Hanoi is my favorite city in SE Asia so far. I like it better than Bangkok, even though Bangkok had impressive palaces and delicious Thai food. Hanoi’s big advantage is that it is a walking city, and that it has occasional rains that cool the air and give the dirtiness and bustle a romantic aspect.
I arrived by train at 5:00 AM yesterday, and managed to locate my bike and then navigate the pre-dawn streets to a hotel. I’ve mainly explored the Old Quarter, which consists almost entirely of narrow, cockeyed alleys. No street remains straight for more than a few blocks. It is remarkably easy to get lost. I do this as often as possible.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any real stories to tell, so the following post is going to consist of what I will charitably describe as random bullshit.
I am sitting on a bench by the lake, reading a book, harming no one. A shoeshine guy strolls past, points to the hair on my arm, and calls me “monkey man.”
Monkey man. This is a bit much. I would like to state publicly and for the record that I am probably on the below-average side of the hairiness spectrum for an American male. Vast tracts of my flesh are smooth and baby-soft. I can’t even grow a proper goatee.
I admit that the overall trend in my life has been a movement from hairlessness toward increasing fur. If historical patterns hold, I will be a werewolf by the time I reach 90. But I suspect I have reached a plateau. And right now, in 2003, I am hardly a monkey man. Am I?
Yet another new food addiction: caphe trung. Take a shot of sweetened Vietnamese espresso and pour it over a whipped egg. The resulting glass of foam tastes like liquid tiramisu. It’s the only thing I’ve eaten in all of SE Asia that is too rich for seconds. Why can’t you get these things in the the states?
I drink caphe trung in a secret coffee shop that you can only reach by cutting through a nondescript craft store. Once through the shop, you reach an inner courtyard that sits beneath four stories of balconies connected by catwalks and spiral staircases. All of the balconies are hung with Chinese art. This coffee shop is so secret that I was only able to learn of it via the New York Times.
At this point, I think the only major Vietnamese foods I haven’t sampled are frog and dog. I have no particular objection to either of these items, but neither am I seeking them out.
I know what you’re going to say. “How can you even think of eating frog! People keep frogs as pets! Tadpoles are so adorable! You yourself had a pet frog when you were a child!” I grant that all this is true, but just because I don’t have a pet cow or chicken, I’m not going to start getting all chauvinistic. Get a grip, people.
I spy a streetside portrait artist. Like portrait artists everywhere, he has drawn a few celebrities so that passing tourists will think, “If he can make Leonardo DiCaprio look that good, just think what he’ll be able to do for me.” But that’s not what I’m thinking. As I walk by, I’m thinking, “Is that Pervez Musharraf?” I stop. Indeed, it is a full-color pencil drawing of the Paskitani ruler, complete with rimless glasses and military regalia. It’s not a bad drawing either, although Pervez does look slightly constipated. Maybe he was unhappy about having to sit for a portrait while so much was going on back in his own country.
I spent an hour in a shop selling old Vietnamese propaganda posters. I am fascinated by these and know that inevitably I am going to buy some, even though I’m not sure what use I have for them. The images and slogans are striking, and for me they drive home the point that Vietnam has been on the wrong end of three of the worst historical forces of the last century: colonialism, communism, and the power politics of the First World.
In a similar vein, I visited the Hoa Lo Prison, better known as the Hanoi Hilton. Before serving as an American POW camp, the prison was used by French colonialists to house and torture Vietnamese political prisoners. The museum that stands on the site now is surprisingly well done, although it is marred somewhat by its propagandistic insistence that the POW camp was basically a happy summer camp for downed American pilots. Sadly, this creative history only cheapens the abuses the Vietnamese suffered in the prison. Nevertheless, the overall impression is of a country fighting very heroically for its own liberation, only to be immediately delivered into another tragedy.
My grotty hotel room came with a free copy of a French laddie magazine. The cover articles include an interview with Miss Wonderbra and “Danger: La Dictature du Maxi Penis.” Why has the American media establishment remained silent on this terrible Dictator of the Maxipenis? Is this dictator none other than Paskitani strongman Pervez Musharraf? I check my room for bugs.
The magazine is in French, so I can’t even pretend to be reading it for the articles. I am vaguely worried someone might see it, so I hide it under my pillow. This seems even pervier than leaving it in full view, so I put it back on the bed. It’s waiting there for me now.
The old quarter of Hanoi is a warren of travel agencies offering package tours. Take a cruise through the Ha Long Bay. Stay with a villager in the mountains of the Northwest. Trek through Sapa. I am having a hell of a time sorting them all out.
It doesn’t help that I want an oddball tour, a kayak camping trip through the Ha Long Bay. It also doesn’t help that all the tour agencies copy one another’s marketing literature, making their offerings indistinguishable.
Worse, the authors of this marketing literature are unanimous in their belief that quotation marks add emphasis to their claims, when in reality quotation marks add sarcasm. One pamphlet reads:
I worry that when I complain that we were transported in Russian Army Jeeps to a garbage barge that dropped us off on an island inhabited by raccoons wearing monkey suits, the tour operators will just point at the pamphlet and tell me I knew what I was getting.
Nevertheless, tomorrow I leave on a 3-day kayak trip. Hopefully I’ll have some real anecdotes to share when I return.
