Vietnam Is Very Happy New Year: Hanoi and The Haunt Report 2013

While we were in HCMC (Hoi Chi Minh City), we were told my numerous people that Hanoi is quite a bit different from HCMC.  Hanoi is the political capitol of Vietnam, and as one might expect, it is where the control of the Communist government is the strongest.  We definitely got this impression from our experiences in Hanoi.  As we were told, Hanoi's bars and clubs are pretty strictly shut down around midnight.  I mean...seriously, after we went out one night, it was like we were walking around in a ghost town.  In the Old Quarter (where most backpackers stay), there was what I would imagine to be Communist propaganda spouting (but who really knows what they were really yelling about) from loud public speakers from early on in the morning until the early evening.  Despite all of this, how I would succinctly describe the difference between HCMC and Hanoi is that, while HCMC relies on its modernity and vibrant culture, Hanoi relies on its historicity.   

Hanoi had a lake in the city center, and another much bigger one a little farther northwest of the city center.  Daniel and I had the luck of exploring these lakes on an eerily foggy morning.  There was a Buddhist temple that was built on a small peninsula that extended into the lake.  With the addition of some mist, there was certainly an added element of mystery.  There were a lot of people at the Buddhist temple, so it kind of took away from calming effect that visiting Buddhist temples usually has on me, but it was still nice and somewhat otherworldly.

Besides wondering around the city, walking around the lakes, and admiring the temples, we also attended a "water puppet show." It's kind of hard to describe, but apparently there is somewhat of a tradition of puppet shows in Vietnam.  Usually they are used to retell folk stories.  This one in particular retold the mythological birth of the first Vietnamese people in the pond in the middle of Hanoi.  If I remember correctly it began with the mating of a phoenix and a dragon...?  Anyway, you know how these things go!

We also made a veeeeery short stop at the "Hilton".  No, not the hotel.  "The Hilton" is the nickname for the prison where American POWs were infamously tortured.  Literally all we did was take one picture if front of it (the one below of Daniel making a salute).  Apparently, the Vietnamese have a sense of humor, because most of the original "Hilton" was actually converted into a hotel many years ago, much to the dismay of American and International Veterans' organizations.

While in Hanoi, we took an overnight boat to tour Vietnam's most famous tourist destination:  Halong Bay (Descending Dragon Bay).  While we were in HCMC, we were at a bar and a lot of young..."stereotypical" Americans were sitting next to us.  One member of our party mentioned Ha Long Bay, and one of the American girls next to us said, "Are ya'll talking about Ha Long Bay?"  "Yes, we are."  "Hell yea!  We're going to Halong Bay too!"  This, as if Ha Long Bay isn't the most sought out destination in all of Vietnam.

More than likely you have seen pictures of Ha Long Bay at some point.  It's a maze of stark, rock islands that jut out from the water.  It was named a UNESCO world heritage site in 1994. 

Halong Bay was a couple hours away from Hanoi, so we had to take a van to get there through a tour agency.  In our tour were Americans, Canadians, Spaniards, Argentinians, Chileans, Swiss, Norwegians, French, and Dutch among others.  It was an international extravaganza!  We spent the first day touring the bay.  We went to some caves that were, unfortunately, plauged by hilariously bad Disneyland lighting.  There was also the option of kayaking, which Daniel elected to do, but I opted out of because I didn't want to get wet (it was cold and I didn't have a swimsuit!).  We also visited a "floating village", which was literally how it sounds:  fishermen and sea-faring merchants living in house boats; forming a rough community. 

After dinner, the night was spent visiting with our international friends.  We played a variety of card-based drinking games from all over the world.  Hilariously, there were one or two games that we all knew, but it went by a different name depending on which country we were from.

The next morning we toured more of the bay and then returned to land.  It was enchanting sitting on top of our boat and watching the jutting rocks retreat into the horizon.

For the most part, the pictures tell the story, but Ha Long Bay was nothing short of fantastic. One of the most amazing places I've seen!

After getting back to Hanoi, we made dinner plans with a few of our international friends:  the Norwegians, the Swiss guy, and one of the Dutch women.  We ate dinner together and then went out until...you guessed it, midnight.  Actually, the bar we ended the night at cheekily stayed out open until 1:00 a.m.  But what they did was they effectively closed the front by putting their garage door down (not sure how else to describe it, but it every business in the area had this "garage door" they would put down after closing for the night), but by allowing everyone to remain the bar.  This, so that every time a bar patron would leave between 12:00 and 1:00 a.m., they would have to reopen the garage door.

The next morning we would say our goodbyes to our international friends, and take a plane back down to Ho Chi Minh City, and then a day or two later fly back to Seoul!

 *****

Daniel and I (and to a larger extent with our friends, Kate and Liz) have an ongoing joke about being haunted.  Kate had a friend come to visit back in November, and after meeting Daniel, Liz, and me, he said something like, "You're friends are all great and everything...but they all seem rather haunted."  When Kate relayed that to us, we all laughed, but agreed it was probably true.  That's the first step to acknowleding you're haunted, I think: recognizing you are haunted and laughing about it. 

Anywaysies, while Daniel and I were traveling, we practically didn't stop talking about how haunted those around us were.  All the while, though, Daniel and I knew deep down that we were probably more haunted than anyone we came into contact with.  So, in all of it's splendor, I present to you...

THE HAUNT REPORT:

The Haunt Report 2013

While traveling in Vietnam, Daniel and I constantly assessed the levels of hauntedness of those around us. Whether it was a natural response to our insecurities concerning our own hauntedness, a consideration of whether or not we could actually be friends with someone who was less haunted than us, or a simple passing of the time, no one was immune to our assessments of hauntedness.

After careful consideration, here is the list of the most haunted foreigners we have met (names have been changed to protect the haunted):

Styr, a young man from Switzerland, was somewhat haunted. He had a somewhat bubbly personality, and seemed rather outgoing. But beneath the surface, Daniel and I could both sense a restless hauntedness boiling underneath.

Steve was a Canadian met in Ho Chi Minh City. He was traveling with a different Canadian, Alex, who wasn't haunted at all (maybe just a little...), but Steve himself was quite haunted. In Canada he works in near isolation (a town of 85 people) as a cook in a hotel in the Yukon the border with Alaska. Now, your employment doesn't necessarily indicate how haunted you are, but the majority of professional cooks I know are quite haunted, and resort to pretty severe substance abuse to mask their hauntedness. Steve was certainly no different, as it was clear that both his hauntedness and his libertine lifestyle had taken a major toll on his well-being.

Lacy was a Vietnamese-American whose detached way of interacting (to the extent that she turned her chair completely away from the group at the table, but continued to "interact" with the group with passive comments and acknowledgements that she was still, maybe, listening), was an early indicator of her hauntedness. Furthermore, she rarely looked people in the eyes when she spoke to them, which is generally a tell-tale sign of some serious haunting. She bore a stark contrast to her younger sister who was bubbly, perky, and actually "present" in the conversation. Lacy obviously had some deep, dark experiences in the past that made her the second most haunted person on our trip.

By far the most haunted person we met was a Spanish girl on our boat trip in Halong Bay. In fact, we didn't even have to speak one word to her to know how haunted she was. THAT'S HOW HAUNTED SHE WAS. Her unchanging "kill-me-now-because-it-would-probably-be-better-than-this-shit" face basically said it all. Seriously. She never smiled once. She always looked absolutely miserable. She looked as though nothing in life would make her happy...ever. Her clothes were tattered and covered in dirt and dust. Tell tale signs of hauntedness (and drug addiction...or both). In conclusion, she was the one person whose hauntedness actually haunted us.

At the time, Daniel and I decided the least haunted foreigner we met was a 19-year-old Frenchman. Shaggy-haired and raggedly dressed and in a somewhat haggard state, he approached us and asked (imagine a thick French accent), "I'm selling marijuana...do you want to buy some?" When Daniel and I declined, but thanked him for his offer, he said, "Pfftth, no problem," and walked away. Another time I saw him in the hall and thought he had just left the bathroom. I asked, "Are you finished in the bathroom?" and he responded, "I wasn't even in there..." and walked on. Now that I think about it, he was either VERY haunted, or not haunted at all.

*****
Well, that's all for my travels in Vietnam!  It only took me three months to finish writing about it!  Here's to the next vacation!