Thursday, 17 January 2008

After arriving in Hanoi we were transferred to our hotel in the downtown Old Quarter. It is a really beautiful hotel, and when we were informed that one of our rooms wasn’t ready, we were given five free passes to the “chocolate buffet and tea”. Joy! After setting all our stuff down, we hurried to the buffet. Oh my. The tables held a chocolate fountain with marshmallows and fruit on skewers, truffles, cakes, brownies, mousse, ice cream, bon-bon’s, a warm chocolate pudding, and more. I asked Alayna, “Is this a dream come true for you?” and she answered, “More.” Benji’s white cloth napkin was unsalvageable, covered in chocolate lip marks.

By the time we were done, our room was ready and we headed back up to bounce off the walls while the chocolate coursed through our veins. I washed laundry with gusto, filling every available space with dripping things. We went to dinner at a place Clay found across the street from the hotel, and returned in time to receive some chocolate truffles and profiteroles from one of the housekeepers, a bedtime treat. I put the sweets plate far away and told the kid’s to stay off it, no more chocolate for a while. They were all coming down from their sugar high, and fell into bed with nary a whimper. Sweet, sweet dreams.

Friday, 18 January 2008

We met our guide this morning after sampling the extensive breakfast buffet. I don’t know how the kids will do when we get home, to return to the cold cereal and toast menu they were once accustomed to. Our guide’s name is Lan (sounds like “lawn”), and he seems nice. Our first stop was the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, on the way we drove through the Old Quarter. I’ve noticed that many of the homes and businesses throughout Vietnam are built tall, skinny, and deep. They are usually only a room wide, but go back two or three rooms worth, and sometimes rise five or six stories. When built side by side, they look like rows and rows of books, shelved tall and straight on a bookshelf.

Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum itself was rather drab, a large gray square that looked very Communist, no frills or ornamentation to soften it. We talked to Lan, tried to explain things to the kids, and in the process I gained a better understanding about the rise of Communism in Vietnam.  A few hundred years ago the French took an interest in Vietnam’s resources and eventually took control of it as a protectorate. By the early 1900’s the French ran things and installed Vietnamese puppet kings. This lasted until World War II, when the Japanese easily chased out the French and took control. Leading up to the war, Vietnam was trying to figure out how to get independence from France, they didn’t want to belong to anyone but themselves. The end of WWII provided a great opportunity, the Allies were divvying up the spoils of war, and before Vietnam could be given back to the French, they declared their independence and Communist intent.

Ho Chi Minh was the hero for Vietnam, especially in the North, because he gained independence for the country. He traveled on a French boat for years, spending time in the US and Russia and ultimately deciding that Communism was the way to go. Southern Vietnam, while wanting freedom, did not want communism, thus the beginning of the Vietnam War. The US, fearing a worldwide spread of communism, supported the South. Our guide, Lan, was born and raised in Hanoi, he supports communism more or less, and offers an interesting perspective on what we’ve always considered “bad.” Our guide back in Hoi An and Hue actually lived in Saigon, and when he was young his parents were imprisoned when the North finally took over after the US pulled out. He was sent to a communal farm to work for ten years. These communal farmers made nothing, they earned only coupons to buy food, and this was never enough. It was a sad, starving time for them. I wonder how much animosity still exists between the South and North, there have to be hard feelings and buried grudges from wrongs done to family and friends during and after the war.

Even our guide back in Cambodia, Tak, suffered at the hands of his corrupt government back when Pol Pot was in power. He was taken from the city where he lived, since all cities were being cleared out in favor of Pol Pots’ wish to recreate the country as a farming only society. Tak was sent to a farm where he worked and starved, foraging for rabbits and squirrels in the fields. One year he was sent to chop wood in a forest, a lonely time for him as he “made friends with the wild boar, then ate him.” Having these guides, who have experienced what I’ve only read in dry textbooks or hear about vaguely, makes history meaningful and real, with consequences that are still ongoing.

Lan talked about how Ho Chi Minh was loved and admired by the people, who call him “Uncle Ho”. He preferred not to live in the large, fancy mansion built by the French during their reign, using it only for official functions. Instead, he lived in a simple home, a four room dwelling painted the bright yellow that signifies royalty in their culture. We explored the grounds and peered through the windows of this home, where a bed, a desk, and a chair were the only furnishings of his bedroom. It’s different from the view I’ve always had of Communists, where the ruling few dote on themselves, living in the lap of luxury while the general public lives with no freedom and little luxury.

Late in life he moved to a home built on stilts, like his childhood home. It was near the pond where he kept giant carp. He liked to clap his hands and summon them for a feeding, they would all come swimming to the surface. Carp still swim in the pond, we tried clapping but the recent generations haven’t learned to come like their ancestors. Schoolchildren who did well and made good marks were invited to come visit Uncle Ho, where they could also feed the carp and play among the fruit trees. He seemed like an awfully sweet man, according to Lan. Two sides to every story, and I’d never heard this side.

It was a fascinating place, and while the kids enjoyed watching the carp and trotting along the neat paths, I think they learned a little bit of history themselves. Certainly more about Vietnamese history than I ever knew at their age. I couldn’t even find Vietnam on a map. Periodically we give Benji a little quiz. “Benji, what country are we in?” He gets it right most of the time, and when he doesn’t I always have to smile at how trusting he is. It doesn’t really matter what country he’s in, he’s got his family with him twenty-four seven. He lives in Davis Country wherever he goes.

We talked to Lan a little more about communism, what are elections like? He explained that they all vote during elections, but the candidates all come from one party, the Communist party. They aren’t given much information about these candidates, not given many choices, but sure, they have a “free” vote. It lies in stark contrast to what’s going on in the United States right now with the primary elections. It’s amazing how much money and time is spent on elections in the States compared to the other countries we’ve been in. Even on the other side of the world, we can’t escape the nonstop news from the campaign trail.

We visited a Taoist temple and pagoda after leaving the mausoleum, where worshippers walked amongst the idols with plates of food to lay next to the burning incense sticks. They approached with their hands together in a prayer salute, they bowed slightly towards the god. I wondered what happened to those plates of food, did someone come in late at night when everyone was gone and empty the plates so they’d look like they had been consumed? Was the food given to the needy?

With Muslims, we had conversations about Christianity and Islam since Muslims recognize Jesus, albeit as a prophet. For Buddhists and Taoists, their belief systems are so different from Christianity, I wouldn’t know where to start. Lan explained how if he wants to contact his dead grandfather, he can come to worship certain idols, and a woman, a stranger to him, will be filled with the spirit of his grandfather and speak to him in a familiar way, just as his grandfather would. Perhaps the story of a God who loves people personally and a Son who offers eternal life would sound just as far-fetched and unbelievable to Lan. We haven’t had that conversation yet.

From the temple, we traveled to a place filled with columns of different heights, monuments built to monks who have attained different levels of nirvana. The taller the column, the more highly advanced the monk. Their ashes are contained inside these columns, and the ever-present incense sticks burn nearby. We took a walk along a stretch of road called “The Lover’s Way”, Lan explained how lovers liked to walk along here in the evenings. While the water on either side was pretty, and the swan boats could be described as romantic, the incessant honking and onslaught of motorbikes that whizzed by could in no way be described as romantic. Alayna walked between Clay and me, just in case we got any crazy ideas about smooching or other undesirable public affection.

We visited a place called the Temple of Literature. In the eleventh century it was a school, today it is a temple where Confucius is worshipped. Under a pavilion there were rows and rows of stone turtles with giant slabs of stone resting on their backs. Carved on these were the names of graduates, to honor their achievement. In Vietnam, turtles symbolize longevity. Four important animals in the culture are the turtle, the phoenix, the lion, and the unicorn, which looks nothing like our unicorn. In Vietnam the unicorn is portrayed with a lion’s head and a dragon’s body, with a small horn on the forehead. There are also five important elements in Buddhism: water, earth, fire, metal and wood. While I could have easily learned these things with a quick look on Google, I don’t know if I’d retain the information or care much about it, until I saw the temples with their curling incense smoke and saw the people, worshipping in such a different way.

As we were leaving, we happened upon a group of traditional musicians playing some very odd instruments. One was made up of bamboo pipes, a woman clapped her hands in front of them, forcing air through the pipes to make different notes. They reminded me of our plastic set of boomwhackers back home. Another instrument was made from one long string. The woman played at different places on this string to make different notes, and she could also affect the note by bending a stick on one end. There was a xylophone made of bamboo that hung like a hammock as well. The music was not what I would call beautiful, but it was interesting and different. The kids talked us into buying a CD, and the music playing on the slideshows for Vietnam are off the CD if you want to hear how it sounds.

We ate lunch at a restaurant where very poor teens are given a chance to learn to cook and serve, to ultimately get a job in a hotel or restaurant. The food was good, and while the waiter and waitress didn’t speak much English, we communicated just fine. After lunch, we returned to the hotel, where we mounted “cyclos”. These are bicycles with a seat attached to the front. I rode with Nate, Clay rode with Benji, and Alayna had one all to herself.

Our cyclists pedaled very slowly through the streets, keeping a constant pace, parting the tide of motorcycles, cars, and other bicycles. We passed hundreds of tiny shops, the streets were often arranged by category. One street had party decorations for the upcoming Tet were being sold, another had all things made from metal, on another it was belts and accessories, and still another was brimming with vegetables. Street food was being sold, cooked over what looked like tiny Bunsen burners, meat sizzled and soup bubbled. Gathered around were tiny plastic stools, with people perched on them, eating out of bowls that were then returned and washed for the next person. We have not eaten this street food, a little worried about our stomachs, although I really want to perch on one of those little plastic stools before this trip is done.

I was glad we were on the cyclo, it looked like a hectic place to walk, the sidewalks were full, goods spilling over the curbs, and people often had to sidestep into the dangerous street just to pass. Nate asked if I would like to live here, and I replied “no way.” I couldn’t stand the noise and chaos in the streets every day. It is a nice place to visit, fascinating, so different, but this is not the place I would choose to live.

We rode the cyclo for an hour, and were dropped off outside a water puppet theater. We had tickets for the four o’clock show. The stage was made of water, with a backdrop of a palace. Musicians sat on an elevated platform to the side. They looked less than excited, the show has been taking place for 40 years and I guess they’ve done this a few thousand times, but despite the lack of excitement they were talented. The puppets were fascinating, they appeared from behind the backdrop, seemingly “floating” on the water stage, attached to long poles. Some spun, they twisted and interacted with each other, and Benji was on the edge of his seat the entire time, even though it was all in Vietnamese and sometimes we weren’t sure what was going on. Most of the story lines were pretty simple, a boy trying to catch a fish, a graduation parade or swans mating. I could see the wheels turning in Alayna’s head, how could she make these puppets back home and put on a water puppet show at the lake?

As we walked back to the hotel we passed an island in the sea of traffic, a smallish patch of sidewalks and grass bordered by huge trees, a few park benches. People had strung badminton nets between the trees and were whacking the little birdies with great skill back and forth. It looked as if this were a common after work entertainment. Gathered in the middle of the island were circles of men squatted around game boards. We found out later they were playing something called Chinese Chess, it looked complicated.

For dinner we went to the restaurant across the street again, where we can buy our entire meal for the price of half of one dinner at our hotel. As we ate in the outdoor courtyard, two little kids toddled out of the restaurant door with ride-on toys. They hopped on and rode out into the wide sidewalk, while the parents settled at a table for a drink. A family lives above the restaurant, most likely several generations, and that sidewalk next to the crazy traffic is their front yard. The kids’ playground. Humans make do with what we’ve got, no matter where we live. I’m sure if we’d raised our kids in Vietnam, Alayna would be driving a motorcycle by now. Now that’s a scary thought!

Saturday, 19 January 2008

This morning we rose to another cloudy, drizzly day. We haven’t seen the sun since Cambodia! We took a two hour drive through the countryside, heading towards the Perfume Pagoda, which is quite a trek. On the way we passed rice farmers and tons of those tall, skinny houses. Lan explained that these are called tunnel houses, because it feels like a tunnel inside. They are often built right next to each other, so there are no windows on the sides, just in the front and maybe the back. He said they are really dark inside. The reason they are built so thin is because when people first started moving into the city, they all wanted to open a business and live above it, and because there was limited space this was the way to fit more stores into a block. There was also a tax, a width tax, so the wider your structure the more taxes you paid. The solution: build up, not out.

After the drive, we all boarded a very small row boat, the only way to get to the Perfume Pagoda. There were seven of us, including our guide and the rower. There were just two small boards to sit on, the three kids sat on one and Clay and I sat on the other, while Lan perched up front, sitting on the floor of the boat. The rower was a small Asian woman, I felt really bad about having her row the lot of us. The ride took an hour. That is a long time to be in a tippy boat with kids. The scenery was beautiful, though I would have enjoyed it more without the constant threat of capsizing. Some sun would have been nice as well, but we settled on the words “misty and mysterious” instead of “gray and foggy”. Strange rock formations rose out of the water all around us, they are called karst and formed from limestone that was pushed up from the earth below. It looked like a place you’d film Lord of the Rings.

We passed farmers in their rice fields, their feet bare and their legs covered in mud. I wondered what it would feel like to be barefoot in the rice fields. Fishermen hauled in fish traps, made from bamboo tubes. The water was shallow, we could see weeds rippling beneath us, and fish jumped all around us. A long line of boats stretched in front of us, but our guide explained this was nothing. He said after the New Year, after the Tet celebrations, pilgrims come from all over and it is packed for three months solid.

We finally arrived, bumping our way through boats that were already moored, and managed to exit the boat without tipping it. We walked along a line of people selling food, snails, and snake wine. A row of jars were full of yellow liquid and dead snakes, coiled around. Ick. Puppies frolicked among the food stalls and a bevy of workers, busily hauling things up the hill. Lan explained that the people here are getting ready for the crowds that will come in less than a month. A temporary village of food stalls and souvenir hawkers will line the path up and down the mountainside, it reminded us of firecracker stalls that are only open during Fourth of July and New Year’s. When the crowds leave, the stalls are disassembled and packed up until the next year. We walked past reams of them, bamboo poles wrapped in plastic or canvas, with corrugated tin roofs wrapped around the top, all of it held together in giant bundles tied with cord.

The kids were happy to run up and down the stairs as we began to climb, after their hour long enforced sit-still in the row boat. We decided to take the cable car up and then hike the 2 ½ miles back down. It was not like I had expected, after reading about this sight and hearing that the hiking could be slippery and steep, I envisioned a dirt path, hanging on to tree branches to hoist ourselves up. It actually had a very nice stone path that went the entire length of the route, slippery only from the mold that grew on the stones. But it was steep, and we were glad we took the cable car up when we headed back down. Alayna counted the number of steps, I think it was over a thousand.

Before boarding the cable car, we passed a food stall where a woman was selling potatoes, corn, and eggs, all steamed over a large burner. Lan asked if we wanted a potato, we weighed the odds of possibly dirty food washed in contaminated water, and said “Sure.” The kids and Clay ate the potatoes with gusto, I preferred the corn. We also sampled some sugar cane, and learned that the way to eat it is to chew all the sweet, sugary juice out of it, then spit out what was left in your mouth. Clay and the kids also ate some tiny green apples, Alayna said they were really sour and tasted like the candy called War Heads in the States. As we snacked I sat on one of her tiny plastic stools, I felt very local. After licking our fingers and thanking the woman for our considerable snack (total price, $1, we got the Vietnamese price since Lan was with us), we continued up the hill to the cable car station.

I was a little nervous about taking a cable car in Vietnam, but as we waited for our car we saw a sign saying the system had been built in Austria, and if anyone knows about mountains and cable cars, it’s Austrians. They were very high tech, in strange opposition to the patched together food stalls we had just passed. At the top, we made our way to the Perfume Pagoda, which is actually a giant cave of stalactites and stalagmites. It’s been made into a temple, Buddha statues and others had platters of offerings with food and flowers and “money” (printed 200 Dong notes that are worth about one cent) in front of them. Incense smoke curled around them, and worshippers approached with hands clasped in the classic preschool prayer stance, they would raise and lower their hands several times with bowed head, sometimes kneeling. Others were burning prayers and the 200 Dong notes as offerings to their ancestors.

Lan said when the crowds came, you wouldn’t be able to get inside the cave, it would be so crowded with worshippers. As we left we noticed water dripping from the ceiling. This water is supposed to have special healing properties, people try to catch a bit of it on their palms. Benji looked up to see where it was dripping from and got a drop right in his eye. We’re waiting to see the results, Benji wonders if it will take away the brown birthmark that marks his iris. I hope not, I love that birthmark.

On the hike back down we passed tons of food stalls on the way back down, and people who were carrying enormous bamboo poles balanced on their shoulders. We also passed men and women carrying water up the hill. They had water cooler-sized jugs one dangling on each side of a stick that rested on their shoulder blades. It looked like hard, tiring, back-breaking work. I wondered if I could even lift them.

At the bottom the boys encountered an especially nasty bathroom, Lan called it a Communist bathroom. Among other trash they saw underwear and hypodermic needles. I couldn’t wait to get back to my purse in the car and sanitize everybody, but first we had the hour long row boat ride. On the way back, Nate and I sang songs much to Alayna’s embarrassment, loads of fun. It took another two and half hours to get home once we reached the car, we were wishing we had packed some more diversions for the kids. They made do with a pencil and scraps of paper from my purse, but by the time we were back in Hanoi we were all glad to exit the car. Conversation had degenerated into boyfriend/girlfriend taunting, “I know who Alayna likes . . . I don’t like anybody . . . oh yes you do . . .”

After dinner we threw the kids in the shower, not sure of when we’ll see another. We’ll spend tomorrow night on a boat, the next night on a train, the next night in the mountains, and the next night back on a train. Tomorrow we’ll be better prepared for the car ride to the boat, the kids will take their last math tests from their current packet of schoolwork and the DS’s are charged and ready to go. Davis country, on the move again.