Saturday, March 10, 2007

Haaaaaallllooooooooo!

Part-taunt. Part-greeting. Part-sales pitch. You hear this "Haaaalllooo" from everywhere, passing scooters, out of the windows of buildings, from automobiles, from young childeren, street vendors. Everywhere. I would like to think that Peggy and I are being proactive of walking everywhere we can, but have started to grow weary of people yelling at us.

It is a way of calling out, 'Foreigner' and letting people know you're different. Back home in California, we don't go around yelling "Neeeeee Hoooooooooow" to every Chinese person, nor "Whaaaaaaaaasuppppp" to every black guy I see. Here in Vietnam, I know I stick out, why accentuate it? And why "Haallllooo"? Why not "Goooootentaaag", perhaps "Booooonjooooor", or even a "G'Daaaaaaay"? How do they know we are Americans, is it the straightened teeth and fancy sneakers? Perhaps the look of heightened imperialism gleaming in our eye?



The conversations that we do have with people who've managed to get themselves past the "Hello" part have been great. The follow up questions are usually "Where are you from", or, "What is your name". We like asking people what they did for the Tet celebrations, which usually involve answers relating to both family and sticky rice recipes. It is just the a-holes who yell "Haaaaalllloooo" at us, then turn to their friends snickering like they really got one over on these newbies. Love your country, really, but let's keep this party polite.

posted by ncawthon at 12:48 PM

Woof! There It Is

My friends, it is a dog eat dog world and someones gotta serve it. The Vietnamese have been known for their culinary love of man's best friend, mistaking dog for being man's best entree. In colder months, both the Vietnamese as well as the Koreans chow down on old rufus believing that eating dog generates an unusual amount of body heat to help keep warm. I generally use a blanket to keep warm, but who am I to judge?

We are stating now that we will NOT eat dog unless it is a shade-grown, grass-fed, single origin, organically produced canine. Until then, pooches is strictly off the menu. This, of course, unless a restaurant offers those delectable little Daschund wiener dogs, they have always looked so delicious, the way they wiggle to and fro. They'd be really good with some mustard and sauerkraut, maybe have some chocolate lab for desert?

posted by ncawthon at 12:40 PM

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Three Eight

Happy International Women's Day! The eighth of March is celebrating women everywhere, and really, where would we be without women? The Chinese and Vietnamese have a saying, that either a man or a woman is 'three-eight'. In the man's case, it means his woman keeps him on a really short leash. In the woman's case, it means she is a bitch. Just thought I'd share that. School girls all around Hanoi have roses and other trinkets given to them by their scooter driving boyfriends. The plush animal district, which we passed by on the bus, is doing a brisk business today, nearly stopping the flow of traffic from all of the diverted scooters of romantics.

For Peggy's present, we took the bus to the Ethenology Museum and went out to lunch afterwards. The museum itself was interesting enough, chronicling all of the different ethnic minorities in the region. The bus ride, however, was a good slice of Hanoi. Turns out the buses here don't stop, just slow down. In order to catch one, you literally have to 'catch' one, running along side of it as the driver opens the doors. We watched as a disembarking elderly couple didn't jump off fast enough, the husband getting his pant leg caught in the door, while the wife never made it off the bus. After some angry words and very agile hopping by the husband, everything was OK. Your bus ticket also includes some complimentary propaganda music pumped over the loudspeaker, hearalding the virtues of raising pigs or farming rice.

Lunch was an experience as well. We went to a beer garden type of place next to the museum and got a little more than we bargained for. Sitting down, Peggy pointed at the table next to us, who were eating a 'hot pot' type of dish amongst the twelve of them, saying we'd like one of those. The waiter got a bit flustered and found a back-up, who also got an additional person to confirm that this was, in fact, what we ordered. You know that there is a problem when you have to order the same thing to three separate people. They first brought out a chicken chopped up into chunks, head, feet and all, staring at us blankly. I told Peggy that this was her Three Eight gift. The staff kept bringing out ingredients for this hot pot, culminating to a feast could have fed the entire restaraunt, dozens of people.

We sheepishly prepared our chicken and additives under the constant gaze of about a dozen people. They must have just wanted to see if two human beings could possible consume that amount of food in one sitting. I've never been to a 'if you can eat it, the meal is free' type of resaraunt, but it was this kind of spectacle. We felt a bit embarassed when we tried to pay without leaving so much as of a dent in our boiling chicken medley.

posted by ncawthon at 7:49 PM

Halong Must We Sing this Song?

Ahoy from the deck of the "Jewel of the Bay", our faux junk boat enscripted to take us on our overnight to Halong Bay. The boat terminal is chock-a-block (crowded) with boats identical to our own. Well over one hundred, my nautical eyeball tells me, all looking quite similar to one another. Average capacity maybe fifteen or twenty people and the variety of trips lasting from one night to one week. Our boat guide tells us that Vietnam only started offering overnight trips on the Bay five years ago. making this slice of the domestic tourism industry a recent but very successful one.

The weather is a sleepy mist, enveloping the Bay with a grey haze. It is among the only real percipitation we've seen this trip. We've done a hike to the cave inside one of the rock outcroppings, which was a bit underwhelming. There are too many people crowding around and taking pictures, making one feel as if it is a cattle car instead of a geological wonder. Viet, our apropriately named guide, has got a future in public speaking. He tends to drone on and on for twenty minutes or so at every turn of the path, all done in somewhat shakey English. The Vietnamese consevators have labeled various stalactites and stalagmites to resemble dragons, turtles, men, women and their respective body parts. The male version of the latter was tastefully illuminated with a pulsing red light, attempting to provide a climactic end to any carefree cave romp.

We've been told that for lunch we will be having an eight course menu, and for dinner an eleven course menu. I hope that the quality will be as emphasized as the quantity. I think we're just a bit travel weary at this point, looking forward to returning to the familiar comforts of home. Although very pretty, the Halong Bay experience is somewhat dampered by the poor weather and our own jaded mindset. Perhaps it is just because I am under the weather, tomorrow looks to pick up.

I've randomly run into the third person I've known, the second girl from the same ad agency in Sydney. The first one I sat next to in a cybercafe in Cambodia, the second I met at a bus stop in Hanoi. For us, travelling requires a fine balance between seeing enough Western faces to give you a sense of comfort; that you are neither encroaching nor completely lost. This, in contrast to being on the mainstream tourist track with every Tom, Dick and Harry who can figure out how to book a package tour.

posted by ncawthon at 12:22 AM

Monday, March 05, 2007

Red Asphalt

Ba Ca was a whirlwind of activity. We photographed, haggled, slurped soup and did shots of villager distilled corn whiskey; all before noon. On our way back to the train station, our driver of the Ruski jeep speed his way daftly down the mountain. We came a across a back up of cars, proceeding to cut ahead of three minibuses to angle ourselves for a better look at the commotion. It turns out there was a head-on scooter collision, with both bikes left in a mangled mess in the middle of the road. Thankfully, no visible injuries or wounded as we came on the scene. Just to paint the picture a bit further, this is very rural Vietnam, people were squatting on the hillsides to watch, chickens walking to and fro, rice paddies being paddied by women in triangular hats in the background. A farming road at best, running its way through villages. So, it struck me as odd that a guy was drawing a rudimentary line in red paint around the silhouette of one of the smashed scooters. We've confirmed before that there is no insurance here for scooter or tuk tuk, only automobiles. I dunno, it just looked a bit humorous, as if he was being very official in detailing the murder of his fallen steed.

Once the road cleared, our jeep driver tried to edge his way around the asphalt gravel truck in front of us. For those of you familiar with asphalt gravel trucks, they are quite heavy industrial vehicles, the tires being huge and the payload and body of the truck high off the ground. Our driver, trying to avoid the ditch on our left, accelerated the right side of the jeep into the back of this massive vehicle. The impact shattered the right half of the windshield, sending shards of glass into the cab. The passenger's side mirror was mauled completely, freely swinging towards the ground. The entire front right frame of the jeep buckled and distorted from the force of the collision, preventing the door from opening. The surrounding villagers, who had already gathered around the scene from the first accident let out a collective 'Ole' yell, understandable in any language.

Su, our guide sitting shotgun, was visibly shaken. The driver didn't stop due to there likely being no damage to the truck, and we progressed on in silence. Peggy and I, fine in the backseat save a few shards of glass and mirror at our feet, looked at each other with raised eyebrows and an 'Oh. Shit.' expression on our faces. A good half hour later, the driver tried to banter a bit in Vietnamese with Su, who wasn't really of the mind to hear any of it. 'My dad's got this killer set of tools; I can totally fix it', I imagined him saying.

The evening didn't turn out much better than the afternoon. We were dropped off at a local Pho (noodle soup) restaurant five hours early for our train departure. Reassured that our bags would be safe should we want to walk around the gritty Chinese border town of Loa Cai, we grabbed some plastic chairs and neglected to let them out of our sight. The tickets issued for our train stated that they were indeed 'train tickets', but we needed an additional boarding pass type of slip to make it on board.

With four hours to kill, I set off to figure out how to get said boarding slip. Walking through the train station parking lot, I found a minibus driver from one of the hotels in Sapa who pointed me to go over to a phone booth outside the station to get the slip. Not really understanding what he meant, I went to an office immediately behind the phone boot. The gentleman there, who had just sat down for his afternoon tea, led me purposefully by the hand (which was a bit weird) to the huddled masses surrounding the ticket windows. I picked one of the eight swarming queues and tried forcing my way to the nearest window.

Unbeknown to me, the Hanoi train was close to selling out. There were people yelling and shoving, women trying to buy their way to the front of the line. Cadre policemen were yelling at people with their megaphones and escorting them out of the station. Just another afternoon at the Loa Cai train station. I finally got up to the booth after being cut in front of about fifty times, well after the Hanoi train sold out. The disgruntled ticket agent lady just shrugged and handed the tickets back to me. The two other people standing around whom I had asked for advice both gave me different but consistently vague answers on what I needed to do to get on this train.

Back at the noodle restaurant, Peggy was trying to forget she saw a mouse scampering towards the kitchen and unsuccessfully finding something to order for dinner. She took the boarding pass cause upon herself and tried her luck with the owner of the restaurant, who said that he knew what to do and would help her. She gave him our tickets when he said that his wife knew a guy that would come over in ten minutes or so to help out. Forty minutes of no-show later, we were sweating a bit. With an hour left until our train was due to pull out of the station, we decided to forcefully retrieve the only thing that had our names on it and try our own luck at the station again.

As we approached the terminal, the restaurant owner zipped by on his scooter from a block away and said he would again help us. A few paces later, we reached a young twenty-something year old guy, sitting on the steps with his friends, only a few yards from the same phone booth I was directed to. He casually looked at our tickets and produced our needed boarding passes, stapling them together. No payment requested from either person, very little formality in the process at all. It was one of those events that leave you scratching your head going, 'hunh, how did that work?'

posted by ncawthon at 3:32 PM

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Hmong Friends

We're driving up to a trading village called Ba Ca in a cultural revolution era Russian military jeep. Without seat belts, this vehicle's shocks and struts have not been replaced since Mao was on the prowl. Bad day to have stomach upsets and try to go 120k in the mountains. The driver is a disheveled looking Vietnamese man in a Members Only jacket, accompanied by a persistent smoker's cough. To his right sits Su, the pretty young Hmong woman who will serve as our guide for the day. It is just Peggy and I in the backseat, no teenage tour group to ruin our fun.

There are about a half-dozen different village tribes within the region, each with their own ornate costume and head wear. Some have some very distinctive appearances, with protruding foreheads accentuated with shaved heads up past the temples. They all generally sell cloth weaving, clothes or blankets, sometimes silver. I've also been offered opium by a green complexioned, one-toothed woman. Not sure which tribe she's from. Surprisingly, a select few of the vendors have excellent command of English, a skill developed from years of haggling with tourists. Although their verbal skills are at times impressive, I would guess the reading and writing would be lacking a bit, given no formal education. Nonetheless, the tribal women, especially the Hmong, are extremely friendly.

We chatted with a lady who told us all about her Tet / New Year's celebration. She said she had in her village a pig, chicken, goat, buffalo and elephant. I inquired a bit further about the elephant, doing my best impression of one, to which she started talking about different sticky rice recipes, leading me to think that something got lost in translation.

Sapa (Sa Pa) is an old city in the mountains, which we surmise was formerly used as a trading village or perhaps a strategic town along the Chinese border. All along the surrounding mountain sides, rice paddies create stairways stretching vertically to the sky. The positioning of this city in a mountain valley exposes it to massive fog banks that come rolling through, reminiscent of our Golden Gate. Sapa will be basking in the sunshine one minute, then enveloped in fog the next. The town itself really isn't that big, maybe 40,000 people. Tourism is the main game here, having started in full 12 years ago (probably a through Lonely Planet mention) and peaking on the weekend market days during the dry season. Just where we're at.

Ba Ca is another remote village that hosts the regional market on Sundays. You can buy the same handicrafts that one could in Sapa, but there is more of a local feel and a much larger turn out. Any type of animal is either being sold or butchered in the food stalls. Puppies cost $8, water buffalo $250, baby chickens are a dime a dozen. The Flower Hmong women dominate here, called as such because of their very colourful and ornate dressing. A photographer's dream.

The village women do all the selling, while the men are back in the villages or transporting people and materiel to and for. If a pack of villagers gets a whiff that you want to buy something, either through a pause in stride or fleeting eye contact, you're suddenly surrounded. They'll wear you down with relentless 'buy from me' sales tactics. If you should sit down for a second, or stop to look at a map, a half dozen girls and women nab you and fight for your attention. Various pantomiming will be attempted to show off their craftsman ship, convey a desired price and finally find a buyer.

There is one exemption to the tourist mongering habits of the village tribes: the Chinese. They arrive in town stomping in perfectly ordered columns of four, with their tour leader in front of the pack. The Chinese wear these bright red baseball hats which signify a 'no buy zone', keeping any village peddlers at bay. They're allowed a buffer of ten feet or so in which no villager dares to cross. We're told that they never buy, so no one even tries any more. They certainly change the vibe of whatever block they're marching down with an air of intimidation.

posted by ncawthon at 3:10 PM