Round and Round in Cyclos

Breakfast, included at the hotel, was a satisfying omelet, bacon, and a baguette. Baguettes in Vietnam have centers like spider webs. You can see there is something in there, but when you try to pull it out, the consistency is like cotton candy. If you wad it up, you have a teardrops worth of substance in your hand. The coffee is atrocious making me need to seek out better flavored caffeine elsewhere. Ron read in the guide (not Frommer’s mind you) about a place called Baguette and Chocolate, but after twenty minutes of walking up and down the street where it was listed as being, a young man came up to us to see if we needed assistance. The café had moved over a year ago. We found another reasonable looking coffee shop where real coffee was served. We sat in the window seat.

Outside the window and across the street was a young cyclo driver, the bicycle kind of transport. The young man waved to us and motioned he would take us around the city. We smiled and tried to ignore him. It was not on the agenda. Finally, he found a willing fare and left us. Before we left the café there was a replacement who offered an hour tour of the city for $8.00 for both of us. We decided to take him up on it, but cyclos are built for two Vietnamese, not two of any non-Asian body types. By contorting like we were playing a game of Twister, with one leg on the red dot and the other leg on the blue dot, we intertwined into the seat and off we went. Our driver started out with the first question they learn in all English lessons throughout the country. “Where are you from?” They could care less about the answer since they never respond to the answer. Case in point, we told him we just arrived from Pluto and he did not stop short and kick us out of our seats. The next question also follows the formula, but still throws me. “How old are you?” Again there was no reaction when I said twenty-five and Ron admitted to one hundred and one. Skipping over formalities, the next inquiry is “How many children you have?” Our cumulative total of forty-six did not stir a reaction.

Riding in one of these cyclos is very similar to the ride in the House of Horrors. You are riding along, and then suddenly you think you are going to smash into something and the car turns suddenly at the very last moment, causing your heart to beat as fast as tribal drums warning of impending danger. If I had started dying my hair again, I would have been white once again by the end of the ride. Someone should discuss implementing more traffic lights here, but the three that they do have go unnoticed by all anyway, so the lack of them must be to conserve electricity.

If someone could create a mechanism making car and motorcycle horns bleat every ten seconds while the motor is running, it would allow all drivers to concentrate on steering, freeing them from having to count to ten to hit the horn manually. Noise never stops and neither does the traffic. Adding to the suspense of our survival, the driver kept bending over to tell us things along the way. First he pointed out the Military Museum explaining in poor English what it was, and then said “You know, boom, boom!” About five minutes later, he was massaging my neck and told me he knew where we could get a good massage and some ‘boom, boom’. We are not sure if the Military Museum is displaying sexual exhibits or if the massage therapists have guns, but we thought it wise to refuse both.

The tour was especially delightful when we went around the lake; miraculously the traffic was reduced in the lake area, so we could actually speak to each other without shouting. The placid moment did not last long as we entered the real word soon enough. The clock had run over one hour and we were on the opposite side of the city; we thought of getting out and walking back, but with crossing streets it would have taken at least an hour and years off of our lives. When we were finally able to untangle ourselves in an area that held some familiarity, it was a two hour ride. Suddenly the cost of our indulgence went from $8.00 to $22.00. Okay, it was worth the money. He needed it more than we did, but still I hate being made the fool. Seriously, could have stopped him at one hour; we discussed the added costs and let him continue uninterrupted.

As we rode around, we noticed that the shops run in waves. Two blocks will all sell motorcycle seat covers, and then the next two blocks will all be pots and pans. Shoe stores cover the next few blocks. They all segregate according to their offering like they fear keeping the competition out of sight. Astonishingly, they do wear more shoes here than they did in the other cities, where flip-flops or other styles of sandals are worn. When it first caught my attention, I could barely count ten people wearing shoes, but here the statistics are just the opposite.

The other key difference here in Hanoi is that restaurants, shops, even the cyclo drivers crave U.S. dollars over their own Dong. In the other cities, we could not convince people to take dollars; we had to have Dong on hand. When we run out of dollars, we will have to plead vendors to accept their own currency.

Later when we were walking around, one of the women who looks like they are carrying the scales of justice, but are really carrying fruits or vegetables for sale, stopped me to buy fresh cut pineapple. With the opportunity to pamper ourselves with fresh fruits, it seemed reasonable to spend $1.00 on a pineapple already peeled and cut. She said to me, “Take my picture.” I indulged her by snapping her with her bracing and balancing her heavy load. Ron snapped a couple too. When I said thanks, she said “Okay, 50,000 Dong for the photos.” After a good laugh, I thanked her again saying not in this lifetime because other than a ‘NO’ she would not understand anything I replied with.

We wound up buying a nice carry-on type bag that has concealed wheels and a handle for $20.00. Tomorrow it will take it maiden voyage to the Halong Bay excursion. Another Hmong elephant made its way into our life also. There would have been a second Hmong dragon too, but could not find a blue one in the right size. Now that we each have a carry-on bag, might as well make good use of it.

Walking around the lake one more time, we walked a bridge to reach a small island. On it is a pagoda called “Where the Turtle Returned the Sword” based on a legend. There is a temple there where the deity looks like Confucius, but the explanation discusses a General in the Armed Forces from the 15^t century. People were obviously in prayer at the base of his statue.

Restaurants here are definitely more upscale than in Chau Doc and Ho Chi Minh City, implying the costs are higher, but they are more affluent in their décor also. Due to these, the people selling gum, books, water, cigarette lighters, and horses with bobbing heads are not likely to enter and give their spiel while diners are in the process of mastication.

One funny sign we have commonly seen restaurant bathrooms states “Do not stand on the toilet”. It is common in less touristy areas to have squat holes in the floor that you stand over. The country folk must not recognize the use of a toilet trying to stand and squat on them.

We went to a French/Vietnamese restaurant tonight called Le Cyclo. Each of the chairs were cyclos around a table. Different and interesting, it was one of the most expensive meals we have encountered on our entire trip. Ron had the duck and I had chicken over fried Vietnamese noodles. With two beers, the bill came to a shocking $16.20.

Pin It Now!

Road Rage or Going Postal

Today we left for Hanoi. Our hotel arranged a driver for $8.00 to bring us to the airport. They told us it would only take thirty minutes, but we figured we would need an hour to get there; it was the right thing to do. Traffic was horrendous.

Being second in line to check in with the airline, low budget Pacific Air, it was our turn next. I handed the agent our passports, all it took for her to find our reservations. With baited breath, we put our suitcases on the scale with as much horrendous anticipation I always have when having to climb the scale at the doctor’s office. No sirens went off, no alarms or red flags contaminated the air, we passed with flying colors on the weight issue. Guess this means we can shop more. So, the agent is typing away getting our boarding passes, Ron is standing behind me and there was another non-Asian soon-to-be passenger behind us. To my right, a young Vietnamese man is holding a paper and I.D. card under the nose of the agent shoving it at her. Applaudingly, she totally ignored him and continued working away. I could not stand it and said loudly “Doesn’t he see me standing here? Doesn’t he see the man waiting behind us?” There is no telling if he understood English or even if he cared if he did, but it was something to get off of my chest or it would have simmered coming to a boil at some inappropriate time. After all, at 5:30 am, I was awake and could not sleep yet again, so being tired and cranky were as good excuses as any to speak my mind. Needless to say, it had no effect, when we were done the clerk took care of this annoying person who learned these behaviors were appropriate. My bad or his!

This was really preparation for the rest of the trip. Our flight was delayed for forty minutes due to the plane arriving late from the last pit stop. When we started boarding, they asked for all those whose seat rows were 1-50 enter the plane from the front. For those 51 and higher enter through the rear of the plane. Having been announced in Vietnamese and English, had no bearing on the pushing and shoving of the little people. I had visions of Gulliver’s Travels when he found himself in the land of the giants. We were the giants and these little people were scurrying through the line like mice escaping a ferocious cat. From tenth in line, we were suddenly fiftieth and all to climb on a bus.

Revenge is sweet. When we disembarked from the buses, all of the locals were like deer in the headlights, not knowing where to go. I was first to get on the stairs up to the plane, not that it mattered, but it made me feel avenged. Ron showed up ten minutes later. Many of these people must never have flown before. They sat in a seat, and then some non-Asian tourist would approach them and say they are sitting in their seat. The errant passenger would pop up and grab another empty seat like they were responding to a game of musical chairs hearing music stop that no one else heard. No one was playing their game either, a few of them were displaced multiple times.

It was not luxury, but it was fine, even if the seats were tight enough to scratch my kneecaps with my teeth. Regardless, I fell asleep. In the middle of a dream with some mythical animal, I was bending over to pet it when the animal made this unnatural screeching sound, not only waking me, but sending me skyrocketing out of my seat. After being fully awake, that sound came yet again. It emanated from a woman two seats behind me who was playing with a baby. Those sounds should be restricted from planes.

The man next to me, I think a Vietnamese, had his seat belt undone and was ready to get his luggage out of the overhead bin once they announced our descent. You can imagine what deplaning was like, again all to get on a bus. When we were waiting for our luggage, I was pushed, shoved, and bumped away from the luggage conveyor belt so many times, I thought I was going to have to use my Traveler’s Insurance before I left the airport.

Our hotel had a driver waiting for us. He explained it was only 32 km to the hotel, but it took us close to an hour to get there. Hanoi at first looks same, same, but different from Ho Chi Minh City. The hotel is lovely, but the room sits on the third floor without an elevator. Thankfully, they have a porter bring up the luggage or we would have needed an oxygen tank and massage therapist on each floor. The room is really cramped, with the most space going from the bed to the bathroom and useless. You have to scale the wall to get out of bed on one side. To get in the door, you have to walk sideways to get from the door to the end of the bed getting through the obstacles of the two chairs and refrigerator.

Ron is his enthusiastic mode ran downstairs, going down is easy, to check on a trip to Halong Bay and then reserved it to the tune of $125.00 each for a one overnight trip. Seriously, I thought I had taught him never to book through the hotel before checking the plethora of travel agencies, but this is the second time he has made this mistake this trip. It seems that the disaster with the trip in Cambodia would have reverberated in his mind, but nope.

Hanoi is as overloaded with traffic as all of the other cities. Being tired and beyond irritable, road rage was setting in even if I lacked a vehicle. The thoughts of jutting out my arm continually until I hit some motorcyclist kept running through my mind. Air pollution is only beat out by the noise pollution straining my nerves. Sidewalks are either occupied as intermittent restaurants with nursery school chairs or as a parking garage for motorcycles, forcing pedestrians to walk in the streets where they are human traffic cones.

Our friend Myrtis is considering a Fulbright here, but I cannot last three weeks between Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, let alone four to nine months. They would have to create words in Vietnamese for “going postal”.

Pin It Now!