To Maggie

Hanoi

John McCain's suit when he was brought to the Hanoi Hilton as prisoner

Approaching Ha Long Bay

Dragon

Driving to Hoi An

Entry #13.  July 10, 2012, 9:09 pm.  Living Room, House, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.  I won’t ever be able to get used to how quickly time flies over here.  Days pass by like they’re a cup of coffee, weeks like 40 oz. beer, and months like a twelve-pack.  We’re talking fast.  How inconvenient it is that when we want time to move slowly, it only accelerates.  But when we’re at places like the DMV or waiting for a red light, it seems that the world stands still.  Maybe I need to explore my inner-Confucius and practice some Asian meditation.  It’s about time I find my chi.

I finally was able to see and discover more of Vietnam two weeks ago. Stephanie, her best friend Sara (our first visitor and survivor of Jmart Guesthouse), and I traveled to Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, Da Nang, and Hoi An.  The latter two are beach towns in the middle of the country and were the remedy to my beach deprivation sickness.  The nearest beach is one hour away from Saigon, and I don’t think I have gone this long (~4 months) without going to a beach in my entire life.  I was very content to put my toes back into the water, crack open a cold one, and recollect my bronze from the sun.  I now have my glow again.  What is comical is that in Vietnam, the whiter your skin the more beautiful you are.  Girls go to great lengths to keep their skin unpolluted from the sun, as Asian people can tan very easily. They will wear sweaters, pants, gloves, long socks, and facemasks in the heat and while driving so that not an inch is exposed.  So it turns out that I came back from the beach uglier and tanner.  Michael Jackson had the right idea, for Asia anyway.

Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, was beautiful and filled with more history.  The city has both a European and traditional Vietnamese feel about it while also having a character different from that of Saigon.  Imagine comparing New York to Atlanta.  In Hanoi, the people are slightly less kind to tourists, the food is less spicy, the buildings are older, the streets are less chaotic, and my cell phone is still riding around in a random Hanoi cab.  We saw Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, but it was closed so we didn’t get to go into it to see his preserved body.  Supposedly it is only open to tourists a few hours each day, and then you can't see that Ho, no mo’.  Hanoi was also one of the hottest places I have ever been.  Unlike Saigon, it has humidity on par with the oppressive, sticky clamminess of a summer in South Florida.  I had some nasty back-sweat stains happening and I wasn’t happy about it.  Although this was appeased with my very memorable Hanoi massage.  We went to a recommended parlor that was off the beaten track and probably not going to be written in the Lonely Planet anytime soon.  The staff immediately separated us so that I was led into the men’s section and the girls were ushered down a scary corridor, seemingly never to be seen again.  Phase 1- undress.  In a communal locker room/spa, I disrobed and put on the house boxers (again, way too small), while others chose to keep it natural and expose their Vietnamese Dong (yike$).   Phase 2- shower.  They took me to a communal shower and scrubbed me down by hand with coarse sponges.  I haven’t been bathed like that since I was in diapers.  Phase 3- barrel soak.  Then, I was escorted to a vertical wooden barrel filled with hot water that smelled like tea.  They plopped me in there and then just stared at me.  I tried talking to them but their courteous nods told me that they did not speak English or understand my bad jokes.  Instead, they fed me cigarettes and tried to communicate in Vietnamese, which of course failed.  Phase 4- Jacuzzi soak.  After a good 10 minutes in the smelly barrel, I was re-cleaned in a Jacuzzi tub, bubbles, soap, naked Vietnamese men, and all.  Phase 5- the massage.  Finally, the real deal.  They showed me to a private room with the proper table and female masseuse.  Again, it was soothing and strange at the same time, more so when the lady was completely standing on top of me.  Overall, it was similar to my other massage- pleasingly painful and I liked the way it hurt.  Afterwards, I found myself thinking “ugh, I need a massage after that massage”.

Ha Long Bay was spellbinding.  The bay is unique for its mysterious mountains, rolling fog, and floating villages and the pictures can't do it justice.  The legend says that some thousands of years ago, some dragon did something bad to some powerful deity, and it was somehow cursed to live in the bay as some sum of mountain-like somethings.  The details escape me.  We arranged to spend one night and two days on a boat that took us around the area.  We went kayaking, fishing, cave-exploring, pearl farming, and even received a bonus spring roll cooking lesson.  I rolled those babies tight and fat.  If ever in Vietnam, Ha Long Bay is absolutely not to be missed.

Da Nang was great for its wide beach and warm water.  In our day in Da Nang, we established beach base camp quite early, say around 11 am.  We were the only ones.  We had the entire beach and ocean to ourselves, but only until 4 pm came around.  The aforementioned Asian obsession with pale skin limits the locals to early morning and late afternoon beach excursions.  That is all fine and dandy, but they arrived by the busloads, all within the same 30 minutes.  It was like a D-Day invasion, except that no one arrived by boat, we were only fighting for towel space, and people had coolers instead of  machine guns.  The incursion did take us by surprise, though.  I was pretty scarred from the size of the average middle-aged Vietnamese man’s bathing suit, and if symptoms of PTSD arise I will see the necessary professional.

Hoi An was likely my favorite place.  We rented motorbikes in Da Nang and then drove along the coast to Hoi An, which was a gorgeous jaunt along the water and through small villages.  The end result was even more charming.  Hoi An, about an hour away from Da Nang, is the quintessential authentic Vietnamese town.  The buildings are relics from the old, slower days.  The streets are still lit by lanterns at night, and the markets have changed little.  But the city is most famous for its hundreds of tailors.  Because I was traveling with two fashion-happy girls who only wanted to get dresses made all day, I was expecting to find an unhurried drinking spot and spend the day alone.  But after walking into the first tailor, I was hooked.  I became more enthusiastic about it than Sara and Stephanie by the end of the day, speaking only of sizes, fabrics, designs, and colors.  It's like I had to watch a football game afterwards to cancel out my effeminate day of shopping for clothes.  In the end, I had two pairs of linen pants made, one button-down shirt, and a pair of boat shoes.  I was too indecisive for a full-on suit, so it became my excuse to make it back to Hoi An. 

One event occurred since my last post that jolted my existence in Asia and really made me miss home.  My kooky, devoted dog Maggie died suddenly from an unknown illness or ingested poison.  I woke up one morning while in Hanoi to read an email from my dad that explained the incident.  It took me a long time to appreciate the realness of it, and then a flood of heart wrenching sadness overcame me that eventually led me to question my life away from those whom I love.  But just like missing the weddings of some very close friends, it was all part of my decision to move across the world.  However, I will forever miss the tail-wagging, unconditional, slightly sideways greeting that Faggie Maggie gave me every time I came home.  I am accepting donations to build her a Ho Chi Minh-type mausoleum, only bigger and open for longer hours.

I’m sure you are as tired of reading as I am of writing, so I will quickly conclude with the assurance that I am still happy and venturesome in Vietnam.  I was assigned new classes and now realize how much my teaching skills have improved.  My new thing is to have all the students each pick an English name and to give me a Vietnamese name.  The names they choose are random and hilarious.  When an Asian Bob sits next to a female Harold, I tend to lose it.  One class gave me the Vietnamese name Long, which means dragon.  That was cool before I wrote it on the board, but used the wrong tone over the o so that it instead meant “body hair”.  THAT is why they were laughing so hard.  I still play the dating game anytime I can, and just last night I acquired a new classroom gem.  The students were asking me how to spell certain adjectives to describe their perfect man/woman, like intelligent, beautiful, and successful.  One older man, however, asked me how to spell dangerous and, ...stinky.  I didn’t ask.

I hope the summer finds you all doing well.  I celebrated the Fourth of July by throwing a house party that included beer pong and flip cup with American beer.  Cuc, the cleaning lady, wasn’t so flag-waving on July 5.  Talk to you all again soon.

P.S.  I saw a Vietnamese midget today, and they are just as frightening over here as they are back home.