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Tag Archives: vietnam
THEIR AMUSED STARES, the smiles. I wake to face three young boys with dirt-smeared faces and sparkling brown eyes.
Hmong Girl Stare - MRP ART
PEDALLING FAST – but not fast enough. Racing from the opposite direction of this unmarshalled intersection come waves of scooters and cyclists, chaos sweeping around me as I slow, swerve, sandals scraping asphalt. Phew! Another accident averted.
Despite the odd traffic scare, for a couple of dollars a day, hiring a bicycle is good way to see the sights of Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital.
Carry a map and orientation is easy: Hanoi is flat and compact and the streets follow a grid, with the Red River flowing through the eastern side of the city. Elegant French-colonial architecture, grassy parks, pagodas and lakes make good landmarks.
According to legend Hanoi’s origins date from 1010 AD, when Prince Ly Thai To, from his boat on the river, saw the auspicious sign of a golden dragon preparing for flight and decided this was the site for his capital. The placement of the royal city and all development of Hanoi was determined by geomancy, the Chinese divining science. Over subsequent centuries palaces, temples, esplanades, artificial hills and man-made lakes were built, but later, during the French-era of 1883 – 1954, much of Hanoi was razed and westernised.
Hanoi’s charm is its tree-lined boulevards of faded French villas and grand government buildings, which surround the lakes and pagodas of past Vietnamese dynasties.
Marooned in the middle of ‘The Lake of the Restored Sword’ is an island pagoda built to commemorate a semi-historical legend. It’s said that a golden tortoise snatched a magical sword from the 15th-century warrior Emperor Le Loi – which he’d used to defeat the Chinese, to then disappear back into the lake, returning the weapon to the gods.
Seated in the park surrounding this legendary lake, I’m oblivious to the hum and swirl of Hanoi. It’s a great place to relax; best around dusk. From a street-vendor I purchase a bowl of pho: shredded chicken, bean sprouts, parsley and noodles in a clear, spicy soup. Delicious! While swigging beer, I watch a family of five picnic upon the grass, two young lovers coo and kiss, old men drawing long on their cigarettes as last light fades from the island pagoda.
Activity in the Old Quarter of Hanoi makes every day seem like market day. Men in Vietcong helmets weave their Cyclos (cycle-rickshaws) past pavements congested by parked scooters and women vendors wearing traditional conical hats, hawking fruit and vege or a few cigarettes. Others have set up small street kitchens consisting of gas burners and woks, frying something resembling shrimp, egg and veg pancakes (they taste great!). Shops are boxed side by side, some little more than a wall of stacked cans and cartons, selling everything from washing powder to Milo to biscuits and cheap Chinese beer. Grouped beneath shady trees there are chairs and mirrors and barbers offering me short-back-and-sides.
Meantime in the mainstreet the traffic rushes towards modernity.
Cautiously, I pedal into a fast-flowing avenue, passing the old citadel and the Army Museum to reach a quiet street where hundreds of bicycles stand in racks. Within walking distance are many of Hanoi’s main sights, including Vietnam’s most revered monument: Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. (Ho Chi Minh was the leader responsible for defeating the French and challenging the Americans, dieing in 1969, before final victory.)
Ho Chi Minh’s tomb is grey, marble-clad, Soviet-styled. I’m part of a procession who pass soldiers in white uniforms, red trim on their pants, jackets, caps, white gloves clutching AK-47’s, bayonets fixed. The interior is stark and silent. Shiny marble corridors with sentries every 5 metres. Four guards stand rigid – like stern-faced statues at each corner of the glass coffin where “Uncle Ho’s” embalmed body lies in eerie light: wrinkled, waxy-pink face with a whiskery chin.
Nearby, the Ho Chi Minh Museum, opened on 19 May 1990, commemorates the centenary of his birth. It offers everything from simple exhibits of Ho’s personal items to a colossal statue of the man to high-tech movie imagery and avant-guard displays of war and Socialist revolution.
Of Hanoi’s many temples the One Pillar Pagoda, a wooden structure sitting on a pillar amid a lily pond, is probably the city’s most famous. Built during the 11th century but destroyed by the French in 1954, to be rebuilt a year later, this shrine was constructed by Emperor Ly Thai Tong to celebrate a dream in which a goddess granted him a son. Subsequently, he married a peasant girl who bore him a male heir.
Today the One Pillar Pagoda remains a place of pilgrimage for childless couples.
Another Vietnamese tradition is that of water puppetry. It dates back to the 12th century. I watch a performance by the Thang Long Water Puppet Troupe. It’s strange; magical. Staged in a theatre with a pool, with a backdrop of cottages and pagodas and palm trees, puppets – grinning peasants, singing fairies, smoking dragons, flying ducks – glide along the water to the sound of music and banging of drums, to explosions of smoke and colour.
The great Chinese philosopher Confucius, goatee beard and golden crown, gazes serenely from his throne amid the Van Mieu, the Temple of Literature. This is the cultural heart of Hanoi. Built in 1070 AD as a dedication to Confucius, six years later it became Vietnam’s first university.
Within the temple’s enclosure of ponds and pavilions, shaded by banyan and frangipani trees, there stand rows of steles on stone tortoises, recording the names of scholars who were successful in exams between the years 1484 – 1780. These honours were erected in recognition of the scholars, but also to encourage others in learning.
Two days of touring Hanoi by bike leads me to believe that I’ve mastered the art of cycle-survival. But this isn’t so.
Passing the railway station I notice a policeman whistling, shouting in my direction. I assume he’s harassing a local and continue pedalling. Suddenly pain in my arm. Cop’s ran after me; whacked me hard. In heated Vietnamese he indicates: I’m riding the wrong way down a one-way street.
Hanoi is a relaxed, friendly, fascinating city. Yet I’ve second thoughts on touring by a clunky, old Chinese bike. Over the following days I sit back and let someone else pedal, cruising the city of lakes, legends and pagodas in the safety and comfort of a cyclo.
[ travel article published 1997 & 98 / travels 1994 ]
Last night I dreamed a disturbing dream. Was walking somewhere, down some road when I came upon a street brawl. Within minutes the fight engulfed me. I felt every kick, every punch as I sunk, swollen to the ground. Brutal beating. And horror – as liquid drowsed my body wet and ree king of gasoline and flame.
That sanitised hospital smell, the bright lights, white walls and nurses are what I remember next. And then facing my bandaged, melted face and thinking: Am I glad to be alive? Wondering how could I face family and friends with this new look. Burnt beyond recognition. Asking myself how could I live that same confident life now that I’m grotesque. Ugly as sin, as they say; as people no doubt would say, or think. There goes my any chance of a wife.
And when I got home it was as I foresaw. Frightening children, sinking friendships, shelving the looks-are-only-superficial facade and realising that I couldn’t cope with the new me. I wanted to end it. I wanted the old me. I wanted people to remember me that way.
And I recall getting excessively high – then putting the pistol to my head, knowing as I did that I’d opted for the easy option. Dying. Knowing I wasn’t the strong, determined person that I’d thought myself to be.
Waking from that vivid dream some hours later still in Kontum, in the highlands of Vietnam, I realise – the movement in the corner of my eye -somebody stops and stares as I drink fresh orange juice in a dirt-floored shack -which is a shanty restaurant open to the street. At first I don’t really notice him. Just another curious person. Just another tribal. Just one of the million today who’ve stopped to look.
Just another beggar … Just another pained face. I glance again – I’m stunned.
My mouth hangs like the melted skin that drips from his face. He’s a zombie !!! Christ! It ain’t real. I dart my eyes back. This time he shyly turns away. And me too – shit, I’m gaping at a living horror – it ain’t polite. But this is real. A man with a melted face. A face of waxy, oozing flesh and thick- stretched, whitened lips. And an eyeball exposed, round and bulging from the skull. The man with the Napalm skin stares. But catching my gaze, he turns. I feel sick.
That man is me from my nightmare. But he’s better than me: A person who wants to survive because life is worth any lost vanity.
I’m guilt-struck, and feel the urgency to gain his approval. As soon as our eyes re-connect, I smile and call: Jarao! Hello in Vietnamese He grins. (His cracked, blistered face like a happy horror.) I wonder how often has anyone said “Hi” to him. Alone, and looking like a misfit.
I want to photograph this guy – but lack the courage, the nerve to confront such a task. Some minutes later, he’s away, hobbling and bent. His warped, blistered face.
He looked like a freak from hell – and probably felt it but really it is I who is the freak, for thinking of him so.
FROM MY DIARY:
SAIGON (Ho Chi Minh City): 24th June 1994: Monsoonal torrents drenching the city; rain pounding for hours; damage confined to flooding streets, slower scooters, scattered commuters. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the siege has lifted, that Saigon has been relieved by the sun.
*
It’s great to be back in Saigon. Am staying in the same hotel. The view from my (4th floor) window shows worn-out urban Asia: shabby, decayed concrete blocks jumbled, half-finished, and continuing to grow, roof-tops with low brick walls and bamboo-scaffolding, balconies sprouting gardens, or boarded-up for extra room. And above this crusted, hap-hazard skyline looms mist and drizzle.
All day – splattering.
Rain and iron.
Rain and wood.
Rain and concrete.
Been rainin’ since I woke … since I woke in this room with a vibe: like G.I Joe has been here before me: bonking with a Vietnamese gal to sound of a storm.
Nothin’ seems changed since the Yanks left. Military radar, and row upon row of concrete hangars and miles of old tarmac at Saigon airport. The streets crowded by cyclos (cycle-rickshaws), scooters, bicycles, conical hats … but clearly lacking cars. On the hotel wall the SAIGON TOURIST agency rules state:
1. Show your passport with valid entry / exit visa at the reception …
2. Do not bring into the hotel: weapons, toxics, explosives …
5. Prostitutes are not allowed in the hotel …
Maybe something has changed during the 20 years since the Communist North seized South Vietnam. Once, Saigon was famous for it’s sex.
*
At a cafe I met a woman selling postcards. She wanted to talk. I bought her a bowl of noodles and a Coke for lunch, and during our conversation – in broken English – came her offer of sex. The idea attracted me. (An unexpected mid-day romp … why not?) The problem was being busted by the police – she was afraid. So instead of going back to my hotel she took me to a discreet, family-run place; up some stairs, behind locked doors then into a room overlooking the street; the noise entering thru the shuttered windows as she showered, as I lay on the bed drinking beer, fan-blades swishing at the humidity. I paid for the room. I paid for the beers. I paid her price – 10 American dollars. But I forget her name.
She looked younger than her 23 years. Her body tiny, skinny, weakened by the birth of a baby (a year ago). Since then her boyfriend had left; she now lived with her mother. And that afternoon I was drawn into her world, lured by her beautiful but sad gaze, by those eyes of despair.
But our encounter brought me more. Whenever we met in the street, she demanded gifts or soft drinks or food. My (lust-induced) goodwill became an unexpected sponsorship. A contract I’d not foreseen. An English-speaking cyclo driver, who I’d befriended and who knew this woman said, “She says, you belong to her”.
But I, like G.I Joe, left Saigon to fend for herself.
