Hanoi, Vietnam
January 2, 2001
I spent New Years Eve in Hanoi, Vietnam. Had a great night actually. Hung out with the Israeli guy and a German friend. Also met alot of Vietnamese at a couple of the bars, and kept going until about six in the morning. At one point, a local Vietnamese girl and I went to see some live bands near the square. I rode on the back of her moped bike. She showed me around, and I wish I could have stayed in Hanoi longer to spend more time with her. The little time I spent with her was quite a nice way to see the city.
A few things about Hanoi. It has lots of lakes, and tree-lined streets. Its a also a twisty curvy kind of place, with lots of street vendors. In some ways it reminded me of my days spent in Pusan, Korea. Perhaps mostly because of the large amount of old ladies selling fruits and vegetables fresh from the outlying farms around the city. One of my most favorite sights was the old Vietnamese ladies with their conical hats, and a large stick with two large bowl-like concave baskets which held fruits or vegetables. The women would have this certain way to carry them, where their legs would have a strange gait to them. It was intereseting to watch.
Oh, there is one other thing I wanted to mention from my last journal entry on my way from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay. I took a bus out there, and it stopped near a railroad track for about 10 minutes while waiting for who knows who. Anyhow, a Vietnamese guy from the bus was walking down the railroad tracks on his cellular phone, when a train came barreling down on him. He didn't even see it. Everyone on the bus was watching in horror. At the very last instant (some of the other passenger swore he was actually hit), he jumped from the tracks at landed in a ditch. (Later I spoke with him, and he said he wasn't actually hit). But that night (he was with us alot the Ha Long Bay weekend), he told me he was completely unable to sleep, becuase whenever he closed his eyes, he envisioned the train coming down the tracks and the feeling of hovering sense of nearly a millisecond from what could have been his death.
Also, in Hanoi and all of Vietnam, I wanted to discuss the strong French influence. Many of the houses are very French, with large second story windows and a large balcony overlooking the streets. They are so beautiful. I could easily live in one of them. The strange thing is the Vietnamese modification of the French houses. Basically, they are long going backward, and thin on the sides. That wasn't the strange part, but the strange part was the sides and back of them were just unpainted concrete, but the front side facing the street, was beautifully painted with intricate designs, and often the year painted on it from the year it was built. The other large influence from the French was the commonly seen French Bread which was sold nearly everywhere, and almost essential to any breakfast in Vietnam.
Also, in Hanoi I saw a tradional water puppets performance. It was quite interesting to see these artists extend their craft. The story was in Vietnamese, but could easily be understood. It was written centuries and centuries ago during the wet season of Vietnamese, when most of life is submerged in water. The water puppets were also in water, and there were fisherman, dragons, snakes, fish, and kind of comical stories intertwining their relationships.
Next Journal Entry in Hoi An, Vietnam:
January 4, 2001
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