Day 6: We are still frakkin’ cold

February 13, 2008 at 11:27 am (traveling to learn)

February 3

dsc_0127.jpgWe hoped when we woke up on the second day in Sapa that the fog would be lifted. Not so much. Still bean soup. We drove three hours from Sapa to Bac Ha, where the weekly Sunday market where hill tribes for miles around gathered. We were told it was going to be extra crowded because it was the last market before Tet. dsc_0169.jpgIt certainly seemed extra crowded. Flower H’Mong people for miles and miles walked, rode ponies, biked, mopeded, or water buffaloed in for the occasion. I got lots (and lots) (and lots) of pics of the women in their traditional garb. It was easier to do it in the market because there was so much hustle bustle that few noticed my gigantic zoom lens was trained on their face (or their babies — ethnic babies, so cute!). dsc_0160.jpgAside from being super crowded, it was also super muddy, with at least an inch of mud all over and two or three in some places.

They had some nice trinkets to buy and I regret only having bought a bracelet [I really, really, really regret it now. Blerg.] But the sales force was so pushy. “You buy from me!” The “from me” sounded so forlorn, that we had to escape before even looking closely at what they were selling.

dsc_0202.jpgAfter the market, we drive a few more miles to the road leading to a Flower H’Mong village. Really it was just a string of farms along a muddy (lord, it was muddy) road. dsc_0203.jpgAgain, we plodded through one to two inches of mud. So we went up the hill (schlop, schlop) and down the hill (schlop, skid, skid, skid). All the while taking pictures of the H’Mong people like they were some fascinating exhibit in the zoo. Kinda awful, but I got awesome pics.

After a warm lunch, we started back towards Lao Cai. We stopped off a few miles from the train station at the Chinese border. dsc_0244.jpgUnfortunately, we couldn’t do that one leg in two Communist countries thing else we probably would have been shot.

We were obscenely early for our overnight train back to Hanoi, so we sat in a nearby restaurant that I think U.K. was also very friendly with. Whatevs. We got on the train and I slept like a baby, at least one that wakes up every two hours, but is then lulled back to sleep by the gentle rocking of the train. When we got back to Hanoi at 4:30 am (eep!), we had 4 hours to kill before our pick up for Halong Bay. This is where karma kicked in. Erin had reserved a room in Hanoi starting at 5 in the morning and it had an extra bed. We were able to rest in the (relative) warmth of her room before setting off again.

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Day 3: Where we finally run into tourists, remember why we hate tourists and try to stay dry.

February 11, 2008 at 2:38 pm (adventures in eating, traveling to learn)

January 31

We knew before we left the States that Hanoi was going through a cold snap. It is usually about 65 degrees F during January, but weather.com had been showing us 55 and cloudy. That’s fine, still warmer than NYC. The first day buoyed our confidence: it was like Dublin in July, cloudy misty, but overall refreshing. Unfortunately, today is more like Boston in March, with a constant soaking cold rain. Ugh. [I read today a letter from Ho Chi Minh from 1952 where he says that Hanoi has 10 days of winter. So glad we were there for 7 of them.]

dsc_0050.jpgWe started off the day in relative dry conditions at the Army Museum, which was built in 1956 to celebrate the victory over the French. It was expanded over the decades to include other (ahem) Western imperialist aggressors (their words). It was very interesting to see how the other side describe the war. Of course, I know/knew precious little about the war because every history teacherdsc_0051.jpg I ever had lingered lovingly over WWII and, when we got to the end of the semester, said, “And then there was Korea and Vietnam.” The choice of language in the museum alone would have made for an excellent high school history essay. Dien Bien Phu (about which I am now and expert) was a “glorious victory” not a “blood bath” or a “blunder of French military arrogance.” The “whole world” protested the American involvement in the war, though the whole world mostly consisted of some Eastern Bloc countries and hippies. After the Americans left, South Vietnam was “liberated” from the “imperialist puppet” government. [Though I did later hear a Vietnamese guide from the north talk about it as a civil war.] (Query whether those fleeing the Northern armies, or those sent to reeducation camp felt “liberated.” See, I am becoming quite an expert. A little knowledge is a scary thing.) But, all in all, much was learnt, perspectives were gained, horizons broadened. An interesting museum.

dsc_0062.jpgThen we walked over to the Temple of Literature, a collection of pagodas and courtyards dating back to the 11th century that was the site of Hanoi’s university. I don’t know whether it was the increasingly steady rain, the hoards of tourists, or the fact that it was hard to tell was was centuries old and what was built last week to commemorate some glorious imagined past, but we were underwhelmed. After seeing only a smattering of tourists in the Old Quarter yesterday, it was obvious that this is where the tour buses dropped their cargo. Least favorite part: a Vietnamese man bowed at the foot of a bronze statue and touched his head, and a woman near me poked her husband and said, “Look, Bob, look!”

An exhibit in a gallery designed to house Buddhist effigiesWe then escaped the tourists and the rain by ducking into the nearby Museum of Fine Arts. It wasn’t part of our plan, but it ended up being one of the best places we saw in Hanoi [and really all of Vietnam]. It was very well organized and took you all the way through Vietnamese art from pre-history to the current glorious communist present. Turns out I am a big fan of late 19th century Vietnamese lacquer statuary of the Tay Son period [See picture to the left, which is not mine or even one of my favorites.] I also got to relive my art history glory days by saying stuff that I knew nothing about (what’s an A&S degree for?) like, “Interesting how the early 20th century art reflects Western styles, while post 1946 art (after the war with the French got going) the artists relied on traditional lacquerware.” Oh la la.

We then went to the most delicious restaurant [best meal we had in Hanoi. If I had know Maura's pho was the best there was in the world I would have taken more.] Next time you are in Hanoi, go to Seasons near the West Lake. Yum. We had lots of plans to do an afternoon of Ho Chi Minh sites — a whole day of communist propaganda! — but the rain dissuaded us. Since we couldn’t get a cab (which was amazing because we had been harassed on every street corner with offers for rides), we walked home through the rain. Given the distance and the rain, we likely would have “trudged”, but that traffic certainly keeps you on your toes.

Bedtime: approximately 7:45.

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Day 2: Operation No Sleep Til . . . At Least 9 pm

February 11, 2008 at 2:01 pm (adventures in sleeping, traveling to learn)

Today we decided to take it “easy” by doing a walking tour laid out in Lonely Planet of the Old Quarter of Hanoi. Our hotel is located right in the heart of the Old Quarter, so it seemed like the obvious choice. Of course, even walking down the street in Hanoi is a stressful experience, what with the honking mopeds driving down the streets, the parked mopeds blocking the sidewalk, touts, fruit sellers, mud, and general mayhem. But after we got in the flow — or the un-flow– of things, we really started to dig it.
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dsc_0002.jpgFirst stop was Hoan Kiem Lake and the temple on the island in its center. The lake was named, as we heard innumerable times, the Restored Sword Lake. dsc_0005.jpgThe founder of Hanoi had found a sword (a la King Arthur) and used it to drive the Mongols out of Vietnam. He went rowing in the lake after the victory and a turtle came and took the sword, restoring it to its rightful place. So that is basically the extent of our knowledge of Vietnamese folklore.
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Next, we walked through the streets in the Old Quarter, each with its own specialization. The herb street, the blacksmith street, the toy street. One of the highlights was a temple behind an unassuming doorway. Don’t miss the temple at 102, Lonely Planet told us. We didn’t, but we were a good 30 feet into the place and pretty sure we were walking into someone’s living room. It was then that we developed our theory of “keep walking that way until someone yells at you.” Moments later, we emerged into a bookshop below the small but beautiful Buddhist temple.
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dsc_0039.jpgWe finally figured out that Vietnamese New Year is February 7th. Which is perfect because we will still be in the country … but in a place calmer than Hanoi [Flash forward: Ugh, famous last words.] We can already see the build-up. Red decorations are being sold everywhere. It also appears that Santa Claus gets in on the Tet too. People are also transporting loads of trees on the backs of their mopeds, sometimes two and sometimes very tall. dsc_0036.jpg[We later found out that they were kumquat trees and peach trees. The colors for Tet are Red and yellow, so the kumquat is orange (which is kinda like yellow) and the peach is pink (ditto for red). Further south, the peach is replaced by yellow apricot trees.] People are also burning paper money, red tissue dsc_0044.jpgpaper boxes, and (oddly) gigantic paper bunnies everywhere. It literally seems like people just hop off their mopeds, pull out a tin bucket (or just use the sidewalk), start a fire and throw some paper goods in there. I even saw some guys burning (fake) US $100 bills. (Though with the way things are going, we are probably going to have to start doing that to keep warm.) [Irony alert: When I wrote that, I was referring to the ever weakening dollar. Of course, over the course of the next week, there were several times when I would happily have burned cold hard cash for a little warmth.]
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dsc_0091.jpgAfter our leisurely, though often harried (have I mentioned the mopeds?) walk, we got a bite of lunch and a mediocre $18 message. That brought us to 4:30. Four and a half hours before I said we could sleep. We were too tired to wander around looking for an internet cafe [and clearly would not have been rewarded for our trouble anyway], so we went back to the room to try not to nap. We somehow made it through. We had an early bird special at a Lonely Planet recommended restaurant, hence all the Western Europeaners with their dog-eared LPs. Got back to the hotel with an hour and twenty minutes to go before bed. And now 46 minutes. Sweet, sweet bliss. [Eds. note: Yeah, I made it another 15 minutes and sacked out.]

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