I'm terrible at keeping travel journals, so for this trip I've started a personal blog - sadly, I'm too lazy to write separate posts for this blog, but since I'm writing almost every day, I thought I'd just post some unconnected thoughts from the past 10 days. I'll cross-post more frequently in the coming weeks - and I promise it won't be so disjointed! I've included the dates, to give you some small sense of chronology.
June 9:
I’m hungry, debating whether I should go up and write this entry on the top floor of the hotel, where breakfast is served. I didn’t eat dinner last night – I’m discovering that between the heat and the large meals, I really only need two meals a day. But I did go to the grocery store last night and inadvertently bought some very overpriced raisin bran (no sign from the box that I’m in a foreign country – it must be imported straight from the U.S.) and a thermos for my tea with Tom and Jerry on the front (it was that or a shiny picture of Superman, but I’m not sure I was prepared to stare at Superman first thing in the morning). Grocery stores are always some of the strangest places to go in foreign countries. I was craving cheese, and after much searching had the rather obvious realization that they don’t eat cheese here. So no bries or gruyeres for me. But they do have kettle chips and cornflakes, so I suppose we Americans are supposed to be set.
I wasn’t brave enough to buy any of the Vietnamese snacks (I will next time), but I loved just wandering around, and I was incredibly pleased with myself when I discovered the second level of the grocery store, which was full of cosmetics and toys and pretty much anything you could want (I found my thermos there). I was amused to see that pads and tampons were in the aisle marked “sundry goods” – I’d love to do a study on how people classify tampons in grocery stores worldwide. There were a couple of other confused-looking tourists reading the backs of yogurt (or were they milk?) containers in the store (it’s called Intermix), but mostly it seemed local – lots of women buying cereal with children in tow.
On the way back from the grocery store, I made a friend! I stopped into an art gallery just across the street from the hotel (clearly very expensive, targeted at tourists – it had a “We prefer Mastercard” stamp on the door) and the girl who was working there turned out to be my age and studying English. We talked for a while before she had to go back to her job – they’re on vacation right now in the Vietnamese schools (unless you’re one of the Vietnamese girls in our seminar, and then you’re in exams), but she said to stop by the gallery again and we'd make a date for coffee – she wants to practice her English.
June 14:
I am in love with Vietnamese architecture. Driving back from Ha Long Bay yesterday, we drove through dozens of villages (and past hundreds of rice paddies) and the houses were insane and beautiful – all of them in different pastel colors, tall and very thin (four or five stories, but as wide as a store front), the sides sometimes just bare grey concrete but the fronts decorated with elaborate wooden doors, twisting balcony railings, marbled columns, the pointed tops of the buildings painted with flowers. One house even had the Mercedes hood ornament incorporated into the front of their second-story balcony. A few times, I could see inside, and the interiors seem to be just as dazzlingly jumbled – sea green walls, mirrors, brightly colored faux-marble tiles. The whole effect was pure kitsch. These houses were scattered among some older, simpler buildings, which have thatched roofs and small courtyards, much more the traditional Vietnamese houses that I had imagined. But the whole effect made the 3-hour ride much more bearable, especially since we had crushed over 20 people into one very small bus, and I had forgotten my iPod.
I think perhaps I should back up a little. This weekend, we went to Ha Long Bay, which is east of Hanoi, on the South China Sea. Hundreds of limestone mountains rise out of the bay, covered with green – and full of insects, which chirp melodically as you sail past. The best way to see the bay is on a tourist junk – we stayed overnight, which meant that we got to see the sunset over the bay (but, sadly, not the sunrise, even though I deliberately got up at 5:30 – the haze over the bay means that the sun just kind of appears). The sunset was unbelievably magical – the sea was pink and blue and gold, with the lights from the boats pricking the water and the sun disappearing behind the mountains. There are floating fishing villages scattered through the bay, and we stopped at one to go kayaking. The kayaking was pleasant, even though I am terrible at anything even vaguely sporty. The distressing part came from our proximity to the water - up close, we could see lots of trash and motor oil floating on the surface. The worst pollution that I saw, actually, was in the fish pens in one of the fishing villages – there were soggy cigarette butts and plastic wrappers drifting in the water.
June 15:
Yesterday, I decided to go to Catholic mass at St. Joseph’s Cathedral with Dan in the late afternoon (the one time I’ve been able to use my French was when I asked a nun when the masses took place), which was so lovely. I didn’t know what was going on, because of course the mass was in Vietnamese, but at least half of the service was sung by the choir, and the cathedral has amazing acoustics. Dan is Catholic, so he kept me posted on important moments during the service (and kept me from getting up and taking communion). But we were both confused when after about an hour, people started getting up and leaving, even though the priest was still talking. We had also been puzzled by the brief presence of a marching band in a corner of the church. We walked outside and saw that the cathedral square was full of people in bright costumes – little girls in yellow headdresses, old men in blue, women in the Vietnamese áo dài, which is a long dress-like tunic over a pair of silk pants. There were also hordes of people taking pictures and milling around. Someone passed us a sheet of prayers in Vietnamese, and we tried to read over it, despite the fact that the words "cat" and "table" were not likely to appear. We engaged several fellow tourists in conversation, but they were equally bewildered. After a few moments, priests emerged from the doors of the church carrying the Eucharist, the little girls tossed handfuls of flowers into the air, and a choir of nuns began to sing the prayers. Then the whole crowd started marching in a long procession around the church, singing. It was incredibly beautiful – Dan and I were both completely confused, although we had a range of wildly varying theories. The truth was almost disappointing - we finally talked to a nun and found out that it was the feast of Corpus Christi. The whole experience – mass, ceremony and procession – took about two and a half hours.
There was a weird coda, though. I was walking back to the hotel and almost got knocked into a motorbike by an old woman in traditional clothes, who had asked me (through gestures) whether I had come from the church. I was expecting a smile, but instead when I nodded enthusiastically she whacked me with her fan and gave me a very frightening frown, and I almost toppled into a passing motorbike. According to the women at the desk and some tourists who were hanging out in the lobby, my dress was too low cut for traditionalists. So that was an interesting complication to an otherwise enchanting experience.
June 9:
I’m hungry, debating whether I should go up and write this entry on the top floor of the hotel, where breakfast is served. I didn’t eat dinner last night – I’m discovering that between the heat and the large meals, I really only need two meals a day. But I did go to the grocery store last night and inadvertently bought some very overpriced raisin bran (no sign from the box that I’m in a foreign country – it must be imported straight from the U.S.) and a thermos for my tea with Tom and Jerry on the front (it was that or a shiny picture of Superman, but I’m not sure I was prepared to stare at Superman first thing in the morning). Grocery stores are always some of the strangest places to go in foreign countries. I was craving cheese, and after much searching had the rather obvious realization that they don’t eat cheese here. So no bries or gruyeres for me. But they do have kettle chips and cornflakes, so I suppose we Americans are supposed to be set.
I wasn’t brave enough to buy any of the Vietnamese snacks (I will next time), but I loved just wandering around, and I was incredibly pleased with myself when I discovered the second level of the grocery store, which was full of cosmetics and toys and pretty much anything you could want (I found my thermos there). I was amused to see that pads and tampons were in the aisle marked “sundry goods” – I’d love to do a study on how people classify tampons in grocery stores worldwide. There were a couple of other confused-looking tourists reading the backs of yogurt (or were they milk?) containers in the store (it’s called Intermix), but mostly it seemed local – lots of women buying cereal with children in tow.
On the way back from the grocery store, I made a friend! I stopped into an art gallery just across the street from the hotel (clearly very expensive, targeted at tourists – it had a “We prefer Mastercard” stamp on the door) and the girl who was working there turned out to be my age and studying English. We talked for a while before she had to go back to her job – they’re on vacation right now in the Vietnamese schools (unless you’re one of the Vietnamese girls in our seminar, and then you’re in exams), but she said to stop by the gallery again and we'd make a date for coffee – she wants to practice her English.
June 14:
I am in love with Vietnamese architecture. Driving back from Ha Long Bay yesterday, we drove through dozens of villages (and past hundreds of rice paddies) and the houses were insane and beautiful – all of them in different pastel colors, tall and very thin (four or five stories, but as wide as a store front), the sides sometimes just bare grey concrete but the fronts decorated with elaborate wooden doors, twisting balcony railings, marbled columns, the pointed tops of the buildings painted with flowers. One house even had the Mercedes hood ornament incorporated into the front of their second-story balcony. A few times, I could see inside, and the interiors seem to be just as dazzlingly jumbled – sea green walls, mirrors, brightly colored faux-marble tiles. The whole effect was pure kitsch. These houses were scattered among some older, simpler buildings, which have thatched roofs and small courtyards, much more the traditional Vietnamese houses that I had imagined. But the whole effect made the 3-hour ride much more bearable, especially since we had crushed over 20 people into one very small bus, and I had forgotten my iPod.
I think perhaps I should back up a little. This weekend, we went to Ha Long Bay, which is east of Hanoi, on the South China Sea. Hundreds of limestone mountains rise out of the bay, covered with green – and full of insects, which chirp melodically as you sail past. The best way to see the bay is on a tourist junk – we stayed overnight, which meant that we got to see the sunset over the bay (but, sadly, not the sunrise, even though I deliberately got up at 5:30 – the haze over the bay means that the sun just kind of appears). The sunset was unbelievably magical – the sea was pink and blue and gold, with the lights from the boats pricking the water and the sun disappearing behind the mountains. There are floating fishing villages scattered through the bay, and we stopped at one to go kayaking. The kayaking was pleasant, even though I am terrible at anything even vaguely sporty. The distressing part came from our proximity to the water - up close, we could see lots of trash and motor oil floating on the surface. The worst pollution that I saw, actually, was in the fish pens in one of the fishing villages – there were soggy cigarette butts and plastic wrappers drifting in the water.
June 15:
Yesterday, I decided to go to Catholic mass at St. Joseph’s Cathedral with Dan in the late afternoon (the one time I’ve been able to use my French was when I asked a nun when the masses took place), which was so lovely. I didn’t know what was going on, because of course the mass was in Vietnamese, but at least half of the service was sung by the choir, and the cathedral has amazing acoustics. Dan is Catholic, so he kept me posted on important moments during the service (and kept me from getting up and taking communion). But we were both confused when after about an hour, people started getting up and leaving, even though the priest was still talking. We had also been puzzled by the brief presence of a marching band in a corner of the church. We walked outside and saw that the cathedral square was full of people in bright costumes – little girls in yellow headdresses, old men in blue, women in the Vietnamese áo dài, which is a long dress-like tunic over a pair of silk pants. There were also hordes of people taking pictures and milling around. Someone passed us a sheet of prayers in Vietnamese, and we tried to read over it, despite the fact that the words "cat" and "table" were not likely to appear. We engaged several fellow tourists in conversation, but they were equally bewildered. After a few moments, priests emerged from the doors of the church carrying the Eucharist, the little girls tossed handfuls of flowers into the air, and a choir of nuns began to sing the prayers. Then the whole crowd started marching in a long procession around the church, singing. It was incredibly beautiful – Dan and I were both completely confused, although we had a range of wildly varying theories. The truth was almost disappointing - we finally talked to a nun and found out that it was the feast of Corpus Christi. The whole experience – mass, ceremony and procession – took about two and a half hours.
There was a weird coda, though. I was walking back to the hotel and almost got knocked into a motorbike by an old woman in traditional clothes, who had asked me (through gestures) whether I had come from the church. I was expecting a smile, but instead when I nodded enthusiastically she whacked me with her fan and gave me a very frightening frown, and I almost toppled into a passing motorbike. According to the women at the desk and some tourists who were hanging out in the lobby, my dress was too low cut for traditionalists. So that was an interesting complication to an otherwise enchanting experience.
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