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A woman at a local market shooed me away as I ogled a bowl of live eels. Pardon me, ma’am, not something I see every day. Forgive my curious nature. I’ll fuck off now, thank you. Then again, where did curiosity get that cat? I saw another woman with a headless turtle squeezing blood from the neck into a plastic bottle. Nummy. And then there were the live puppies I heard barking incessantly. (Not a pet market. Nuff said.) Perhaps, they’ve dealt with their share of judgmental Westerners and have had enough. Also, maybe I just look like an asshole.
Disgruntled shoe dude was mildly upsetting, but the rest I laughed off with ease… mostly. I found the quirkiness endearing… for a while. I’d experience this before and assumed it would dissipate…
The language barrier hurted my head hard. I phoned Mr. Hung (rental agency) in Hanoi for backup and passed the phone for translation. Yep, we needed a guide—a fail-safe in case we became sick or injured. Fair enough. My cynical nature led me to believe this was a convenient way to drum up tourist business, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. We retreated to discuss options. What choice did we have? None. We returned to immigration and five minutes later a Mr. Hai presented himself. We followed him to his office and made it official. The staff there was friendlier but not overwhelmingly so. While waiting for our permits we had breakfast in the small restaurant in the back. More Vietnamese tar and meat (described as veal) that was mostly fat and skin. Yumsters…
The map was wrong. Really wrong. Dead wrong, as in “make-believe roads” wrong. This was hard to accept. What are the chances? How could this be? Well, it was. We wasted two hours reconciling impossible circumstances. According to the map, we couldn’t possibly be in the town we were in. We turned to the proletariat. Inquiries/borderline interrogations followed. We were ignored, brushed off, or given more baffling information. How many ways can you pronounce 'Ba Be'? Answer: 1,946. Did a note (courtesy of Mr. Hai,) with “How do you get to Ba Be Lake?” written in Vietnamese help? No, no it did not.
We drove through Bao Lam twice in search of glory. No luck. We capitulated, opting for the long way…
Package tours don’t tickle my fancy but became a necessary evil given time constraints. So, it was a tour bus to Ha Lang followed by a two-night junk run in Ha Long Bay capped off by three days of leisure on Cat Ba Island. The bus was, well, odd. Our tour guide had a microphone and a powerful desire to share interesting factoids about Hanoi and Vietnam. Context, history, and background? I’m in. Thing is, dude’s voice was unbelievably irritating (something akin to raking stones inside your head.) Perfect for Zen-master training, not ideal on a “relaxing” ride. I wasn’t above offering a cash payment to cease and desist.
He shared depressing tidbits regarding thousands of children…
Vietnam was our carpe diem. Feet first. Eyes open. Take a chance. Have a fling. Threw our hats in the ring. Lewis Carroll said it best, “In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take, the relationships we were afraid to have, and the decisions we waited too long to make. There comes a time in your life when you realize who matters, who doesn’t, who never did and who always will. So don’t worry about the people in your past, there’s a reason they didn’t make it to your future.”
All did not go as hoped. First off, time wasn’t on our side. I felt pressure (self-induced) to organize the perfect getaway for my Irish lass. No doubt this compromised my laid-back disposition. My pre-reunion Hanoian social exchanges…
1858 - French colonial rule begins.
1930 - Ho Chi Minh founds the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP).
1941 - ICP organises a guerrilla force, Viet Minh, in response to invasion by Japan during World War II.
1945 - The Viet Minh seizes power. Ho Chi Minh announces Vietnam's independence.
1946 - French forces attack Viet Minh in Haiphong in November, sparking the war of resistance against the colonial power.
1950 - Democratic Republic of Vietnam is recognised by China and USSR.
1954 - Viet Minh forces attack an isolated French military outpost in the town of Dien Bien Phu. The attempt to take the outpost lasts two months, during which time…