dongs, unwritten, shops, conical hat, picture?, confucius, lenin, water puppetry, lovers’ quarrel…
It must have just rained, for despite the clear clouds just a little bit below the window, Hanoi revealed itself to be a flat surface of green rice fields and soil-soaked waters. After getting a free 30-day visa and changed some money to 1.8 million Dong, I went out of the airport across the terminal and looked for that cheaper mini-bus (as opposed to a hired taxi) that brings arriving passengers to the city center every hour or so. Only for a few minutes did I wait and the bus left – inside was just me and an old Vietnamese woman who seems to not have been picked up by the people who are supposed to pick her up. She and the driver were chatting incessantly throughout the 45-minute ride and I was just there slumping on the seat – dog-tired, excited, edgy… the driver turned on the radio and there played Natasha Bedingfield’s “unwritten” – man, my first time to hear that again.
Looking for a guesthouse turned out to be a little bit of a hustle – or a motorcycle joyride maybe – I finally got the one I like though a bit above my standard but still within the budget limit. But it’s in a good location which is just within the Old Quarter and with free internet use (and a public WiFi network), an elevator, a terrace, and friendly English-speaking staff. I gobbled up a bowl of Bun bo from the nearby street, which cost me 20,000 Dong.
The next day was supposed to start early but I overslept and woke up at 11AM. Which means I missed the Ho Chi Minh museum in my planned itinerary for that day. The staff at the “little Hanoi” café told me that going to my other major destination, the Museum of Literature, would take me around 20-30 minutes by walking. I arrived there after 2 hours because I lingered on the way and learned a few things…
From a souvenir shop, Phoung Tuy (Fwang Twe) taught me a few greetings in Vietnamese and explained who is Ho Chi Minh and who is Tin-Tin. Ho Chi Minh, she said, is Uncle Ho (can’t be described any other way) and Tin-tin is this a French cartoon character (?) that is so popular in Vietnam. In an art gallery shop, I met the staff, a 17-year old working student who is studying “electricity” because she “wants to work in a factory someday”. The noon sun was stark and I was walking like a mad woman so in another shop that specializes on conical hats and communist paraphernalias, I got my first conical hat.
Nearing the museum, I spotted a sleepy flower vendor sitting on the sidewalk. I asked her if I can take her picture and she gestured that I have to pay her (that gesture of rolling the thumb and the forefinger – do all vendors come from the same school?). Of course I won’t pay her so I asked her to take my photo instead. She was a bit cautious, reminds me of the first time that I used a Wordstar computer. So I posed and she took a perfect picture of the flowers pointing to my breast. She was laughing and laughing that she took a picture of me again. And again. And again. Then she wants to pose, too. Click. Click. And more clicks. The Dong was now out of the picture.
The Museum of Literature is one of those ancient pagodas where the scholars of the royal kingdom were honed (I’m not good in remembering dates but I’m sure Christ missed all these). They followed Confucius’ school of thought. I didn’t have a subject on oriental philosophy but hey I have read “The Tao of Pooh” (that’s Winnie the Pooh who is rumored to be a gay bear). There, Confucianism is differentiated from Lao Tze’s Taoism in the sense that the first is into fierce discipline while the latter is more into passivity and calmness. I later read from the museum brochure that the museum’s huge posts engraved with Chinese characters actually instructs visitors to dismount from their horses before entering the gate. Yeah, I guess that tells something about Confucianism. After seeing all the things that need to be seen, again, I lingered inside the museum because I met these Vietnamese women students – one of them, I understand, is studying “iron” (hmm doesn’t this say something on where vietnam’s economy is going?). We chatted for a while, i.e., I memorized and properly pronounced all their names and I ate some of their peaches.
I headed towards Lenin’s Statue on a motorbike (me on the bike, not Lenin). After a few clicks, my camera’s battery gave up so I went back to the guesthouse and luckily, joined another guesthouse guest to catch the water puppetry show at 5PM. From the cinema, I headed to the lake where I was able to observe a silent lovers’ quarrel.
Then I lost my conical hat and that capped my first full day in Vietnam.
