MY TRAIN ARRIVED IN HANOI AT FOUR O'CLOCK YESTERDAY AFTERNOON. KNOWING NOTHING ABOUT HANOI, I WANDERED AROUND THE CITY LOOKING FOR A CHEAP GUESTHOUSE OR AN INTERNET CAFE FROM WHICH I WOULD LOOK UP A CHEAP GUESTHOUSE. ONE RECEPTIONIST SAID HE COULD RECOMMEND A GUESTHOUSE AND WOULD CALL TO HAVE THEM PICK ME UP AND TAKE ME OVER. ALTHOUGH I EXPLAINED TO THE MAN BEFORE I GOT ON HIS MOTORBIKE THAT I ONLY WANTED TO SEE THE ROOM AND I WASN'T SURE I WOULD STAY, HE WAS VERY UPSET AFTER SHOWING ME THE PREMISES TO FIND THAT I WANTED TO CHECK OTHER HOSTELS. I MADE MY ESCAPE FROM HIS STEELY GRIP USING A DISARMING SMILE AND A PROMISE THAT I WOULD COME BACK, WHICH WAS A BALD FACED LIE.
I FOUND A ROOM AT A TINY GUESTHOUSE AFTER ONLY A FEW MORE MINUTES OF WALKING AROUND, DROPPED OFF MY BAG AND WENT FOR A WALK AROUND HANOI. THE FULL MOON CELEBRATION BEGAN WHILE I WAS OUT, AND I GOT LOST IN A CROWD OF LITERALLY THOUSANDS OF VIETNAMESE ADOLESCENTS SCRAMBLING AROUND THE OLD QUARTER HAVING A BALL AWAY FROM PARENTAL SUPERVISION. I WITNESSED TWO MINOR MOTORBIKE CRASHES, NO INJURIES. I EXPECTED TO BE MORE FRUSTRATED WITH THE SITUATION THAN I WAS: EVERYBODY IN THE CELEBRATION SEEMED TO BE HAVING THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES, AND THOUGH I WAS DRENCHED WITH SWEAT AND HAD BEEN WALKING ALL DAY, THEIR HAPPINESS WAS CONTAGIOUS. I FINALLY FOUND MY WAY BACK TO THE GUESTHOUSE AND, WARY OF THE STREETS, RESIGNED MYSELF TO A DINNER OF WHEAT CRACKERS AND A CHOCOLATE BAR, WATCHED TWO EPISODES OF SEX AND THE CITY, AND WENT TO BED
My second day has been considerably more relaxed. I have seven more days to kill in Vietnam before my Chinese visa comes through. I've purchased an overnight boat tour to Halong Bay tomorrow, but I'm not sure how I'll fill the rest of the time. Hanoi deserves at least one more day of exploring. We'll see.
After two days of early rising, I drank in the luxury of sleeping in until eleven this morning. Breakfast (lunch) was a bowl Vietnamese "salad," which I mistook for soup, of beef, rice noodles, bean sprouts, crispy fried slices of garlic, lettuce, crumbled peanuts, and an the stems and leaves of an unidentified herb that tastes a little like anise, and eerily familiar. That I falsely thought it was soup brings up a philosophical question- where is the line between "soup" and "salad with a LOT of dressing"? Regardless of its taxonomy, the sauce-dressing-broth was so rich and buttery and good that it made my chest quiver the way it does before you start crying.
I spent the day exploring the Old Quarter on foot with relative ease. In the daylight, without throngs of cheery locals abounding, the city is surprisingly simple to navigate, in spite of the fact that the street names change after two blocks. I took in the Revolution Museum, which covers one hundred and ten years of abuse, and walked off the ensuing depression around the Hoan Kiem Lake. I scored a used China Lonely Planet guide for ten dollars to avoid any more fiascos like the one I experienced yesterday morning. It'll be a nice read while I take in the limestone caves from the deck of my chartered junk tomorrow.
For dinner, at the recommendation of the daughter of my hostel's owners, I had a spread of grilled, marinated pork, fried spring rolls, rice noodles and a huge plate of greens, including the mystery herb from breakfastlunch. And a bottle of Bia Saigon. With incessant motorbike ride offers, hard-bargaining merchants and whiplash-inducing traffic, Hanoi has none of the relaxed atmosphere of Laos, but I'll deal with the pandemonium if my luck with meals keeps up like this.
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