Exotic Erotic: Mornings in Hanoi and other observations from Vietnam
June 2, 2007 | Category: Uncategorized
In the middle of a two-week post-graduate school decompression jaunt through Vietnam with Kyle, a childhood friend from Utah. I’ve been posting photos on Flickr as we go (see the slide show). Including a few notes below to put the pictures in context, with more to come later. Writing this on the fly, so please excuse grammar and spelling errors. I’ll correct them once I have more time to sit down at the computer:
HANOI—Flew in here on the 25th after a frenetic week that included dozens of last-minute preparations for my impending move to Beijing, falling inebriated out of a comandeered limo after a graduation dinner in San Francisco, and packing up my apartment a half-hour before Kyle arrived from Salt Lake City for the connecting flight. Kyle was late getting his luggage in Oakland, which left us 90 minutes to catch our flight to Hong Kong across the bay at SFO. We made it time thanks to a blissfully wreckless friend and her deceptively fast junk heap of a VW Jetta. Not the ideal way to start a vacation, but it had the side-benefit of making me tired enough to sleep the entire 13 hours to Hong Kong, despite being wedged between two large and figedity Chinese women. Also slept most of the way from Hong Kong to Hanoi, this time with the entire row to myself.
I’d been to Hanoi once before, during the Tet holidays in 2002, when I was still living in Beijing. For all the talk of Vietnam being the new China, the city seems pretty much the same. The price of pho has risen to a larcenous full dollar per bowl (what next? a dollar fifty?), but the streets are still sleepy, the people still relatively subdued, and tourists still unfortunately and inexplicably incapable of waiting until they return home to don their “Good Morning, Vietnam” and “Same Same But Different” t-shirts.
Managed to meet up with Nguyen Qui Duc, regional editor of Pacific Time, and Bobby Chinn, the half-Chinese/half-Egyptian libertine celebrity chef-owner of Restaurant Bobby Chinn. Duc met us for coffee near our backpacker hotel north of Hoan Kiem lake, nearly drowned us in travel advice, then took us to the unbelievable four-story French villa he rents on the edge of the Old Quarter, where he trotted out his latest art project: a collection of deconstructed musical toys that he uses to choreograph strange little post-modern dances (he has one posted on YouTube):
On Duc’s recommendation, we went to the excellent Museum of Ethnology, which I missed last time, to see an exhibit on Vietnam’s subsidy-era economy: glass cases filled with old food stamps, old radios and bicycles, and old makeshift appliances. There’s also a nicely done recreation of a cramped pre-1985 Hanoi apartment, home to 8, with pig noises coming from the bathroom. Most striking part are the testimonials roundly slamming the miseries of the state-controlled economy and praising the current era of relative prosperity—Party propaganda no doubt, but the sort of mea culpa the Chinese government, at least in its current state, would never have the guts to produce.
Best experience by far, though, was the morning exercise routine around Hoan Kiem, which starts every day around 5am and appears to attract damn near the entire city. The main attraction, for us at least, wasn’t the old people doing tai chi—a common enough site elsewhere in Asia. Instead, it was mass jazzercise routine around a statue of Ly Tai Do on the east side of the lake (see photo). Imagine a hundred women, teenage to geriatric, bumping and gyrating to 80’s club music like Rosie Perez in the intro to Do the Right Thing. I have no idea where they learned these moves, but the effect is fantastic. Now if only some one would teach them the running man…
The food, it goes without saying, was damn fine. On a recommendation in the “Let’s Go” guide, we stood in line at Pho Gia Truyen (49 Bat Dan, west of the Old Quarter) and had what very well may be the best pho on God’s earth. Couldn’t figure out what they do to make it that way, but it made me want to cry. Also had some fine bun cha (cold rice noodles with barbequed pork) behind the Water Puppet Theater. Heard tell of an eel-noodle place somewhere in the Old Quarter but ran out of time. Hopefully on the way back.
HA LONG BAY: Still there and still stunning, but now swarming with tourists, even in the low season. While riding on the boat, we met a twenty-something woman from Texas, a manager at some dot-com, who now lives in Nob Hill and was on one of those horror-show three-week tours of the entirety of Southeast Asia with her mother. Managed to get her in trouble when she mentioned how much she loved Polk Street and I said, “Yeah, all those transvestite hookers are interesting, aren’t they?” Mom was not pleased.
HAO LU: The capital of Vietnam during the Dihn Dynasty (968—980AD), established after the distintegration of the Tang in China allowed Vietnam to (temporarily) throw off the yoke of Chinese rule. We went here on a lark after our flight to Danang got cancelled and we found ourselves with an extra day. Nice little spot: karst-like mountains jutting out of the ground with rice fields and a few temples nestled between them. We were there for the rice harvest, which was probably the most interesting bit. They had it spread out in raw form (i.e., still encased in brown chaff) all over every flat surface, including the temple courtyards, to dry it out before sending it off to get processed.
TAM COC: Another picturesque little place, packaged together in tours with Hao Lu. Main attraction is a series of low caves carved out of the mountains by a shallow river running past bucolic rice paddies. Former rice farmers gather in tin boats in the main part of town to pick up tourists and paddle them through the caves. Hilarity ensued when Kyle and I (combined weight: 400 lbs) boarded a boat being driven by a diminutive 12-year-old and nearly sunk the bow. Kid was a trooper, but we started lagging behind the others in our tour group and eventually had to have his dad meet us half way to take over the paddling.
Coming up: Hoi An and Hue.
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About the Author
Josh Chin is a freelance journalist based in Beijing. He also once worked as a sous chef in a French restaurant in San Francisco. Neither job has been good for his health.Latest from Twitter...
@mranti Just tried. Still blocked for me (on cafe wifi connect in Beijing). 2010-08-04Photos
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Great reading the narrative to go along with some of your pictures. It was also enlightening to discover a new land through your writing. I can picture the places in my mind – your descriptions are vivid. Thanks for sharing with us, and I look forward to more.
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Bobby Chinn is a VERY rude tv host. He is loud, arrogant and very much lack of cultural sensitivity.
He is imposing on the guests in the restaurant, who he thinks comes to see him and not enjoy the food quietly.
In the show he makes Thai monks to look like baggers when he hold back on the bill which he offers as merit on his show. the monk reach forward and bobby does not let go, with a look on his face that reads: i got ya bagger.
In india he shouts in indian accent in the market, In vietnam he touches old ladies in the market and so on.
all what he does is so full of himself, that i wonder when it will be over for him
I agree Bobby Chinn is offensive and rude to local people he meets on his travels and makes fun of their culture. Just because he is half Chinese and half Egyptian it doesn’t give him the right to make inappropriate and offensive comments about other peoples’ customs. Quite often the joke is at the expense of the people who he is interviewing or have invited him into their homes and kitchens. He’s not funny or entertaining – I cringe everytime I watch him…just another obnoxious ego trying to make a name for himself.