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Published: October 9th 2010
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Hanoi 48 secs
"...if I eat one more mooncake, I'm going to hurl!"
These eloquent words, translated from Chinese, kicked off the Mid-Autumn Festival in China as I walked from my new office building to the waiting company shuttle. We were leaving work on the eve of a three-day festival celebrating the full harvest moon and the joys of family and companionship. Apparently, I had become close enough to my coworkers that they felt comfortable sharing these scintillating details with me.
No matter. I had more important things to think about, such as the arrival of my friend Ginger Mack from the US via Ulan Baator, Mongolia. She was leaving Mongolia after visiting a friend in the wild countryside and planning to spend the next ten days experiencing the frenetic energy of Beijing. I was excited to play tour guide for my first visitor of 2010 and had planned an impossible ambitious schedule for us- one I knew would change by the day.
It was somewhat surreal to see Ginger standing in the street in the middle of my neighborhood, but strangely familiar at the same time. We decided to jump in headfirst and headed off to play in Olympic Park-
the home of the famous Bird's Nest stadium and Water Cube aquatic center.
Though I'd been back in China for nine months, I still hadn't made the trek to see the Olympic sites. I was awed by the architecture of the Bird's Nest as we got closer. After a thorough security check (really? Two years later?), we were permitted to enter the stadium. I couldn't wrap my mind around how enormous it actually was inside. Ginger and I tested various vantage points, trying to determine which had the best view, but they all seemed pretty fabulous to us.
Though it seemed difficult to top that particular excursion, the ensuing few days were awfully fun, too. One particularly colorful experience included getting ripped off at Houhai Lake when attempting to give Ginger a rickshaw tour of the hutongs (old Beijing alley neighborhoods) near the lake. Our rickshaw driver spoke limited English, but his Chinese tour left much to be desired as well: "There is a bar. Here is the lake. And there is another bar. There is a boat." You get the picture.After refusing his demand for a tip (but pulling foreigners is so diiiiifficult), we escaped with our
wallets intact and our pride damaged.
Ah, yes. Welcome to touristy Beijing.
After the three-day festival, it was back to the office for me. My new office location is in the far southwest portion of the city, so I often don't arrive home until 7:30 PM, if the traffic is good (keep in mind that "good" is a relative term in Beijing). I was concerned that Ginger would be all by her lonesome each night as I battled traffic to get home (well, as our shuttle driver battled traffic and I learned Chinese jokes and slang from my coworkers), but my Beijing family of friends stepped up to the plate and spirited Ginger around the city both day and night. She even got a free boxing lesson from a semi-professional pal. Where else but Beijing?
Six days after the Mid-Autumn Festival, it was time for a week-long vacation to commemorate the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949. (Since Chinese holidays are based on the lunar calendar, this year the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays were much closer together than usual). I had pondered long and hard about what to do with
my free week and finally decided it was time to trek to Southeast Asia. I'm a bit of a history buff and so elected to visit Vietnam to see how the country has changed since the Vietnam War in the early 1970s (or, the American War, as it's known in Asia). Seeking a travel companion, I invited Ginger and she happily accepted. I received a generous travel fellowship from the Martha Porter Kilgour Fund for the Advancement of Pianistic Ambassadors for Forgiveness and Goodwill in SE Asia, Unltd. (Mc FaPafSea), which greatly helped my journey, as well.
On October 1, we left Beijing and flew to Hanoi in northern Vietnam via Hong Kong. Although our flight from Beijing to Hong Kong was delayed by over an hour, leaving us with scant time to make our connection in Hong Kong, we were able to make a seamless transfer, thanks to the considerate folks of Hong Kong Express airways who met us at the airport and whisked us away to the waiting jet, setting the tone for the rest of our adventure.
Due to the unexpected delay, we didn’t arrive in Hanoi until 1:30 AM on October 2. Our hotel
had not replied to Ginger’s email requesting confirmation of an airport pickup, so we were uncertain whether anyone would be greeting us at such a late hour. Happily, I spotted a handwritten sign for “Ginger.MerritWilso” being held by a young man who had clearly just woken up from a nap. Good, that meant he would be wide awake and refreshed for the trip into Hanoi. Probably.
As we reached the outer limits of Hanoi proper, I had to take a second look at the clock on the dashboard. Was it really nearly 2 o’clock in the morning? Scooters were scooting, horns were honking, and people were everywhere. Little did we know it would merely be a precursor to the scene of the morning ahead.
At 6:30 AM, my internal clock jolted me awake. I bolted upright, panicked that I was late for work. As my eyes adjusted to the early morning sunlight filtering into the room through the hotel curtains, I relaxed, realizing that I was sitting in a hotel room in Hanoi, Vietnam. Ginger and I soon found ourselves tucked into a tiny alleyway off a main street in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, where French architecture
is reminiscent of a time when Vietnam was a colony of the European nation. Neither of us spoke any Vietnamese, so it was only through enthusiastic gesticulation and a scrap of paper on which "Toi khong an thit!" (I don't eat meat!) had been written for me by our kind hotel proprietor that we were able to sit down to two steaming bowls of noodles, tofu, and parsley for our first breakfast in Vietnam. Total cost? 1 USD.
Northern Vietnam turned out not to be an optimal place for vegetarians. Armed with my trusty "I don't eat meat" sentence scrawled on the back of a worn map, I attempted to eat my way through Hanoi's plentiful street food options. It soon became apparent, however, that when the key ingredient is omitted, the meal quickly becomes a simple bowl of noodles in broth with a few greens thrown in for color. I liked the feeling of immersion I got while squatting at a low table in an alley off th emain thoroughfare, but my empty stomach demanded an upgrade. Reluctantly, I gave in and Ginger and I wound up enjoying some delicious meals at proper restaurants. My favorite? A tomato
and tofu dish cooked in a clay pot. And don't get me started on the fresh fruit juices and smoothies- I may just drool on my keyboard. So, in the end, all it took was a little extra searching and this veggie lover ended up with a full stomach and a happy heart.
The difference between 2 AM and 8 AM in Hanoi was astounding. As we stepped back onto the main street, motorbikes whizzed past us in every direction as cars inched forward bumper-to-bumper and pedestrians threw themselves into the fray. The cacophony of horns was overwhelming- literally not half a second passed after one chorus died down before another began. We soon found ourselves smack dab in the middle of a real-life game of Frogger. As in Beijing, I found it best, and safest, to cross the street when the locals crossed. In Beijing, there is a bit of give and take between drivers in pedestrians, but in Vietnam pedestrians are best advised to cross the road slowly and steadily- never stopping or second-guessing drivers, as that served only to confuse them. I had trouble adjusting to this new order and found myself reverting to Beijing rules,
but Ginger was an old pro in no time and I found crossing with her an excellent means of avoiding unintended loss of limb.
I never considered the fashionable possibilities of a motorbike helmet before vacationing in Vietnam. No one wears a helmet in Beijing- one would apparently lose one's street cred if one were to do so, safety be damned. In Hanoi, however, everyone, and I mean
everyone, wears a helmet. Plastic, with visors, without visors, child-size, designer-label- anything was possible. I have never seen so many Burberry helmets in my life. Scratch that. I have never before seen a Burberry-emblazoned motorbike helmet. You learn something new every day....
My interest in history made me eager to visit some of the remnants of the Vietnam War that still exist in Hanoi today. A primary motivating factor in my decision to visit Vietnam was the war, as it had touched my U.S. family personally- my father's cousin, an only son, was killed in combat in Vietnam. I wanted to learn about the Vietnamese perspective of the war and see how different modern Vietnam was today from the war-ravaged country we read about in our high school World
Hoa Lo Prison
AKA The Hanoi HiltonHistory textbooks.
The first place I was interested in visiting was Hoa Lo Prison, the facility where U.S. Senator John McCain was a prisoner of war for five years. Known sarcastically among U.S. servicemen imprisoned there during the war as the "Hanoi Hilton," the compound was surprisingly nondescript on the outside. We first passed through the quarters where Vietnamese prisoners were housed under the French occupation. Needless to say, the conditions were abysmal. Dark, musty, cold, and damp- that was the reality for hundreds of Vietnamese during that period.
We then moved into the section where the American G.I.s were housed after the Vietnamese regained control of the country from the French. The walls of the prison were plastered with photos of smiling GIs playing basketball in the sunlight of the prison yard, grinning GIs digging into Christmas Eve dinner in the prison canteen, and chuckling GIs watching a prison variety show. The apparent contrast between the Vietnamese and American POW experience was profound. Well done, Vietnamese propagandists, well done. There is no question that there are two sides to every tale and we must be careful not to blindly accept what we learn in the West as
fact. However, our Asian counterparts must do the same, and that perspective on world history was not made possible by the Hanoi Hilton. After all, there is a reason Senator McCain cannot raise his arms over his head, and I don't think it's because he went in for one too many layups.
Visiting the prison turned out to be a bit of a downer. I'd thought I would feel more removed from the war- after all, I wasn't even born until the 1980s- but my innate patriotism kicked into gear and I felt saddened by the wartime atrocities that had been committed by both sides. Politics are rarely enacted by the people themselves; I think it's important to maintain a firm separation between a nation's government and the people being governed.
We were in desperate need of a change of gears, so we decided to go see a traditional form of Vietnamese entertainment- a water puppet show. The show was quite unlike anything I'd ever seen in China. A band comprised of musicians playing various traditional Vietnamese instruments accompanied each vignette of the show. The puppets danced on the "stage," which was a large pool of clear water
set in front of the audience. The puppeteers, hidden behind an elaborate backdrop, controlled the puppets via long, taut strings that, amazingly, never got tangled up as the puppets leaped and twirled across the surface of the water. It was a magical ending to what had turned out to be quite a sobering day.
The next day, we headed two hours south of Hanoi to visit the Perfume Pagoda, an ancient temple located inside a cave the size of an American football stadium. We left Hanoi at 7:30 AM, when the streets were still relatively quiet, and drove to a tiny wharf in the middle of the Vietnamese countryside. The pagoda was 2.5 KM away and accessible only by traditional Vietnamese rowboat, helmed by tiny women who looked as though they couldn't hoist a sack of rice, let alone row six Westerners 2.5 KM up the Yan River. But they could, and did, and it was amazing. The scenery was absolutely spectacular. We glided up the river next to shellfish farmers who were checking their traps and hauling in the day's catch before poling their skiffs on to check the next trap.
Once we reached the foot of
the mountain, we took a cable car up 6 KM, then hiked an additional 2 KM to the mouth of the cave. The cave itself was quite interesting to look at- I actually admired the stalagmites and stalactites more than the Buddhist temple we'd come to see. After a hearty lunch, we took the trip back down the river and to our waiting shuttle that whisked us away from the serene beauty of the countryside and back to the hustle and bustle of Hanoi.
We weren't back in the thick of it long before we signed up for an overnight cruise on UNESCO World Heritage Site Halong Bay (literally, Descending Dragon Bay). The area is characterized by over 3,000 monolithic limestone islands, each topped with thick jungle vegetation. Several of the islands are hollow, with enormous caves. The limestone in this bay has gone through 500 million years of formation in different conditions and environments. The evolution of the karst in this bay has taken 20 million years under the impact of the tropical wet climate. Historical research surveys have shown the presence of prehistorical human beings in this area tens of thousands years ago.
We boarded our
"junk," as they are known in boat slang, after riding a water taxi from the Halong Bay wharf to the spot where the junk was anchored. It was a gorgeous vessel, ornately carved and ornamented with golden inlays of the Chinese character for double happiness. The 20 of us in the water taxi let out a spontaneous cheer upon our first glimpse of the boat; the feeling of excitement was palpable. After enjoying a welcome lunch, we retired to the upper deck to enjoy the scenery as the boat glided between limestone karsts and to wave to fellow tourists doing the same on the rooftop decks of other junks nearby.
Our first stop was called "Surprise Cave;" indeed, it was a surprise to us as we walked through the endless, meandering passageways and caverns of the cave. We chatted amicably with our fellow passengers- I enjoyed the look of surprise on each individual's face when I answered "China" after being asked where I was from. Perhaps that was the biggest 'surprise' of the cave!
It was just beginning to lightly mist when our guide announced we were going kayaking. Hmmm. Not being an especially huge fan of tippy
boats, I was a bit reluctant to join in at first, but knew I could only continue to grow by challenging myself, so bravely told our guide that Ginger and I would like to go. Once on the water, I had a grand old time- sometimes, the most difficult part about any new experience is the effort it takes to convince yourself to "just do it, already!"
Our seafood dinner that night and lunch the following day were multiple courses and very tasty. Ginger and I both enjoyed swapping travel stories with a pair of Australian girls we met on the boat who quickly became our dining companions. The cruise was a fitting escape from the city and a relaxing time that really epitomized our vacation. We weren't even fazed when the junk broke down on our way back to the wharf the second day and it began to rain- it just added to the mystical aspect of the experience. As did our tour guide, who insisted that his Vietnamese name was too difficult for Westerners to remember and that we could just call him "Handsome." Just intercultural communication at its finest...
Before we knew it, our week
in Vietnam had come to an end. The last day in Hanoi was spent wandering down the myriad alleyways and marketplaces of the city and sitting at a local cafe people-watching. As I am whenever I travel internationally, I was so struck by the many similarities Vietnam shared with other countries of the world. Inter-personal etiquette or cooking methods of Vietnam may differ from those of China or the United States, but the love a father has for his daughter is the same. The laughter and camaraderie shared by friends is the same. The feeling of pride one has for one's country is the same. People are people. I cannot state this strongly enough. I went into this trip uncertain how I would be received as an American in an area of Vietnam that was relentlessly bombed by American fighter jets and where anti-American Vietcong forces had strongholds a mere 30-odd years ago. But it seemed the past was the past. The city has healed and I think the people have, too. We were greeted as international friends. It was a good thing to see.
By the end of the week, I felt enriched and enlightened....but ready to go
home. The chaotic streets of Hanoi, coupled with my inability to communicate in the local language began to wear on me. I felt thankful, though, that I truly thought of Beijing as home and that I had a great job, wonderful family of friends, and comprehension of the local language and culture waiting for me when I got back. There really is no place like home.
Unless it's an all-expense paid trip to Tahiti. Then home can wait.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Great Blog
I'm off to Vietnam in a months time and really enjoyed reading your blog. The comments about McCain made me laugh, even if its a serious matter! I've just come from China and loved it there, so hope you enjoy your time there.