It takes about a day to learn how to cross a street in Vietnam, maybe more if you're not a Brooklyn street kid who started to jaywalk about the time she learned the difference between red and green. I don't know how long it takes to get comfortable crossing streets in Vietnam, or doing the myriad of things in the street that are the norm here - probably never, if you're going for longevity.
Vietnamese sidewalks are not a pedestrian's friend. They are badly paved, narrow places of business. Shop wares or a street restaurant take up half the available turf. The rest has been turned into parking lots for motorcycles, complete with attendants and, I assume, payment. Sometimes there isn't room for anything but the bikes, which stretch from curb almost to wall. There's a dashed white line down the center of streets in the Old City, probably a bureaucrat's scheme for bringing order to the sidewalks. It failed.
Even though the sidewalks aren't an option, decades of habit force you up onto them whenever a clear patch emerges. But it rarely lasts more than 10 feet and then you're stepping over the drainage ditch along the curb to assume your rightful place in the street, along with an endless, relentless swarm of motor bikes.
You walk along in much the same way they drive: "any which way." Maybe with the traffic, maybe against it. Maybe unsure, because the traffic is going in several directions at once, including up little metal moat-spanning ramps onto the sidewalk.
The trick to crossing a street in the face of an endless flow is "just do it." Well, not quite - wait for a lessening and plunge in, walking steadily until you reach the other curb. Some people hold their hand out, as though parting the waters, signaling their seriousness. It is amazing how people respect hand signals. Open a passenger side window, make "I've gotta get over to the right" hand signals and most people will let you through. In any case, the trick is not to falter, because the driver is figuring out how to get around you so your movements need to be predictable. I try to make eye contact with the driver, on the theory that they're less likely to kill you that way. Unless they had a bad day at the office.
White-painted crosswalks aren't honored. They aren't even taken as a suggestion, the way they are in New York. They're just more white lines, like those mysterious dashes on the sidewalks.
Traffic lights, where they exist, are an entirely different matter. Sometimes. In the new part of Hanoi, they seem to cause traffic to stop. Or rather, some of the traffic. Maybe they have a "right turn on red" rule. Or maybe all of Hanoi is one intersection like the one on Canal Street near Church, where you think you have the light but there's another flow of traffic you weren't aware of and that is as out to get you as any crazed Steven King car. Still, traffic lights are... helpful. Well, maybe less so in the Old City, where they're ignored.
Why am I so tired?
The flight is 20 hours of air time, plus 4 on the ground. I came up with a combination of drugs that kept me asleep most of the time, an accomplishment of which I was very proud. Until I realized that we were landing at 10:45 PM, not AM, which meant that I was supposed to go straight from the airport - to bed. And that I didn't have a day and a half before I left for the mountains - I had 20 hours.
After a day of walking and napping, I took an over-night train to Lao Cai, the railhead 300 meters from the Chinese border. Upon arrival, I scambled to find a place to pee - I hate squat toilets at any time but never more than at 6:30 AM - and then found my guide. After a quick breakfast, we were in the van, driving 100 km to a tribal market - 2.5 hours. Two hours later, back we go to Lao Cai and from thence another 40km to Sapa, the main tourist town. A night's sleep, up at 6:30 and an 80km, 2 hour drive in the other direction, then back to Sapa - and 40km on to Lao Cai, where I wait 5 hours to catch the 8PM night train back to Hanoi. Arrive at 4AM, go to my hotel, check in, go to sleep and then up to sightsee. I have been in Vietnam for 2.5 days.
Meet the Montenegards
When I arrived in Lao Cai, my guide tried to talk me out of going to the market I had traveled half the world to see. He told me that the tribes would be the same as those that would be at the larger, Sunday, market, so why not spend the day in Sapa (doing what was unclear). I told him that I knew this and had tried to get the travel agent to agree to a Sunday trip to a market west of Sapa that was frequented by different tribes. Mumbling something about extra money, he said we might be able to work something out. 30 minutes later, as we were discussing the state of the road, he mentioned that none of the tourists from Sapa were able to get to last Sunday's market as the road was closed. Another notch down in your tip, I thought.
The road was every reason why, when friends ask me if I rent a self-drive car, I look at them as if they were insane. It goes around mountains which, at their highest point, are about 2,500 meters. They are one lane wide in many places, have no side rails, and often aren't paved. Because it has been raining and the government is working on widening the road, in places the mud is so bad that you spin out or, as happened in one memorable spot, end up behind a large truck that is stuck in the mud, to the point that it needed to be pushed up the mountain by a tractor. All the other vans, trucks and motos then had to untangle themselves in an area where the mud was deeper than the road was wide.
And then there's the fog. Visibility of 5 feet is a generous estimate. You go in and out of it as you drive around the mountain, up to the heights and down to the valleys. The valleys generally are clear. But you can see the fog hanging on the side of the mountains and then you're in it, and stay in it for 30 minutes or more.
The driver is young and careful, but he must be exhausted at the end of each day. The van, which had been shiny clean, is so covered with mud that I need to jump clear of the step to get out. The people on motos have plastic bags over their shoes to protect them - I can't imagine what their clothing looks like by the end of the trip.
Perhaps because the roads are so bad, I've noticed that drivers in many parts of Asia cooperate on mountain roads in ways that are unimaginable in America. While the first time your car passes, say, a bus, on a blind mountain curve, your heart decides to visit your throat, eventually you realize that the bus is letting the car pass and, because speeds are relatively slow, it will let you pull back into lane if something is coming the other way. The driver does this by pulling up next to the truck, which will try to drive as far to the right as possible, or will toot its oddly mournful horn so the other driver knows they're there and plan to pass. I'm sure that there are lots of awful accidents anyway, but after a while, you realize that it is less dangerous than it looks. Still you wouldn't want to be a truck driver on these roads, which unimaginably hard and dangerous. Also, in cities, and probably on coastal roadways, all cooperative behavior disappears. It is you against a few million of your countrymen.
After 2.5 long hours, we get to Cau Cat. It is now 10AM, prime time for the market.
The main tribe are the Flower Hmong, one of many sub groups of the largest hill tribe in SE Asia. The three tribal "lineages" stretch from Hunan in southern China across Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and into Burma. In Vietnam alone there are 54 different tribes, each with identifiable costumes, jewelry, headdress (all the women cover their hair) and facial adornment. Many are sub tribes of larger tribes "Red Hmong" "Black Hmong" "White Trouser Hmong" which reflect a difference in their clothing - and a lack of imagination among the anthropologists who named them. While the Hmong are the largest, and the production of their embroidery, weaving and appliqué highly organized by what must be handwork factories. Everything they sell has the sameness of complex handiwork simplified and designed to sell in markets like these. You see it in Thailand, Laos and here in Vietnam. (You see it also in California and, I assume, Minnesota, where the Hmong who assisted American forces were re-settled as refugees after the war. A people with no written language who live in isolated villages high in the mountains, in communities of wooden long houses, suddenly finds itself coping with Public Assistance, Food Stamps and flush toilets). The French called all these groups simply "the Montenegards." They are the wild people in the jungle with Kurtz, up-river in Apocalypse Now.
The Flower Hmong are the most colorful of the tribes, whose clothing otherwise tends towards embroidered indigo. The Flowers go for color - finely stitched in very narrow rows and embroidered onto flowers. In the past, this was done by hand and made by the person wearing it. Today, the machine embroidered clothing is sold at the market and women gather to try on a new skirt or jacket, which may differ to conform to the requirements of the varying groups: more pink, more purple. They long ago switched to synthetic, aniline dyes so there are huge skeins of day-glo colored acrylic yarn waiting to be bought. Later, in Hanoi I bought some older textiles identified as Flower Hmong that were much less bright - I'll need to see what their costumes looked like 20 or more years ago.
The Can Cau market started as a horse market but then broadened to include pigs, vegetables, sugar cane and the sundries the tribal people need. It added a large tourist area, where low quality mass-produced handicrafts are sold. There are a fair number of tourists but the market clearly belongs to the Hmong.
By noon sellers are starting to close up and I'm ready to leave. En route, I see tour buses heading for Can Cau - they're coming from Sapa, which is appalling - the tour operators know when the market ends but probably feels it will face rebellion if it asks folks to be on the bus by 6:30 AM.
Sapa
Sapa is an old French Vietnamese Hill Station - a place people went to escape the heat and humidity of the lowlands and to walk in clean mountain air. As the train to Lao Cai, the nearest station, improve and as roads were cleared, tribal tourism started to take hold about 10 years ago. The Sunday Black Dong market was the attraction. On Saturday nights, the young Dong came to sing to each other, part of their traditional courtship ritual. Tourism ruined both the market and the Dong, who are now extremely aggressive, grabbing your arm to sell you a bracelet or embroidered bag. Sapa grew apace.
Aside from the tribes, Sapa's other attraction is the view, which is supposed to be spectacular. Hotels are named "Mountain View" and face out over the valley. Where there's nothing to see much of the time because of the fog, which is characteristic Sapa weather. Sapa recently experienced 58 days with no sun. The fog is so bad that walking around town at night is dangerous because the motos simply can't see you.
While saying that it was fogged in tells you that it was damp, you can't begin to appreciate HOW damp until you're in a shop, pull out a cotton garment and find it wet. Not damp. Wet. Everything I bought went straight to the hotel laundry. I don't want to bring home any little guests with these textiles – my experience last year of discovering that a treasured cape had turned in food for moth larvae is enough. I prefer my textiles thoroughly and completely ... dead.
After the guide tried to rip me off for $40 to go to a different market than scheduled, we set off for it early Sunday morning. I'm at a large hotel with several tour groups so as I sit in the lobby awaiting the driver I watch the tourists struggle with adversity: the road to Bac Ha, the big Sunday market, is closed due to a landslide. The tour guides, some of whom are tribal women in traditional attire, are busily explaining that they will go to another, much smaller, market, but the tourists are howling in pain. Off we go, in the other direction.
The guide grew up on the family farm, south of Hanoi. His grandfather was killed in the war and his father was almost killed, which he dismisses as history on this, the 40th anniversary of the Mai Lai massacre. Since farming is a hard life, he took at 30 month certificate course in English and moved to Sapa, ten years ago, when tourism was starting. Even though he earns only a tiny percent of the substantial amount paid to the travel agent, it is regular work in a country with more people with certificates than jobs. On the surface, the work is easy – sitting in a van, often sleeping, for hours on end or leading tourists in treks of known difficulty. But it means getting up at 4AM in order to be in Lao Cai by 6:30.
A more comfortable 2 hours later we get to the market, which is really a local market along the street that tribal people go to, so it is very different than Can Cau. But, then, so are the tribal groups. The Lu are there, whose women apply a heavy coat of something black to their teeth. There are other groups I can't identify . None of these women want to be photographed, which is common to the groups with less contact with tourists.
Missionary Positions
I have a small mission to accomplish. The biggest tribal textile dealer in Hanoi is a New York pediatrician who came with a $3 million grant to study the effects of Agent Orange on children. While the Vietnamese government had agreed to cooperate, when the time came cooperation was replaced with stonewalling so, in the end, the grant was returned. But, being a doctor, the owner of the shop came up with a stunningly simple solution to one of the many, many problems confronting the tribes: when women aged, they developed presbyopia and had to stop sewing and embroidering. He decided to buy cheap reading glasses and take them with him when he went to villages, gradually finding the women and fitting them, giving them a new opportunity to participate in the group. He said that, invariably, towards the end of each visit, the men would come over an nudge him "hey, me too!" Since I was going to the mountains, and he had only a few pair left, he told me to take some and give them out.
I wandered the main street, looking for the oldest possible women. This is tricky, because tooth loss, exposure to sun at high altitudes and a generally hard life makes people look far older than they are. I have met many women over the years that I thought were 70 only to learn that they were in their 40's,
The first women is with a friend and a granddaughter. She tries to sell me a handicraft trinket and I counter with glasses. She is delighted - first of all, she has a new form of adornment that no one in her village has - and then she realizes what they're for. She does what all three women that I give glasses to do - she looks at the edge of her sleeve, which is plain indigo with white edging. She then looks at a crudely embroidered jacket she is trying to sell me. I mime to her that the glasses are for close only, not far, but how much she gets from this I don't know. Her friend, who looks to be in her 40's, explains that she needs them too, so I'm a bit stuck.
I wander off to find my final recipient, which is a woman who tells my guide that she is in her 70's, and lifts her headscarf to show grey hair. I laugh and point to my far whiter hair. But when she puts them on, you can see that the glasses are really needed because she is hugging me. She is just so happy.
I leave, wondering whether it would be cheaper to ask people I know to donate the unused readers lying around in everyone's drawer and send them to the doctor in Hanoi or to just send money so he can buy them locally, where they might be very cheap. I'm not quite sure what these glasses really accomplish, but the experience of giving them away is something I'll treasure.
I meet other Americans here on medical missions. One group is doing plastic surgery on children with cleft palates, which they say is more prevalent in Asia. A nurse with them says she thinks this may be attributable to a Folic Acid deficiency, which is also the cause of spinal bifida. I'll need to look that up because it would b e so sad if something that inexpensive could prevent all this suffering.
Vietnam is so strange - the only country I've visited that defeated America in a war, and the only country where Americans continue to have such guilt over what they did to this country that, 35 years after the end of the war, missions continue.
Here We Go Loopty Lu...
We turn onto a road so deeply rutted that I doubt that the van could make it. But off we went to a Lu tribal village.
We passed a concrete plaza with an impressive two storey building - the local school, which the government is building in villages across the country. I asked the guide whether there were qualified teachers and text books. At first he said yes, but later admitted that teachers are a real problem. The government trains large numbers of them but - and here the story is the same as in so many developing countries. Salaries are extremely low, no one wants to work in these poor, remote villages and, astonishingly, it costs a prospective teacher $3,000 in bribes to even get a teaching job. As a result, poorly educated, unqualified people "teach" while the trained teachers leave the field by the thousands to get better paying jobs.
Even if salaries could be increased and bribes eliminated, you need only see how remote these villages are to understand how intractable the problem is. I wondered whether technology could help - have teaching done remotely, broadcast into the classroom via satellite. While interactive technology would be ideal, even having someone with the appropriate education deliver the lesson would have to help. Who knows - maybe cell phones could be used.
But on to the village, a collection of long, unpainted wooden houses on stilts. The paths were muddy with frequent, large piles of buffalo and pig excrement, sometimes impassible. Each home had a fenced in area, often containing one or two guard dogs which bark aggressively - but which never left their area. An extremely large pig wandered past.
The guide approached a man and asked if we could come inside to visit. 13 people lived there, from wizened grandmother to babe in crib. It had a long common room, slightly separate kitchen, and curtained off sleeping areas along one side. A TV played continuously and a spinning wheel sat at the ready. The head of the family, who passed away the month before, worked for the government, so this family had a steady income, unlike many others.
The wooden walls had gaps- no insulation against the cold mountain winters. I didn't see anything that would serve as heat. The women wear brocade and applique skirts and have thick paste blackening their teeth.
As we walked back to the van, we passed another house with a small satellite dish attached to its side. I remain convinced that the satellite dish, and now the cell phone, are the two most important technologies in the developing world, the internet being irrelevant to all but the educated.
Hanoi
The night train arrived in Hanoi at 4AM. When I arrived at my hotel, the front door was locked. Not as in "there's a lock and it is locked" bur rather as in "there's no lock so we've fastened it with a bicycle cable lock and some heavy twine." It took a few minutes for the three staff who sleep on a mattress in the lobby to undo their security.
The desk clerk offered me a flashlight so I could make my way to my room - apparently, the lights in the halls are off at night.
I mumbled an athiest's prayer that there would not be a fire and went to sleep with my flashlight on my night table.
There is not a lot to see in Hanoi. While the religious buildings date back hundreds of years, they have been restored and rebuilt repeatedly, often with an absence of skill. Some of the buildings are attractive in an minor sort of way but they are neglected and often obscured by hundreds of strands of electrical cable running in front of them. Burying the cables is a luxury this country cannot yet afford.
Many residential buildings in Hanoi and the north are the width of a brownstone and 5 storeys tall: "wedding cakes." The top floor is open, under a canopy or roof. It makes the city strangely vertical, even though there are many 2 story buildings. In the new part of the city more typical large scale architecture exists.
The thing to do is to wander around and get a feeling for the city or plant yourself in a cafe and watch the world go by (which means an endless stream of motos). Or sit by West Lake, which was formed when it was cut off from the Red River that flows through the city.
The one thing I knew I would not be doing is War of Liberation tourism - the Hanoi Hilton, various museums of the revolution, Ho's house - and especially not Uncle Ho's mausoleum. You've got to feel sorry for the guy. He specifically said that he wanted to be cremated and scattered across a united Vietnam - and not stuffed, preserved and put on display, the way Lenin and Mao have been. But that did not happen so there he lies, for all to see. I really don't understand this phenomena - it is one thing to see Grant's tomb and quite another to see Grant.
As I wandered, I looked for shops selling old hill tribe textiles. They are scattered around the old City and have small stocks. I suspect that most of the old material that exists today was collected long ago because hill tribe garments probably get harder wear than is common in tribal cultures and there is a long tradition of cutting them up. I find a few things, some quite wonderful and all inexpensive.
One of the truisms of travel is that your legs will hurt differently on every vacation, My thighs ache, sore in places that even the most acrobatic sex wouldn't exercise (On second thought, a position involving two support staff I once saw carved on a temple in India might do it...). I can't figure out why until I realize that I've been sitting on the very low plastic stools that are ubiquitous in China and Vietnam. I've been using them as I search the lower shelves of handicraft shops for antique tribal textiles. And when you get up, as you do every time you need to move the stool to another spot, you exercise just that inner thigh muscle.
Because of this, and my deep affection for cycle rickshaws, which are the perfect way to glide through cities, especially ones as chaotic as Hanoi, While I now know how to walk, it is a hassle in the Old City – and Hanoi is far hotter and much more humid than the temperature would lead you to believe. How humid? Well, it takes more than 48+ hours for my Cool-Max tee shirts to dry, which is unheard of. I have a micro-fleece that I washed two days ago which is still damp. I don't think my socks will ever dry.
Dollars and Vietnamese Dong are accepted interchangeably. While this it is common everywhere, when buying expensive items, to have prices quoted in dollars, Vietnam is the first place where even restaurant menus are "bilingual" - and in very small amounts. $1.35 for soup. $0.95 for tea. Even though I brought $100 in singles, and some larger denomination bills, I pay for routine things with Dong (16,000 to the dollar). After initial confusion of how you'll ever convert on the go, you realize thaat 10,000 Dong = $6 "and change" so you can do the math pretty quickly (assuming you learned your times tables in elementary school).
When you're told that it will cost 2 million Dong to airmail a package to New York, you welcome dollar denominations.
I have not seen a single fast food restaurant, or a Starbucks, in Hanoi, which is one of the things that gives you the feeling that you're travelling in the 1990's. I'm curious whether there will be any in Saigon, a much more cosmopolitan city.
Go A Hue
The most marvelous thing happened when we landed in Hue - the sun was shining!
The women in Hue are reputed to be the most beautiful in Vietnam. You see them protecting their skin from the sun by wearing motorcycle helmets with wide, hat-like brims and with heavy flesh colored gloves that end at their underarms. My dermatologist would be ecstatic. Of course, some women everywhere wear the conical : coolie" hat to protect themselves from the burning sun, but the degree to which these women protect themselves is extreme. Most also wear the thick cotton face masks that are ubiquitous in Vietnam to shield people on motos from pollution. The masks are useless, but how they wear them in the Vietnamese heat is something I can't imagine.
Hue is a more old-fashioned, less affluent city than Hanoi. Bicycles far outnumber motos and older women wear loose printed "pajama sets." Shopkeepers hand you your change (which is in bills) with both hands, which is the same way that the Chinese hand you things when they are showing respect. The whole pace of the city is slow. It is hot and humid.
There's not a lot to see in Hue but it is wonderful. The huge Imperial citadel is the size of many football fields, with the Imperial City nested inside. The site of intense fighting during the 1968 Tet Offensive, heavily damaged, it is now being restored. A boat trip down the Perfume River. Visits to the Emperor's Tombs.
I hire a cyclo to take me to the Citadel. I let the driver extend the trip, showing me various sites and buildings around the Citadel, so I end up in a museum commemorating the Vietnamese struggle against the Americans, complete with a three-dimensional model seeming to show torture. But, then, we passed the DMZ Cafe on the way into town. Several of the cafes in the traveler's ghetto where I'm staying give me the feeling that they are the kinds of bars GIs frequented during the war.
Wandering through the Imperial City, you see what a formal, ritualized Mandarin culture must have prevailed in Hue and you wonder how, if the French had not intervened, it would have evolved.
Clear Turquoise Waters...
The dream tropical vacation invariably features clear, turquoise waters. Its just that I've never seen turquoise water... in my bath tub before. Anyone wanna guess what the chemistry involved is?
The Dragon Boat
The boats that take tourists along the Perfume River are gaily painted to look like dragons. There are small ones, which could comfortably hold 4 or 6 people, and large ones, for small groups. I took a small one because the 8 hour agenda of the group seemed too ambitious for someone recovering from a bad cold. I didn't know whether I could deal with sitting in the boat, let alone 4 trips on the back of motos to the tombs. This is too bad, because the pagodas and tombs along the river are one of the highlights of Hue.
Once on my boat, I realized that it was an even more perfect choice for a convalescent than a cyclo. It has a roof, so there is shade, moves along the water, guaranteeing a breeze, and you need only shift your seat as the sun moves through its arc. The trip is interesting, less for the legendary beauty of the river, which I was not seeing, than for the large community of river dwellers who live in long, covered boats - sampan being the best image I can conjure. I would never have realized that this many people lived on the river, and that the river in a city like Hue is still a place where locals go to haul water, do their laundry and perform their ablutions. The river is dirty, with plastic bags and plastic bottles floating randomly along.
I thought the woman who owned the boat and I had agreed that we would go to the temple. Now that we were en route, she said no, it would be another $15 (no wonder she had insisted on payment in advance). She claimed that the pagoda was "very far" even though it isn't - and then her English cut out, which is always a good negotiating strategy. This leaves you with exactly one option, unless you're unusually stupid or stubborn: pay her. She knows you want to see the pagoda, you know you want to see that pagoda - and the two beyond it - but you won't see anything if you don't put some more coins in the meter. Like Eliot Spitzer, I paid.
The pagoda was wonderful - up on a hill at the bend in the river with several graceful pavilions. From the heights, you can see how beautiful the river must have been 100 years ago - broad, gently curving, with mountains in the background.
Back in town, I stop by my hotel to dump cold water over my head and then wander out to find lunch. And then I realize - there are no air conditioned restaurants. In fact, the only thing that is air conditioned may be the hotels. I realize that the same was true in Hanoi - yet another reason Vietnam has such an old-time feeling.
Down the Coast
I had booked a "soft seat" train to Da Nang, 3 hours down the coast. I love trains and knew that this one would give me a great view of some of the spectacular scenery. Plus, I like the freedom of trains, the ability to get up, wander around, read.
But this was not one of those trains.
The compartment looked like a DP camp - which basically, it was, because it takes two days to travel from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City. Who knew that those bars under the luggage rack were the place you hung your wet towels? The seats were shabby and were filled with people, someone of whom were sleeping on the floor. My seat , number, 59, simply did not exist. I found a seat next to an ancient woman and tried to settle in. If you've ever known people who are reluctant to put their heads on the back of an airline seat, well, I doubt that you could even get them to sit in these. As in much of Asia, you see people "grooming" their friend's hair by manually removing the lice nits.
Because it was lunch time, carts with incredibly unappetizing food kept coming through the compartment. My bags were in the way so people kept pointing at the rack - which was bursting. Still people pointed and I finally decided that I'd be yet another annoyance in the foot cart workers day. In the end, I was glad to have my pack in my lap - the car was unbelievably cold and the pack shielded part of me from a very noticeable breeze. Freezer, not air-con.
The first food cart brought Styrofoam boxes filled mostly with rice, plus some meat. Then came the chicken parts cart and people grabbed for pieces with their personal, already used, chopsticks. Like the guy in front of me with the non-stop sneeze.
Once 15 or 16 of these carts had gone by, it was back to nap time. Asians have the ability to fall asleep instantly, and stay asleep for hours. Because the seat was so cramped, and the coach so unpleasant, I didn't even escape into my book.
Mercifully, this was a short trip and I was soon in a taxi heading for Hoi An. But first class on this train was a world away from the equivalent on the train to Sapa.
High Hopes for Hoi An
Everyone told me that I was going to love Hoi An, the town with the large old Chinese quarter in Central Vietnam. I had my doubts, envisioning a city given over to tourism, with tacky shops in each building. Still, I tried to believe that I would love it and that I would be able to get the three outfits made that I would need for Radha's wedding next October.
I was worn down with the cold that had been dogging me since Hanoi. It had migrated to my ears - so not only was my energy lagging but I had a new worry - would my ears clear in time for my flight to Saigon on Wednesday and then New York?
In Vietnam, and in most of the developing world, you don't need a prescription to buy meds so I had a chat with the local pharmacist and bought an astonishing array of drugs.
I walked down the the main "tailors" area to find someone to make the clothing I wanted. There are literally thousands of tailor shops in Hoi An, all with the same odd assortment of Western clothes faded and dusty on dummies in front. I had no idea how to pick a shop, because you need to ensure that not only do they measure you properly but that they sew the clothing in a way that holds up. I don't really need what I was ordering to hold up for more than one day, but, still, it would be nice if it lasted.
Finally, I decided to pick based on fabric. I wanted lightweight Vietnamese silk because the wedding is hours long and outdoors, in South India. I ended up settling, lacking the inspiration to put together fabulous color combinations.
I then went off in search of a tailor to copy a jacket, thinking that would be easy. It wasn't - the tailors have very clear ideas of what constitutes appropriate jacket material and I didn't like the colors and fabrics available in their choices. When I suggested the same soft Vietnamese silk, they told me that it was "wrong". So I shoved my jacket back into my bag and walked back to my hotel, past endless shops selling the identical merchandise: cheap scarves, many made in India and Laos, of the type you see on street stalls near Canal Street, lacquer ware, mass produced art and silk lantern shops. I was really surprised that there was not a single shop selling higher end or more interesting goods. Here, as in Hanoi,, they swore that the Laotian scarves were from Vietnam. I didn't even bother asking about the acrylic "pashminas" people were stocking up on.
I didn't find the old city charming. It was crumbling, with little of architectural interest. The old Chinese buildings that constitute the sights of Hoi An were only OK - and this type of ornate Chinese building has never appealed to me. So I wasn't all that sorry when I realized that I needed to leave a day early, to take a train the 1,000 miles to Saigon, since I couldn't fly.
After securing the tickets - I splurged and booked an entire 4 bed compartment, which would give me space and privacy for the 20 hour trip on the same horrible train I'd taken from Hue - I went to the tailor to tell her that I'd need the outfits a day earlier.
And thus tailor insanity began.
No problem having everything - try on what was ready - which were skin tight and the shoulder pulled. No problem - they'd fix it and come to my hotel at 9 PM. Which they did - and the tops still didn't fit properly. No problem - they'd come the next morning. Which they did. And two tops sort of fit but the third one didn't. No problem - they'd fix. And fix. And fix. Into the hotel bathroom to change clothes, out again to show they, back into the bathroom - with the silk sticking to me in the hot, humid air. Finally, I had enough - and had to get ready to catch the train - so I agreed to take two. High drama ensued about the third, which was the one I most wanted but which really didn't fit. It was all just as horrible as I'd imagined 24 hour tailoring to be.
In the brief breaks in tailor insanity, I'd invited a German couple to share my compartment. I thought I'd spare them the horrors of the Soft Seat coach and have gain some company. From the confines of our (relatively) plush perches, we dove under the blankets, because the car was frigid, and then gawked in wonder when, hours later, the AC went off and it... rained... in our compartment. Everything was slick with condensation. My glasses fogged. Then a few minutes later, we dove under our quilts, back in the ice box for the night.
Slouching into Saigon
I arrived in Saigon at 4:30 AM, knowing that check-in at my expensive hotel wouldn't be until 2PM. They had a room which would cost me only a half day's rate, so off I went to sleep. At 5:50 the phone rang - the desk realized that it put me into the wrong room and would like me to move - right then. I attempted to reason with them but they felt an urgent need to correct their error - which I told them I'd be happy to do after 8AM, before firmly returning the phone to its cradle. In the morning, when I went to talk to the manager, he kept explaining that I should have moved. I responded in fine New York style, with no cultural sensitivity.
Competent medical care is not Vietnam's strongpoint - for anything serious, expats go to Bangkok, Singapore or Hong Kong - so I was glad when my travel insurance company came up with the name of a French foundation which uses the fees it gets from treating people like me to subsidize their work with the poor. I saw a young French GP who told me that I would be able to fly, with the only complicating factor possibly being severe pain. Or I could remain in Saigon until it cleared up, which could be 3 weeks. We decided on drugs and a note to the airport doctor in Seoul, where I would change planes, in case of problems.
Feeling relieved and reasonably fit for the first time in a week, I went off to sightsee. There was an interesting, but not very old, Chinese temple, a Hindu temple of similar vintage where a large number of Buddhists pray, and the usual central market. There are a few wonderful French colonial buildings, especially the Post Office, which was designed by Eiffel, and the Opera. Beyond that, things thinned out fast - the only Vietnam War building of interest was the Rex Hotel, where the American government briefed journalists at 5PM daily. Given the widely acknowledged "credibility gap" in government information, the journalists quickly dubbed these briefings "the 5 o'clock follies." I could have gone to Cholon, Chinatown, but passed.
I took long coffee breaks in air conditioned places during the hot hours of the day - Saigon was in the 90's and humid. And it wasn't even the hot season.
The Long Flight Home
The only thing worse than having a 24 hour long flight depart at 12:40 AM is needing to be at the airport three hours early for check-in.
The first flight was 4.5 hours to Seoul. As I popped the painkillers the doctor had given me, I abstractly considered the idea of hours of severe ear pain and the need to break my trip in Korea but I couldn't quite get to the stage of real worry.
The man sitting next to me was a "boat person" - a Vietnamese refugee who left when the Communists won. This son of coastal fisherman had been in America for 28 years, working in factories. This was the end of a three month vacation to see his family, his 9th since leaving and his first in 5 years.
There didn't seem to be a clear reason why he fled, other than the fact that life was changing and he was the only member of his family young, and unattached, enough, to go. So he left and has spent the intervening years in South Carolina, Iowa and now Denver, alone, living in a small room, saving money for his next trip back home. His wife was unwilling to move to America with their 5 year old son. He will return home when he retires; Social Security will let him live very well in Vietnam. But this is still years off.
I try to imagine what he is feeling as he keeps his face towards the airplane window, greedy for every moment he can see Vietnam, his home.
Oh no!!! I was one of those persons that said you would love Hoi An. :-/ Sorry!!!
Posted by: Damian | April 01, 2008 at 05:00 PM
Your trip to Vietnam sounds like an adventure and very physically intensive! You are going to need some time to recover when you get back.
I like the tidbit about crossing the streets in Vietnam. It reminded me of the streets of DR. They have a few traffic lights but obeying them is just a suggestion. As long as you hold down your horn and keep on going, the other cars should know to stop. You look left, right, left, right and left, right again as you hurry across the street.
How is the food?
I am always really amazed about how the little things that we might miss make such an impact on other people around the world (i.e. reading glasses). Wow...
Posted by: Anneil | March 21, 2008 at 04:06 PM