Nothing says Christmas like a trip to Communist Vietnam. Christian and I arrived at the decision to spend the holidays in Hanoi much like we arrived at the decision to get a french bulldog - spontaneously and without doing much research. Our hour-long commute from the airport to the old quarter where we'd be staying for the next four days while celebrating the birth of baby Jesus and CC, should have tipped us off. We spent the duration of the ride holding our breath, white knuckling the seat in front of us, and suffering shell shock from all the incessant honking, which we learn is the Vietnamese equivalent of using a blinker. Why let the old lady on the bike who's balancing a soup pot on her back while cycling through traffic know that you're about to turn with a blinking light when you can just lay on the horn?
The first couple days consisted of sightseeing, dodging mopeds, avoiding the old tourist trap of walking too slow and suddenly finding yourself balancing two baskets of fruit with a woven hat
thrown on your head and then paying for a photo opp you never even knew you wanted. Ducking into galleries and discovering a really cool artist and then leaving that gallery to flee from the old woman who's insisting that you need a new pair of nail clippers or a lighter. Finally locating what appears to be a delicious bahn mi stand only to find out that the sandwich you're given is actually filled with all the things you never want to eat. Ever. Walking into a boutique and scoring five new dresses for 1,925,000 dong (about $100 US dollars) and having your fiance realize how many jokes he can and will make about "dong" for the entirety of the trip.On our third day, Christmas, we decided to take a guided boat tour of Halong Bay. We'd heard
wonderful things about this 1500 km strip in the sea that is home to nearly 2000 limestone islets. A system that was formed over 20 million years by rainfall and weather and apparently, according to our tour guide, dragons. We started our journey by boarding a bus crammed with 16 starry eyed tourists, all ready to be amazed by this natural wonder. I lost CC when the tour guide told us it would be a 3 1/2 hour drive to the bay. And 20 minutes into the trip, when the couple who brought along their baby decided the trip wasn't for them and asked to be let off the bus, I had to hold onto Christian's belt loops to stop him from joining them.Luckily for CC, our tour guide wasn't much of a talker. He taught us that the famous Vietnamese noodle soup, pho, was created as a dish to help men recover from a night of boozing and then he talked on his cell phone for the duration of the trip. This proved to be a bad idea, when at the end of the day we found that the bus driver and our vehicle to get home were missing and our guide's cell phone with the driver's number in it was dead. But I digress. Left on our own to gaze out the windows and guess where we were, we settled in for the long drive. About mid-way through we stopped at what can only be described as the Vietnamese version of Costco. A warehouse full of machine made crafts and scarves and snacks sold in bulk to busloads of naive tourists being shuttled through on their way to the bay. We'd had about enough of having things that were likely made in China shoved down our throats, so we left with a tube of Pringles and waited for everyone else on the bus.
We arrived at Halong Bay and were met with much colder weather than we were prepared for. We brought jackets but we had a dude in a tank top and flip flops, his girlfriend in cut-off's, and two teen's traveling with their mother who were wearing t-shirts on our boat. If you know Christian at all, you know that his knowing people are cold is something he's unable to tolerate. He gave up his jacket to the young girl and let the dude who was stupid enough to ever wear a tank top suffer. That's my guy! Although the surroundings were incredibly beautiful and the lunch they served us onboard was edible, the weather and the less than enthusiastic boat crew left a bad taste in our mouths. We left the boat and kayaked around a bit, then eagerly re-boarded so we could head to the caves (which is the only thing the guide seemed truly excited about).
We arrived at what appeared to be a big mountain, took some photos,
and climbed inside to view what was indeed a magnificent and massive water-formed cave. Only problem is somebody decided to light all the formations with different colored lights so that the awe-inspiring natural wonder was lit up like the inside of Saturday Night Fever. To further the effect, Kenny G was being pumped in as background music. WHY? After the assault on our senses, we were more eager than ever to get back to the hotel. After offering up our cell phone and locating the missing bus driver, we made it back by 10pm and nursed ourselves back to happy by devouring enough room service to feed 18 people.
Our (supposed) last day was spent checking out even more pagoda's, this time in the Ba Dinh area of town. This section of Hanoi is clearly devoted to Uncle Ho. Museums, mausoleum's, and monuments abound. We skipped checking out the museum's and decided to just hoof around and check stuff out. It paid off and we covered several miles of Hanoi and got to see some gorgeous architecture and the beautiful and serene Temple of Literature, which was built to honor Confucius over 15o years ago. After exiting the Temple, we ran into a friend from Singapore, proving that it is indeed a very small world. He and his sister were a sight for sore eyes and we made a date to meet for beers and tapas later that evening. We enjoyed the meal and the company and went to sleep that night feeling like we could leave Hanoi knowing we had seen everything we wanted to, with minimal grumbling and negativity. A real feat!
The next morning is when the entire trip really became a parody of itself. After packing our bags and eagerly anticipating seeing Phoebe in just a few short hours, we realized that the file where we kept our passports and visas (the one that we moronically carried with us in a backpack for the duration of the trip), was gone. And so began a slew of panicked phone calls, then several trips back and forth to the US Embassy, then a visit to a ramshackle photo booth/mechanic garage to get new passport photos, then to the "police department", which was really a room where the only officer was about 16 and watching Billy Madison, to file a police report, then back to the Embassy, and finally a failed trip to the Vietnam Embassy (which had closed 15 minutes before our arrival). Wearily, we headed back to our hotel and booked another night.
We woke up at the crack of dawn, headed to the Embassy and begged them to let us go home as soon as possible. Without giving anything away, they told us it could be a possibility if we booked a flight for the next day and brought back proof. We were off and running, using only an iPhone and our last shred of hope to lead us to the closest Singapore Airlines office. Once we were booked, we ran back to the Embassy and the paperwork was handed over. We spent that night trying to make the best of our hopefully last day in Vietnam and managed to find a delightful spot to have our last night's meal. We ate well, headed to our hotel, and I promptly got violently ill - a special little sickness that stayed with me the whole night through. Not one to be outdone, Christian managed to jam all the toes on one foot into the strangely massive concrete floor divide between the hotel main room and bathroom. That night we drifted in and out of painful sleep wishing for a real live Christmas miracle. Low and behold, the next morning we were given our passports and kindly asked to leave Vietnam. We replied with "happily".
Don't get me wrong. There are lot of wonderful things about this country and the prospect of discovering those gems was the true reason we visited. The way everything in Hanoi is mixed together indiscriminately is exciting and interesting. You have beautiful colonial architecture and hundreds year old pagodas nestled in amongst alleys filled with garbage, cool galleries and hip boutiques with old ladies slinging soup from vats of chicken fat and pigs feet out front, vivid colors and terrible smells, incredible gardens and grimy buildings. Vietnam is fascinating because of it's beautiful resilience AND ugly decay.
In the overcrowded and smoggy streets, you see daughters holding the hands of their old and ailing mothers and smartly dressed old men cradling their grandchildren with pride and adoration. This sense of respect is instilled in Vietnam's people and replicated in the ancient architecture that is lovingly preserved throughout the city. Though we suffered some goofs, mostly due to our own idiocy and clumsiness, we got to visit a country that for our parents generation represented something altogether different than what it stands for now. I think Christian's Aunt Maria put it well. When we told her we'd be spending the holidays there, she commented, "Oh, the beauty of the world: things can, and will, always change".
For more photo's from our adventure, head HERE.
