Shortly after arriving in Hanoi, my dad and i departed to Vietnam's top tourist attraction, Halong bay, which before the WFC, was receiving 7 million annual visitors. The famed bay is filled with dramatic limestone cliffs jumping out of the bay, and insane amounts of tourist filled vessels navigating around them. At its best, the scenery is breathtaking and fully worthy of all the hype and all the visitors, but the downside is an almost absolute lack of environmental awareness, manifested in an alarming amount of liter. The most disturbing moment came on a kayaking excursion, which was quite enjoyable until i paddled directly past a used baby diaper bobbing aimlessly in the water. In the end, the cruise of the bay was an enjoyable experience, but I hope that enough swift action is taken to prevent it from evaporating into a wasteland of used Huggies.

On the same day we returned to Hanoi from Halong bay, we boarded another sleeper train, heading 10 hours north to the Vietnam-China border. Upon arrival in the town of Sapa, we were bombarded by local village women selling handicrafts, a theme that would be recurring. All of these women speak incredibly good English which they attribute solely to tourist exposure, pretty impressive considering many of them have never been to school for a day in their lives. Shortly after arriving, we embarked upon the top tourist attraction in Sapa, a village stay, in which you trek to a local village and sleep with an adoptive family for the night.

Our guide was a 17 year old girl named Moo, who comes from a village of Black Hmong - named for their black clothing, which Moo has given up for jeans and a t-shirt. On the first day of our tour we headed over several terraced mountains and ended up in a small village where we met our family for the night. During the trek, I wondered if staying in a village would be an outhouse and no electricity kind of experience, but it quickly became apparent that our host family has done quite well for themselves in the village stay business. Their massive two story house featured concrete floors, satellite tv, dvd player, western toilet, pool table, cold beer, and hot water shower - complete with images of naked girls printed on the bathroom tiles. Not exactly roughin it. The highlight of our stay was a delicious home cooked dinner, which was shared at the table of our hosts. The father insisted on alternating spoonfuls of rice with shots of rice wine with me for the duration of the meal, while the rest of the family was transfixed on the tv, watching Chinese soap operas poorly dubbed in Vietnamese.

The low point of the trek came en route to our second village stay. Along the way, we were followed by a pair of seemingly friendly women, but once we reached the midpoint of our journey, their intentions became clear as day. A slew of sales pitches commenced, with a different response for every polite 'no thank you.' These pleas escalated dramatically in desperation from 'this bag is very pretty' to "you buy something and i stop following you,' and culminating in one of the women revealing a bag of weed from her hand woven purse hoping that she must have something i would be interested in buying. After this unfortunate interchange, (i didn't buy anything), we crossed through a massive construction site which was eating away at the mountain, making way for a huge hydroelectric dam. Not only is this an environmental disaster in the making, its also incredibly stupid to destroy one of the top tourist destinations in the country. Finally, in a cruel twist of fate, our neighbors at our second night's homestay turned out to be a huge group of Dutch tourists who spent their evening butchering Beatles classics on their host families blaring karaoke system. Hey Jude will never be the same.

My last destination in Vietnam was the laid back town of Ninh Binh, which is surrounded by rice paddies and limestone mountains. My visit fortuitously coincided with the annual Truong yen festival, which commemorates a pair of 9-10th century Emperors. The festivities were wide ranging, some being more traditional than others. I first wandered past a relatively tame cock fight, which was easier to digest after countless sleepless nights thanks to rogue roosters. To relax after this hard hitting action, i sat down to observe a life size game of Chinese chess, which can already take hours to complete, compounded by the time taken for each player to walk across the board and move his desired piece. This game is played everywhere in China and Vietnam, usually with a group of 10-15 old men huddled around the board advising the opponents on their next moves, as was the case in this life size battle. The most entertaining event of the festival was a traditional wrestling competition, in which participants sported sumo like cloths over their shorts and engaged in a ritualistic dance before doing battle. Through body language, everyone in my vicinity in the audience tried to coax me into the ring to challenge the champion. Tempting as the offer was, im pretty sure getting my collar bone broken by a Vietnamese dude with the physique of a pit bull isn't covered in my insurance policy. So, with my health still intact, I made my exodus from Vietnam to the Land of a Thousand Smiles.

Central Vietnam

After an overnight bus ride from hell, my dad and i were deposited on the quiet streets of Hoi An at 5am. The city was the largest harbor in Southeast Asia in the 1st Century, and its contemporary claim to fame is its surviving old town, a UNESCO heritage site which features some of the most walkable streets in Vietnam. There's an occasionally enforced ban on motor vehicles (the sign specifically forbids any "non primitive vehicles"), and the streets are lined with well preserved buildings that have been converted into a tourist shopping haven, selling tailor made suits, buddha statues, modern art, and chinese lanterns. The highlight of our 48 hour stay ended up being cruising around the nearby countryside by bike. Under the protection of an overcast sky, we rode through villages surrounded by rice paddies, grazing water buffalo, and handfuls of enthusiastic children screaming hello. One such journey brought us to what appeared to be a scam perpetrated against foreigners. Within sight of the local beach, we were stopped by a pair of locals, who calmly explained that we had to leave our bikes in the 'official' parking area, which cost 12 cents. We reluctantly handed over 4,000 dong and made for the beach. Upon returning and retrieving our bikes, we were treated to an unexpected performance displaying the musical prowess of our bike guardian, which left us feeling like we got our moneys worth. To the background music of a Vietnamese pop song, bike man sang a passionate, improvised ballad, and in the process, insisted on taking my hand and leading me through a dance routine. "I watch your bike, you no worry. I watch your bike, your bike ok with me!" He continued in similar fashion for the duration of the song, and bid us farewell with a dramatic bow.

A four hour bus ride north delivered us to the imperial city of Hue, (pronounced Way), which was the capital of Vietnam as recently as 1945. The city was crushed during the war, and only recently have its many historical landmarks begun to be reconstructed. Based on the following experiences, this ended up being my favorite place in Vietnam. On the night of our arrival, we stumbled upon a gem of free entertainment - a high school dance competition in a park overlooking the Huong River. Hip hop appears to be alive and well in Vietnam, as group after group put together some impressive breakdancing performances, some more creative than others. The standouts were one crew that played air guitar with traditional Vietnamese instruments and another that danced to a Vietnamese remix of the Beverly Hills Cop theme song. The only low point of the night was a mass ensemble of about 25 kids performing a routine to the theme song from high school musical. That aint hip hop.

Again, a major highlight here was exploring the nearby countryside by bicycle, the most entertaining journey being a quest to locate one of two existing Japanese covered bridges in Vietnam. After asking a handful of eagerly helpful locals for directions, we eventually got ourselves in the vicinity of the bridge, and then found it by dumb luck, as a woman vendor flagged us down to come have a beer. We caved in to her sales pitch, only to find that her snack stand was located in the shadows of our desired location. Upon entering the shelter of the bridge, we were met by an intriguing character, an old woman with painted on eye brows, and bare feet exposing freshly painted, bright red toenails. She spoke excellent English which she attributed to her past marriage to an American soldier. After our initial introductions were complete, she proceeded to inform us as to why she was occupying the bridge; to tell the fortunes of those who pass. For shits and giggles, we both presented her with open palms, which resulted in some mind blowing revelations. First for the father: "You very good man, you very good to your family, very handsome, you have good son, love you very much." Then for the son: "You very handsome. Your family love you very much. You very good boy. Good to your father. Very nice boy." Then the most important news, she forecast that our deaths would come at the respectively ripe ages of 88 and 82.

From one interesting character to another. Just beyond the bridge, we reached the village museum, whose sole employee was an unforgettable old woman in her pajamas, who guided us through the most entertaining museum tour on the face of the earth. The museum housed a small collection of traditional Vietnamese farming equipment, which the woman who was well into her 80's, proceeded to passionately demonstrate one at a time. With the energy of a small child, she jumped from one piece of equipment to the next, violently stirring the rice grinder and pedaling the bicycle-like water distributor, adding to the drama with an impressive array of sound effects, such as the chopping of the rice plants, crying babies, and water buffalo splashing through the mud. All the while, she sported a friendly smile, exposing teeth that appeared to be intentionally blackened. After a failed, modest sales pitch for us to buy some water buffalo figurines from the dusty gift shop, she graciously accepted a small donation to the museum and waved goodbye before going back to sleep on the table at the entrance.

Hue also became the place where we would get our most insightful look at the day to day lives of some typical Vietnamese folks. Through the wonders of the Internet, i was able to get in contact with Thuan, a local university student, who agreed to meet us for the prototypical social gathering, drinking coffee. After a night of getting caffienated by the city lake, which he and his friend described as lover's lake (for all of the couples who frequent it), he invited us for lunch in his apartment, which is shared with his younger brother and friend. We arrived at his abode to find that these 3 guys share one 6' x 10' room with one bed and one desk, which immediately made me fell like a spoiled idiot for ever having issues with the amount of personal space afforded by the dorm rooms of California. His roommate prepared us a delicious lunch, which we shared on their bedroom floor, regularly interrupted with a rotating shot glass of rice wine,(their drink of choice because of its combined potency and affordability - 30% alcohol and 42 cents for a .5 liter bottle). After our meal, the landlord, a 92 year old man known as Uncle Le, crashed the party. Uncle Le didn't speak any English but seemed fascinated by the presence of the 2 strange foreign visitors, an ear to ear smile glued to his face for the duration of our stay. Through the students' translation, Uncle Le made several attempts to set me up with one of his many granddaughters. Lunch officially ended with a photo shoot of the students and Uncle Le, who burst into uncontrollable laughter every time we showed him the freshly captured images on the screen of my camera.
The following afternoon, we boarded a hard sleeper train, (named for the 1cm thick mattress we slept on). We quickly crossed through the former demilitarized zone (DMZ), which separated north and south Vietnam in the not so distant past. 15 hours later, we were stumbling out into the madness of morning rush hour traffic in the capital city of Hanoi...