One of the major cultural differences between Thailand/Cambodia and Vietnam becomes clear when traveling in a crowd. We’ve now spent roughly four days in Ho Chi Minh City (which everyone there still calls Saigon) and Hanoi. Before coming here everyone couldn’t have been more friendly. Vietnam, however, is another story altogether. Maybe it’s because I’m an American (or simply just a foreigner), but I have yet to be standing on a line anywhere in this country where a local hasn’t simply stepped in front of me. Even at the airline ticket counter! The stewardess had our passports and a Vietnamese gentleman just pushed me aside and started chatting to the lady handing out tickets.
That being said, there’s a lot of fascinating and wonderful things to make Vietnam my favorite stop on the trip so far. And, frankly, now that all the pushing and shoving in crowds is culturally acceptable, I’ve allowed my east-coast Jersey attitude to come out a bit…
The first several days in Vietnam we spent in Saigon. We visited the “Reunification” Palace (which many of you may remember as the site of the fall of Southern Vietnam). The anti-American propaganda here is literally dripping off the walls. The tale, as the Vietnamese tell it, is that after the “imperialist” Americans and their “lackeys” were forced to leave the country, the “heroic” Northern Vietnamese “liberators” stormed the palace and “freed” the Southerners from the current president’s opression.
Our second day in Vietnam we spent sailing on the Mekong (pronounced May-kong not Mee-kong). It was incredibly beautiful — another story best told in pictures. (Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that Hong Kong will be the bastion of advanced technology (and fast laundry service) that Pow and I have been dreaming about).
Today was our one and only day in Hanoi. The city is very different from Saigon. The southern city was a bit of a shock to the system after Cambodia — tall buildings, 9 million people (and 4 million motorbikes), shiny convenience stores — it could have been Manhattan.
Hanoi, on the other hand, is much older. The streets are narrower and in the old town where we’re staying the buildings aren’t allowed to be built higher then the tallest tree. In the morning we went to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum. It was a truly creepy and bizarre experience. The guards insist you take the whole thing very seriously and you are not allowed to speak inside. I’m still not entirely sure that his embalmed body is real. Though, they say that the mausoleum is closed three months out of the year when his body is sent to Russia for “upkeep”.
After that we went to the Hanoi Hilton. Though most of the jail that housed downed American fighter pilots is dedicated to the heroic Vietnamese political prisoners that were held there by the French, there was a small room that discussed the American history. They have John McCain’s flight suit on display and photos of him being rescued from West Lake here in the city after his plane went down. There’s also a propaganda video that ends by saying the jail’s Americans were released knowing they were lucky to have been imprisoned by the Vietnamese.
In the afternoon we met up with two university students from a group called Hanoi Kids. The two girls, aged about 21, were a financial planning student and an accounting student. They are trained by their student group to give tours around town. You can imagine that I had LOTS of questions about what it’s like to be a college student in Vietnam. They were extremely friendly and more then happy to answer my probably too-personal queries.
Here’s some of what I learned: Girls here live with their families until they get married. Both of our students still live at home. Though, I was told that it’s pretty customary for people to marry fairly young (totally understandable if you’re not allowed any freedom until you’re married). They do have divorce and it’s not uncommon (and Pow said there’s no divorce in the Philippines! According to her, once you are legally married the only state-based recourse if you decide you hate each other is to get a legal separation. After that you have to ask the Pope for an annulment! Also, legally, if a woman gets remarried within 90 days of her husband dying the state has a right to take her in for questioning, because they wonder if she killed her husband.).
We ran into one of the students’ friends while we were wandering around town. She was another university student – 21 years old, married since she was 18, and she has a baby. She very nervously said to us in broken English that if we would visit Hanoi University she would like to show us around.
I also learned that despite the propaganda, the Vietnamese don’t hate Americans. Our students said that the war is in the past and the Vietnamese like to look forward to the future. They want Americans to come and visit and learn about their culture. Though, when I joked that the sentiment was much more likely the attitude of younger Vietnamese, they had to admit that it was probably true. And, there have been a lot of random men on the street catcalling at me or simply yelling Hello! and Bye Bye! I’m not sure if it’s meant to be friendly or to point out the fact that I’m a foreigner.
Pow is still managing to pass as a local. In each of the countries we’ve visited so far, natives always start conversations with her in their local languages. She always laughs and says “I’m Filipino!” and they reply: “You look Thai!” In Cambodia, Pow was sitting in a local internet cafe (without me) and at some point foreign travelers started coming up to her asking what the rates were. She finally got tired of explaining she was Filipino and just told them how much it cost to use the computer.
Ok, the last thing I’ll say about Vietnam is that the food is EVERYTHING we were hoping it would be and more. The combination of Asian and French cuisine has made eating here, well, awesome. Pho (noodle soup with beef and scallions), steamed rice paper with pate and mint leaves, french bread and various smoked meats, white fish in a hot pot with dill, noodles, and shrimp paste. Every meal we’ve had so far has been amazing. And I’m pretty sure that’s not just because we got tired of curry.
Tomorrow we sail on a junk overnight around HaLong Bay, then we take an overnight train up to Sapa in the northern mountains where we’ll go to some hill tribe villages and stay at an electricity-free lodge on a hilltop. Looking forward to a little more relaxation and a little less HEAT (it’s been in the high 90s low 100s for the last 21 days).
Will be net-less until Hong Kong in about four or more days.
In many of the places I’ve been in the Orient pushing into line seems to be commonplace.