Hanoi (Feb. 16, 2011) -- In honor of the traffic system here in the capital of Vietnam, this dispatch will flow freely and in no coherent manner. But it will somehow make sense, or so we can hope.
Make it a better place -- Upon my arrival yesterday, I decided that I had just about enough of the public transportation up to that point and so I made an executive decision to take the first taxi available at the airport that offered a reasonable price -- as opposed to trying to figure out the bus system into the city and to my hotel.
As I was getting money out of an ATM at the airport a young Vietnamese man came up to me and asked if I needed a taxi.
For $15, he said, he could take me to my hotel in the center of town.
Deal, I said, since my guide book from 2003 or so said the price should be around $10. So off we went off, on the road after a little waiting.
"You like Michael Jackson?" he asked as we sped away.
Sure, why not? I replied. Who doesn't?
Suddenly, we were listening to MJ sing about how we could, if we really wanted to...
"Create a world with no fear
Together we'll cry happy tears
See the nations turn
Their swords into plowshares."
This was all blasting as we sped down the highway on a cloudy and cool morning toward Hanoi, past rice fields featuring women in conical hats tending to their crops.
Poetic, no?
Yeah, I didn't think so either.
I was wondering if I could smoke in the car, in fact.
Next up was Celine Dion singing "My heart will go on."
And then it was another playing of ''Heal the world.''
Having apparently run out of American music, we drove in silence the rest of the way. Honking was our soundtrack.
It was an improvement.
Spooning -- Having dropped my bags at the hotel, I ventured out into the bustling city to get something to eat. I tried several places but had no luck, mostly because my Vietnamese was so bad (more on that later). But I finally found a busy street-side restaurant that seemed, if not eager to have me, at least willing to take my money for the hassle of having a round eye like me take up a table.
The process of eating at a street stall isn't all that easy. You're supposed to pick out what you want and what you don't want and it's a bit difficult when you don't know the word for chicken or for beef or how to say, "Please, no intestines, thanks."
But I managed to get them to fill a half bowl of rice with pieces of chicken and what I think was beef. And the rest was some kind of spinach vegetable. And then they gave me a soup on the side.
I sat in the corner on the second floor.
I'm not good with chopsticks. I did fairly well with the rice until it stopped sticking together. Then I tucked into the soup and I finished that off.
But suddenly, just I was getting to leave (which would have made the waiters very happy since they were trying to turn over table very quickly at lunch hour) I had an "ah-ha" moment.
I can use the soup spoon to finish the rest of the pesky rice, I thought with glee.
And so I did. It was great.
That was until I looked up to find a Vietnamese woman at a nearby table watching me do this much in the same way that a Westerner would watch an Asian man eat cheese cake with a pair of knives. She seemed more amused than horrified -- and so I just smiled. And she smiled back. Ah, the international language of jackassery.
Frogger, for real -- Traffic isn't all that crazy here if you're involved in it. If you happen to be walking, however, it's a life or death scenario.
You're going to think I'm joking when I say that people on foot just wander out into oncoming traffic when they cross the street. But that's it, they just venture out there and see what happens. The scooters (which make up 80% of the vehicles on the road here) don't stop to save the lives of pedestrians, they just alter their course so that they don't hit them.
It seems to work out rather well from what I've seen so far.
Myself, on the other hand, remember stories about how much it hurts when you get hit just by a bicyclist and so I don't want to find out what happens when a Vietnamese Vespa clips me. And so this has left me sprinting across the streets when I cross, which, now that I think about it, is probably worse than doing the normal walking thing since I'm probably messing with their timing.
I guess that time will tell.
I'd rather run for it though as opposed to having my obit read, "Brett Corbin died while leisurely walking through heavy traffic in Hanoi. He was 32. Blood tests are pending."
Thanks to all those scooters, the smog is very bad here. Lots of people walking around, and nearly everyone on a scooter, wears one of those swine-flu virus masks. But what's really strange is when a suddend lull in traffic occurs that leaves you walking down a quiet street in the middle of the city.
You can actually hear yourself cough.
It's spooky.
The thought also occured to me, while walking the streets today, that they should have a global competition for the best/worst drivers in world.
There could be a division for scooters and a division for cars. It could be part of the Olympics. My money is on India.
Work it, gurl -- Thanks to an amazing case of jet lag, I was out on the street rather early this morning in Hanoi and so I was able to witness the exercise routines that take place around a lake in the middle of the city.
My favorite was a group of about 12 women doing dances that looked like those guys from the "Night at the Roxbury." Young and old, they were showing no shame in breaking it down and getting a bit freaking right out on the sidewalk under the cover of a department store entrance in the middle of town as their boom box blasted disco tunes.
This was at 8 a.m.
I would have taken a video of them, but I was too embarrassed to look at them, much less stand there filming them. They did all, however, look to be in good in shape and so I guess it's working. "Get up, check ya weave..."
Travels in another language -- Finally, after flailing about for the first day of trip in an attempt at even basic commuication, I decided to buy a Vietnamese phrase book and try to learn some of the language.
Vietnam, you will regret this.
As my French friends of five years can certifty, my pronounciation skills in another language are less than great -- and so the hilarity that I must be bringing to the people of Vietnam with my attempts to say please, thank you or to ask for another beer must be out of this world.
And yet, I find this entertaining and the laughter that I hear when I exit my last location of business tells me that they do also.
Laughter can heal the world.
I think M.J. would agree.
Take care,
-- Brett
