Chubby Czech-er, Steppin' on the Mountain

Clear to the other side of Northern Vietnam, I went, on a night train with two Czechs who said that they were drunk. I was to arrive in Lao Cai, then take a bus to Sapa, my final destination. The chubbier of the two Czechs talked to me of his recent girlfriends. One of them was American. Then he said he didn't like America--whether for reasons of foreign, economic or break-up policy, I was not able to find out.

After getting off the train in a different town, getting another bus to Lao Cai, and then another bus to Sapa, I took a nap. I dreamt that I was trying to get to Sapa, that no one seemed to have any idea what was going on, and that they all kept pointing me in different directions. It was eerily real.

Sapa can make up for things like that. Mountains rise above you, and valleys settle in peacefully below you. The whole scene reeks of serenity; every turn of your head is a new postcard. It reminds me of many other mountain towns, except for the staircases.

This is rice farming country, and rice paddies are all over the valley. But they also make their way up the mountains, where alot of the tribes here live. The terraced paddies look like steps leading up the mountain... light-green, carpeted steps half the width of a football field--yet another thing at which to gratefully gawk.

When Cultures Clash

It's the tiniest things, really. Little differences between my culture and the culture of some of the countries I am visiting.

Case in point: I was sitting there, writing in my journal, at the cafe in my guesthouse. I was looking fairly intently at the page, when the disembodied head of a curious Vietnamese man begins to float slowly, slowly down, looking over my shoulder. I could see him out of the corner of my eye -- I recognized him as one of the people that worked there. He was casually reading what I was writing, probably to practice his English, but maybe to find out my thoughts on Vietnam. He looked bemused.

I just gaped at him. If this had been someone in the States, the best case scenario would have been a gentle "Do you mind?". The worst case scenario would have been a headlock or an elaborate judo move.

The key thing is that I'm not in the States, so I have to accept certain peculiarities as cultural differences. But there are limits. If he had begun correcting my grammar with a red felt pen -- that's when cultures clash.

Splashing and Staring

Highlights of Ha Long Bay, Vietnam:

• Taking in my surroundings -- almost two thousand islands. They aren't mountains, and they aren't hills... they are singular mounds of rock and trees rising from the sea. The horizon looks like a long blue camel with a thousand irregular humps.
• Swimming in the bay -- the water was like bath water. And taking running jumps off the top of our cruise boat (only about 15 feet up from the water) made it that much more fun.
• Sitting on top of the same boat, drinking Tiger beer, and staring up at the stars.
• Checking out the village on the water: an actual town made up of floating huts. Their front yards were a grid of fishing nets, and they actually had dogs that ran and played along the planks in between them [the sea makes an effective fence for dogs].
• Hiking to the top of Cat Ba Island to get a view of the bay and surrounding islands.
• Taking the boat back to Ha Long City, and just sitting on the bow in the sun. The morning breeze, all by itself, made my day.

It was insanely touristy, but it didn't matter. Ha Long Bay, to me, is one of those places where everything and everyone else just falls away for a little while.

Sodden Art

On my first full day in Hanoi, I saw my first statue of Confucius, was ripped off by a taxi driver, ate my 75th helping of rice on this trip, and saw a bunch of puppets frolic in waist-deep water.

Water Puppetry is an ancient art form here in Vietnam, dating back to the 11th century. Because so much of people's lives were spent near and in the water, I guess, they set their stories in the water also. I went to see the show in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, which is where I was staying.

It's difficult to understand things like puppet shows when they are not in your language. I don't know how people who go to the opera do it. But, encouraged the music being played by the traditional Vietnamese orchestra (very impressive), I leaned forward and tried to grasp what I was seeing.

Okay, so there were dragons... two of them. They had fireworks coming out of their mouths. Then three puppets came out, and they all said something. Then they laughed.... Hahahahahahaha. hahahahahaha. aaahhhhhhh. hhahahah. ha. Then there was a water buffalo, and a fish. Then a few puppets came out and tried to put a bamboo lampshade on the fish, but he was having none of it. More laughter... then a turtle with a sword. Then the turtle laughed, then all of the people puppets came out and their arms were spinning around like pinwheels in a windtunnel. Then the turtle puppet and the people puppets all hahahahahahhahahahhah-ed heartily. A few puppets starting doing backflips, and then the puppeteers came out and bowed.

So, as far as I can tell, the show was a comedy about turtles, water buffaloes, fish and people, and how sometimes people flail. I don't know what the hell the dragons were were all about. Oh, and all of the puppets were very, very damp. But it's art, so take from it what you will.

Tonal caution

I've arrived in another country, with new basic words to learn.

Tone is very important in Vietnam, apparently. Some words can be spelled the same, but depending on where the accent is, can mean completely different things. For example, the word 'pho' means street and it can mean noodle soup.

I have to be careful here. I don't want to compliment some lady's cooking and accidentally call her a hooker or something.

A Shining and Blinking Disco Star

I think back to being in Vang Vieng, crossing the dirt road from the place we had dinner to the Disco Club across the street. I was there with a few people I'd been traveling with through Laos- a French guy, a German girl and an Austrian girl. That sounds a bit like the beginning of a joke. But it's not.

The disco in Vang Vieng looked somewhat like the basement of your friend from 6th grade, the one with the cool house who had a party -- with boys and girls. The walls were festooned with Christmas lights in a plastic tube. They were all twisted into excitingly simple shapes which, I guess, are supposed to make you feel like disco-ing when you are in Vang Vieng. There was a star. And another star, of a different color. And a big, bright shining rectangle that blinked on and off, all to your fave top forty hits! Throughout, I felt like a mild Asian woman would be coming down the stairs any minute to offer us sandwiches or kool-aid (but really to make sure no one was making out).

We all drank Beerlao and watched the locals do their own sixth-grade dancing. Then the French guy started dancing up a storm himself. I laughed and applaud him, glad that he was feeling the Laos-commotion (sorry, had to). He yelled over the Usher that was playing -- "The alcohol - it's improving my mood."

I enjoyed the rest of the night, watching the flickering and circumstances of a night out in small- town Laos. If this doesn't sound familiar to you, maybe you weren't invited to that party in sixth grade. Maybe I wasn't either. But you can imagine what it would've been like, right?