Recommendation

I have actually done a couple things since I got home, but before getting to that I just wanted to put the word out, to anybody reading this who is going or may go or will go but doesn't know it yet, to Hoi An in central Vietnam, go talk to my friend the tailor. Tell her I sent you, maybe she'll pianyi yi dian for you. You can find out more about her by clicking on this link.

Cuối Tuần Đi Núi

One of the first things I did upon getting home was go away ... for a weekend at a cabin in the "mountains" with my sister, nephews and neice, and brother and his fiancee. The mayhem graciously provided by three small children, and the natural solitude and peace of the location, roughly balanced each other out, making a very nice weekend. The cabin was an actual hunting cabin, as evidenced by the dead animal parts hanging on the walls.

The prize for being cute, even in a bad picture, goes to this one.

And the two most energetic people in the cabin bounced around hunting tigers and falling out of bed and roasting marshmallows ... and running after anyone who would run away from them. Mostly smiles all around - even for someone desperately trying not to smile!

A weekend full of family and natural solitude, two things that I never got much of in Hanoi. Well, none of, actually!

What I do all day

Actually, usually it is closer to all night, that I am working. I spend the day recovering!

This is what I drive to work.

Thanks, by the way, to the unfailing generosity of a friend who actually owns this sweet little scooter.

This is the kind of road I drive to work on; skinny, bumpy and deserted, in the interest of not ending up like a smeared bug on the grill of an SUV.

After I get to work, I drive this, and SUVs don't bother me anymore!


Mostly on giant roads that neatly and effectively hold themselves apart from the actual life and pulse of the places they go through.

Notice the DUNKIN' DONUTS coffee. Coffee is indespensible to a true American trucking experience. In large quantities and of dubious quality, just having something boiling hot splashing on your hand when you hit a bump does tend to keep you awake...

If I were choosing my own truck it would not be a Mack, but the Bulldog is kind of cool, I used to have one of those on my VW bug...

The World Between Worlds

Airports are funny places. For anybody who has read C.S. Lewis, I always think of airports as that wooded place full of ponds which were really doorways into new, or old, worlds – the world between worlds. That place was, I think, although it’s been a very long time since I’ve read CS Lewis, a kind of quiet place, but you couldn’t really do anything there. This place – Bangkok Airport – is mostly quiet at the moment (12:16 am) but there are plenty of lively places, one of which is where I am. I just spent $8 for a slushy and a small crispy sandwich. Let’s see, that’s almost 150,000 vnd, which is one night at the guesthouse on China Beach…

Leaving Vietnam feels strange. I am slightly dazzled by Burger King, Pizza Hut and Dairy Queen all lit up and next to each other. There are plenty of those kinds of places in Vietnam, but I usually avoid them like the plague. My last day in Hanoi was nice - downpour in the morning, drenching humidity and heat remaining after that, while I rode my motorbike around town trying to change money and looking at lakes and places again, knowing I won’t see them for awhile.

After the downpour, riding out to the airport in late afternoon the sky was brilliant blue with puffy clouds and the glowing green rice fields. My taxi had a minor accident on the way to the airport. Just a scrape, but the ensuing seemingly culturally obligatory shouting match did make me laugh. Being ahead of schedule, for once in my life, I was unconcerned by the delay.

…

I had safe flights, if sometimes bumpy. 4th of July fireworks that you can see from 36,000 ft up. A country with big cars and everyone is going fast and nobody blows their horn. It is good to be home, but also odd to be back. I’m sure I can come up with something more profound than that at some point, right now I am going to bed.

Time for Hoi An

I just came back from a trip to Hoi An and China Beach. I will just post some photos since I didn't really DO anything there, only watched life and smiled!

Loads and loads of photos, it turns out, and new pictures in the funny English category!

Hoi An is famous for tailors, here are a few, more on that later!

Marble Mountain

Marble Mountain, conveniently located on the wide tourist road between Danang airport and Hoi An, consists of a couple jagged spurts of rock sticking up above the countryside, and a town full of shops selling marble sculptures, and knick-knacks. The mountain, like most in Vietnam, is home to a temple. It is also full of caves - more temples - and has a nice view from the top if you can crawl through the crack at the end of a cave to get on top.

Vietnamese lions have more dragon in them than lion. This one, at any rate, was really annoyed by the flower which kept blowing past its ears.

From the top of the hill. Overlooking, incidentally, China Beach. Since Danang was a major US air base during the war, and China Beach was only a few km away, I'm told it was a popular spot for spending time off duty. Rather more to the point, it is a great beach for walking along since it goes forever and there aren't too many snooty resorts with fences!

The actual town is, of course, a little dusty with all the granite shops.

So someone made a fountain to keep the dust down.

And some musicians to keep everybody happy.

The multitudes.

Mother and child, Lady Liberty, and Liberated Lady

Cua Dai Beach

Café sữa đá, dừa, and the South China Sea

My favorite boats in Vietnam - overgrown baskets, basically, that are waterproofed somehow. They get thrown on fishing boats for extras I guess, and I've seen them off the coast so far I can barely see what they are, a six or eight foot diameter basket propelled by an oar that is just stuck in the water and wiggled, like you might wiggle a shovel when you are leaning on it talking to your neighbor, only presumably this wiggling involves more work, because it actually propels your basket through the water. I have not tried that, myself, but rowing something that is round would take some technique, it seems.

The people selling stuff on the beach were great fun to practice my Vietnamese on. Unfortunately for my wallet they were good enough at what they do that my Vietnamese practice usually involved buying something, but that isn't a bad thing. Pineapples, lichees, biscuits, nuts, peanut-sesame candy, Tiger balm, suntan lotion, mangos, bananas, deck of cards, bootleg Pringles ... and a big smile!

One guy selling stuff was telling me about the $60 an hour jetski rentals at the resort further down the beach. He seemed quite amused by the idea. $60 is enough for a month, he said, to study and buy beer and have a lot of fun too! Then he laughed.

Outside DaNang

Mỹ Sơn

Mỹ Sơn UNESCO World Heritage Site is the leftovers of the Champa Kingdom's capital. The Chams ruled what is now sort of central and central southern Vietnam for, I don't know, a long time - some multiple of the timespan my own country has been around. It is a fascinating place, in spite of the fact that ruins are all that remain. Compared to Angkor Wat it is very small (and ruined) but there are similarities. Vietnamese culture, particularly in the north anyway, is closely related to Chinese culture - Confucianism, Buddhist traditions similar to China's - but the Cham Kingdom was Hindu, taking cultural inspiration from India. And you can see that in the ruins, with engraved Shivas and Apsaras still visible all over the place.

Aside from that, the place has 'grown' since I was there four years ago. At least the road to the site has grown, with a great deal more hoopla in terms of tourist villages and tour buses and parking lots and exhibition halls. Fortunately, all that is limited to the way there, once you run the gauntlet to get there the actual site is mostly free of distractions.

Vespa World Heritage...

The road to Mỹ Sơn was made more interesting as there was a tourism festival going on, which involved a bicycle race. Naturally I was completely unaware of this, and totally by chance (like most of life) I ran into the back of the bike race just as it was beginning. So the last 30 km to Mỹ Sơn were slow driving, with crowds of motorbikes following just for the spectacle, and crowds of locals lining the road yelling hello and, I suppose, scratching their heads at why people would want to ride bicycle that far that fast... Anyway, I didn't have to worry about getting lost - following the crowd is the safest way to drive here, and in this case it was also the right road, an added bonus!

In addition to the bicycle race was a Vespa Convention. I don't know that much about Vespas, but living in Vietnam I have developed a certain liking for motorbikes, and my weakness for vehicles with 'character' goes back to when I was like 13, hanging desperately on to the back seat of my brothers' VW Beatle waiting for it to disintegrate around me... So, the Vespa Convention:

It's the retro version of retro woodgrain.

Che travels

To make up for all the motorbikes in Vietnam that don't have

mirrors or lights or horns.

Open Season on Social Evils

When I was teaching English I would sometimes find reference to the Social Evils in student essays. Upon inquiring about exactly what sort of things are Social Evils, some of the responses were predictable - gambling, prostitution and drug use, while some were less predictable - littering, disrespecting your parents... Still, for me at least, when I read about somebody cracking down on Social Evils, I have to keep on reading before I have any real idea of what might be going on!

The Social Evils are having a hard time here recently. A couple months ago the New Century, Hanoi’s biggest night club, was raided and over 1000 “revellers” were taken into custody, at least for a night. The club is, for now anyway, closed down and the owners are facing drug charges.

More recently some Vietnamese were arrested for gambling. In a rather puzzling bit of logic, foreigners are allowed to gamble, but Vietnamese are not. These are the same Vietnamese who sit on street corners everywhere exchanging cash over a game of checkers, or mah-jong, or a football match, or most anything it seems.

All that is stuff I read about in the news. Not being much of a club-goer or a gambler, I’m not particularly offended or gratified by dance halls and casinos being shut down. However, Friday night I went out for some music, and discovered one new Social Evil – live music. Live music was, at least this week, verboten at the R&R Tavern, which is the place for laidback live music. The R&R is also the place for pork BBQ with coleslaw and, considering it is in Hanoi, authentic burritos with pineapple hot sauce by the guy who is supposed to be singing. Fortunately, strange foods that foreigners like have not yet been nominated to the Social Evils list. Although if I were nominating, I’d award that hot sauce a higher potential for evil than any music I’ve heard there!