baht, dollars and dong, oh my

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Xin chao, fools.

Baguettes abound, balconies (take the porch, one of the three great things about the American South, give it a fancy French twist and you have absolute perfection), backpacker banter and brisk bounds through never-broken traffic of brake-a-phobic bikes ... (will be embedding a video here later) and there you have it.

There's not nearly as much bread, cheese and wine as there should be (is there ever?), but it's here and while the only way to find anything in Hanoi is to get lost, more lost and so much more lost that you'll eventually be found, we've managed to locate a few little bakeries close enough by that with careful steps we can almost make it there and back without whipping out the map (or the blaring neon welcome mat warmly inviting all taxi drivers, pick-pockets, cons and other such entrepreneurs). It's all worth it though, waking up, showering in our most surprising bathtub, stepping into a silk kimono, through our window onto the balcony, baguette and brown cow in hand, to munch and read Murakami aloud to a chorus of honking and trapped-bird-chirping to congeal the Asian in my French morning.

I'm still adjusting to the role of the tourist, but enjoying a certain freedom with my digi and have just about settled into accepting the fact that I will end up paying too much for things and that's what I get for not knowing how to count in vietnamese or do proper rate exchanges in my head.

Trying to think in three currencies is quite the challenge (things are listed on menus and given to white tourists more often in USD than VND -- dong) and while most Vietnamese will convincingly pound away at their calculators 'til the cows come home, none of them actually know how to translate between the two or how to factor in Thai Baht without losing a few dollars/dong/baht overboard either to their benefit or ours (usually theirs). To an absurd point. Like the hotel we were staying in ... they quoted us 85B which is an amazing deal -- if the math they used held any water. Which it didn't. Turned out we were paying the equivalent of 480B. Oops.

But we moved. And bought a calculator. And today's Maw's birthday and so we're hittin' the town. Last night we finally popped the girl-bubble we've so nurtured and branched out to the backpacker scene. I played pool with a guy from Tokyo, who's lived in Paris for the past five years, who's in Hanoi doing an abstract textile installation ... and two Vietnamese guys, one of which spoke a little French and the other a little English and a little Thai. So we bantered in four languages over this pool table under looming graffittied walls while Maw batted her eyes with a Texan teaching and living here. Tonight I'm meeting up with a lanky, well-read Portugese man in a floating bar, Maw and her Texan in tow, to test our sea legs at dancing. Tomorrow, Temple of Literature. The next day we're hauling ourselves and all shopping exploits over to Ha Long Bay to live on a Chinese Junk for a few days ... then back to Hanoi for the ballet in the old opera house ... then a museum tour ... then ... and then ... oooh eventually back to work, back home, back to such and such.

Back to work ain't so bad, though. I'm pretty excited to get my hands back into that art curriculuum I fought so hard for and will be happy to be getting back to the more familiar and the curries (the Vietnamese have nothin' on Thais when it comes to food) and the smiles and appreciating the little Thai I can speak so much more.

There are piles and heaps and mountainous messes of pictures that I'm going to embed all over this insanity the second I either find the patience to upload them onto this ancient tin can I'm typing on or when I get back and can edit and upload at my own pace with the laptop. Hold on to your seats, ladies and gents.

'Til soon.

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