The Temple Of Literature

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Today was my last day in Hanoi. Taking my cue from the Lonely Planet guide, I decide to head out to the Temple Of Literature. Built around 1070, the temple is dedicated to Confucius.

I grab a moto from the Old Quarter, put on my helmet, hop aboard and close my eyes for the death ride across town.

As we arrive, I pull out some money to pay the driver, plus a generous tip for not killing me along the way. As I am paying him a small crowd suddenly envelopes us. It seems that I have dropped a small amount of money (at most $3) and one person has lunged forward to step on the wayward bill, acting as if he is just hanging around. Another man explains to me what has happened, and I thank him and the others who have gathered for their honesty.

I turn to the culprit and tell him to move while assessing the situation. Obviously, there is a lot of downside here, with the only upside being that I get my $1-$3 back. Clearly not worth it. I turn to the man and suggest he do something physically impossible involving one of his relatives. I then tell him he is a fine human being and wish him luck in his life. I then pull $10 out of my wallet and give it to the guy who first defended me.

As I shake his hand and walk away, a minor scuffle develops behind me over my misplaced lucre. Sometimes it takes one jerk to make us realise how lovely everyone else is.

Once inside I am again mesmerized by the timelessness of another place. Names of graduates are inscribed in stone dating back through the centuries. Sometimes when I am in places like this my mind boggles as I try and picture the people who walked on this same ground through the ages. I feel a lightning bolt rip through me and the ground pushing up at my feet as I shake my head in wonder.

Indeed, there is more to life than money.

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The Curious Case Of The Missing Contact Lens Case

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Unbelievably my contact lens case is missing. Again. After an epic search of Saigon to replace the one I had left behind in Phnom Penh, I am back to square one. I am utterly convinced that the maid in my hotel in Hanoi threw it out.

I wear contact lenses every day and have for years. It is as integral to me as my toothbrush, which was also thrown out, by the way. That is at least forgivable as it was in a squished cardboard sleeve that could easily be mistaken for garbage.

I can only surmise that whoever is cleaning my room does not know what a contact lens case looks like, nor what it is for, and once again I am reduced to using two water bottle caps to store my contacts in. This is not a big problem, until one needs to travel.

After searching fruitlessly through department and drug stores in Saigon, when I finally stumbled upon an eyeglass store that had what I needed I felt like I had won the lottery. I practically wept with joy at the sight of it and briefly considered forming a cult to worship the lady who sold it to me.

And now after an all too brief and mercurial relationship my contact lens case is gone again.

Rest assured I shall never forget its hourglass figure, or the way the threads of your lid meshed perfectly with your circular torso. I'll always remember how left was white and right was purple, the colour of royalty.

Alas, we'll always have Saigon, no one can take that away from us.

I have accepted the fact that while in Asia there will never be another like you. I have stoically accepted the fact that the best I can do in Indochina is two water bottle caps.

Now I will settle for fashioning a lid on my water bottle caps using scotch tape, but using this retrograde receptacle is the equivalent of dating a crack whore after knowing Marylin in the biblical sense.

Farewell contact lense case, surely you were the wind beneath my wings.

Now does anyone know where I can find some scotch tape in this town?

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The Joy Of Getting Lost

"Not knowing where you're going is the best way to get somewhere you've never been" -J. Peterman

It happened in Bangkok. It happened in Saigon. And now it is happening in Hanoi. I'm learning to live with it.

I am not particularly directionally challenged, but the labyrinthian nature of these cities makes it very easy to lose oneself. However, once I admit to myself that I am hopelessly lost, it is easy to embrace. Lost is lost, and there are no degrees of being lost. You are either lost or you ain't.

The Old Quarter of Hanoi is the perfect place to get lost. Lord knows I try and remember the way back, but after about the fourth turn, I'm done. I do take some solace that I have yet to take a taxi or moto in this city without the driver having to seek directions from a third party. Its not just me.

On the upside, my nightly ritual of getting lost has led me to finding two places listed in the Lonely Planet that I wanted to get to. Tonights serendipitous find was Mr. Minh's Jazz Bar.

Mr Minh is the capo de capo of jazz in Vietnam, a virtuoso sax player who decided to open a bar to keep the fledgling Hanoi jazz scene alive. Tonight I was hopelessly lost yet again when I stumbled upon the red neon of Mr. Minh's establishment. Suddenly, I don't give a good godamn where my hotel is. (like the remote, its around here somewhere) I saunter in, delighted.

For the next two hours, I am treated to the finest jazz that Indochina has to offer. My advice to you is Get Lost! And my deepest gratitude to Mr. Minh and his band for sharing their prodigious gifts with me.

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578 what now????

Image by kalleboo via Flickr

Given that I am a long way from where I need to be to get my ass home and that I am leaving in less than a week, I decide that today might be a good day to formulate some sort of exit strategy.

Given that it is probably about 3000km overland back to Bangkok, my plan has always been to fly to Thailand. Besides, I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere a few months ago on the internet that regional flights are pretty cheap. I think.

Lucky for me there is a travel agent right next door to my hotel. Of course the Old Quarter of Hanoi seems to be nothing but boutique hotels, travel agents, Pho joints and coffee houses.

I walk into the travel agent and make an enquiry. For some reason travel agents use the phone here, despite the fact that they have a web enabled computer in front of them. Who am I to question local wisdom?

After several attempts, the very nice lady gets a human on the line. After several minutes of Vietnamese banter she hangs up the phone, does a little math and quotes me a price of $578 US.

I do a double take. She explains that the price is for business class, as that is all that is available. I thank her for her time and slink out into the mid afternoon mayhem. Feeling stunned and a little hungry, I find a cafe, order lunch and ponder my options.

There is no way that I am paying $578us for a one way ticket to Bangkok, but this means a journey back from whence I came. Train back to Saigon, some unknown bus arrangement across Cambodia, and yet another bus from the Thai border to Bangkok. As much as I have enjoyed seeing the countryside of all three of these nations, the prospect of re-seeing it is somewhat less palatable.

I finish lunch and head back to my hotel, where there is free net access. After conducting my own research, it appears that I should be able to get a flight for about $200us, which is what I had originally budgeted. Buoyed, I head out to another travel agent and tell them my story.

They shake their head and begin searching. It takes about half an hour, but I eventually leave with ticket in hand, total cost $217.

That feels a lot better.

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The City Of The Soaring Dragon

Image by judithbluepool via Flickr

I make my way to my hotel in the hope that I can get a room, despite the fact that I am nine hours early. It is around 4:30 am and the hotel is disturbingly dark. I peer in through the door to see a mattress laid out on the floor of the lobby, containing two sleeping bodies. I knock on the door, feeling guilty for disturbing the staff.

I can't help but laugh at the conflagration of my own stupidity that has led to this moment. I originally booked this hotel from a net cafe where the computer date was one day early. Foolishly I believed the computer, as losing track of the day has been common on this journey. That was mistake number one. Mistake number two was misreading the train sked and thinking the train was arriving in Hanoi 12 hours later than it actually did.

In this case, these two wrongs actually did make a right. The big mistake was in fixing my mistake. If I had left well enough alone, all would have worked out perfectly. However once I realised that I had the wrong date, I emailed the hotel to change my reservation for the following day, which they kindly did. All of this leads me to darkening their door unexpectedly early.

Having roused them from their slumber, they sleepily let me in. I show them the code from my internet booking, and after much shuffling of paper I am informed that there is no room available. They offer me a computer and a chair. I gladly accept, and they go back to the mattress on the lobby floor.

I laugh in wonderment that someone as stupid as myself managed to get this far. Around 6:30 am someone checks out, and they offer me an uncleaned room so I can at least get some sleep. I lay a blanket over the bed and crash, thankful for the opportunity.

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North To Hanoi

I board the 7pm train out of Saigon. I have booked a "soft sleeper" ticket, meaning I will be in a berth with three other people.

I find my berth and walk into something completely unexpected. My cabin mates are a family consisting of a husband, a brother in law (I presume)  a very pregnant wife and a cute as a button four or five year old girl. Mercifully she is incredibly well behaved. None of them speak english, and I feel like an uninvited dinner guest.

To make matters worse I have the top bunk. Keep in mind that there is no bar or dining car. My options are to lay on my bunk or stand in the hallway. Thats it. The train pulls out and I feel like a kid who has been sent to his room without any supper. As the train pulls away into the darkness, its endless clacking and gentle rocking soon put me to sleep.

The next morning I wake up at 6am with the sunrise. Shortly thereafter we pull in somewhere and I dash off the train to get a coffee. With all due respect to my Italian friends, the Vietnamese make the best coffee ever, and I am deeply grateful for that.

I hop back on the train to discover that smoking is permitted pretty much everywhere. Things are picking up, I think to myself. We roll on as the sun begins to peek over the mountains. The scenery is an endless montage of ultra green rice paddies and jungle foliage. We pass by villages that appear empty. I soon deduce that this is because everyone is out working in the rice fields.

Eventually the train winds its way to the coast and I let out an audible gasp, overjoyed to see the ocean. And on we go.

I have taken to hanging out in the hallway, smoking with the rest of the bad kids. I strike up a conversation with a few young and very affable Vietnamese guys. At one point I find myself talking hockey with a Russian gentleman. I laugh at the oddity of talking hockey on a train in Northern Vietnam. Indeed, it is a small world after all.

The young girl in my berth and two other young boys have taken a shine to me. We communicate as best we can, which isn't very good at all. At one point a young man acts as interpreter, so I can actually answer a few of their questions.

Eventually we settle on a game where they come running up to me, frantically wave their hands and shout "Hello!". I reply in kind which sends them running down the hall in gales of laughter. This amuses all of us for about 45 minutes. As you can tell, there isn't much to do.

However the scenery rolling by is truly captivating and it climaxes with an ascent into the mountains, just south of Hue. Hundreds of metres below is the rocky coast,desolate with spectacular waves. I quietly thank myself for kicking my own ass onto this locomotive. This is what I came to see and all aggravation, deprivation and discomfort melts away. Simply unforgettable.

As day gives way to dusk I hunker down in my bunk once again. The train stops here and there. People get on, people get off. I wake at 4am with a strange feeling. We are stopped, and there are a lot of people getting off. Suddenly it hits me. My train does not pull into Hanoi at 4pm as I thought, it is pulling in now. I quickly gather my things and disembark.

It is the middle of the night, my hotel reservation is not valid for another nine hours. I'm tired and dazed. I light up a smoke and stare out into the darkness, pondering my next move from the stillness of the train platform. The words of a wise friend pass through my mind, "still here, still alive".

I stamp out my smoke, pick up my bags and move forward into the darkness of the Hanoi night.

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Tick Tock Stock

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I had this moment in Ghana, and now I'm having it here. Its the attack of the ticking clock, the realisation that deadlines are approaching and goals are unmet. Throw in my own propensity for procrastination and the stage is set for a familiar refrain.

I am sitting on a patio in Saigon, quaffing a few cold ones. A stark glance at the calender has led me to do some soul searching. I am seriously considering ditching Hanoi from my itinerary in favour of a move south to some beach somewhere. I tell myself that it keeps me closer to Bangkok, where I must return to fly back to Toronto.

Then I have an epiphany that almost makes me slap myself in the face. The thing that spurred this entire journey was an article extolling the virtues of the train ride between Saigon and Hanoi. I've come so far and I'm so close, yet I'm actually considering throwing in the towel. I finish my pint, find a travel agent and book a ticket for the following day.

You can't get out of it now, can ya Stock? What a fool.

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