Vroom Vroom Vietnamese

Vroom Vroom Vietnamese

December 22, 2009, 10:43 am
Filed under: Vietnam

Part I: Love in the highlands of Sapa

Crossing an international border on foot is always an exciting adventure and apart from the pushiness and a barrage of questions such as you want to take a motorbike, get a hotel, buy a pineapple, have a shoe shine, hotel room, exchange money from an accompanying local, we were still relived to finally step foot into Vietnam.

Forget “Good morning Vietnam” rather, think “Good morning Touts and Souvenir Sellers” as the Vietnamese have cottoned on pretty fast into how to extract money out of tourists for, well literally anything and everything. Nowhere more so was this apparent than in Sapa, a hilly small town perched some 1800 metres above a valley of terraced rice paddies. A melting pot of northern ethnic minority groups some whom only in the last four generations emigrated from China. Black Hmong, White Hmong, Flower Hmong and Red Dzao swarm in droves to spruik their wares at the local market and to unwary tourists. Sweet-faced girls and women of all ages dressed in snazzy cotton and hemp garb: embroidered legwarmers, ruffled skirts knee high, aprons and long-sleeved wrap around tops smile as hey say “will you buy from me?” as they seductively hold up indigo-dyed embroidered textiles and hand-beaten ethnic jewellery.  These ladies have an uncanny photogenic memory as they pin you down several days later on your half-hearted non-committal promise of “maybe”.

in the way, our romeo guide

We followed a local guide- Aim- on a three-day hiking taking in the local scenery and two home-stay experiences. The jewels of the valley took form in seeing the progress of a joint Chinese-Vietnamese venture to provide hydro-electricity to the valley. Small hydro-electric stations were being built with minimal impact on the villages and were seen as a welcomed project as not only electricity was brought to the villages scattered in the valley, but small roads connects otherwise isolated communities that now had a access to the medical clinic that was previously was a two days’ walk away. Despite the romanticised view of water buffalo ploughing fields and harvesting rice by hand, these improvements no longer confine the valley’s inhabitants in a timeless museum existence.

Each night we stayed with a family, however unlike our Bornean experience of sleeping head to toe with our hosts, separate sleeping quarters were provided. Like in Borneo, Vietnamese hospitality entails drinking copious amounts of rice wine with the male host; manditory for female guests. We quickly found out that Aim our guide was a) a two-pot wonder and b) on the first night was staying in the home of the family whose about to be married (in two days’ time) daughter was his first and perhaps only true love. As you can imagine the lethal combination of drowning sorrows with not the most hygienically made homebrew was a little too much to bear for alas our poor Romeo suffered from a god-awful hangover the following day. After a few grumpy low points and some short words from Matti, we all made peace as Aim sweated the rice wine out. Matti and Aim joined the village boys in a game of soccer with the opponents score resulting in the losing side doing push-ups pitch side. All was celebrated that night with quadruple the amount of rice wine joining our new host. All I remember of the night is having forgotten to pack headache tablets and the Vietnamese word for “Cheers” inbetween toasts- I think I just ended up saying “Juicy Fruit” as a linguistic blunder, but luckily we all fell into a blissful snoring slumber after a hard day’s walk and urh ehm drinking.

layer upon layer, the rice paddies

Sapa was a brilliant introduction to Vietnam including its cuisine with multiple dish meals, and a taste sensation to sate our Western cravings with great thick strong coffee laced with condensed milk, crunchy baguettes with laughing Cow cheese, and randomly choosing cakes in the local patisseries.

Part II: Inner city living

Riding on the back of a motorcycle in Hanoi is a great way to see the narrow streets, avoid navigating death defying intersections on foot and pestering fruit peddlers. Add a backpack strapped to you and it becomes an even more so exhilarating thrill. Perhaps it’s best not to mention it to our parents and travel insurance company, but it’s a must to do in the capital of Vietnam. Savouring coffee and delectable filled baguettes every morning and each quickly establishing their own favourite street vendor, enabled Matti and myself to have breakfast locals and a bit of morning solitary exploration of Hanoi. Coffee is thick, strong and sickly sweet with a good shot of condensed milk settled at the bottom that you need to stir through slowly; after the fourth cup of the day when your breaking out in nervous jitters and caffeine sweat, you realise that it’s making up for the lack of coffee in the past few months of China travels.

easy riders

I reckon that I could live in Hanoi, and as unanimously pigeon-voted as the right-sized best Asian city in our travels so far, with a compact old quarter, the lingering legacy of French colonial rule such as lounging in cafes, crazy traffic, and, of course, an amazing array of northern Vietnamese cuisine to try- apart from the Fido stuff that is. Neither did we manage to match our friends, Kari and Max’s brave attempt of roasted pigeon.

it's the shit. weasel digested coffee beans. very tasty

 As usual, we somehow managed to miss the obvious tourist attractions, except we did get to shuffle silently past Uncle Ho’s resting place, the mausoleum, who had recently returned from his annual bi-monthly visit to Russia for a bit of cosmetic touch up. I must say, he looked as good as on the bank notes, serene as ever, strangely enough almost Caucasian, and as he lay in his crypt like a grey-haired grandpa should, seemed to just be taking a rather long siesta. It is amazing what red lighting can do to one’s pallor since he shuffled off this mortal coil over several decades ago. 

Part III: The shot, minus the gun, wedding

We quietly sat in the back row of the bus, yet the bus boy didn’t fail to spot our light-skinned faces immediately and a too often experience situation took it’s course. Despite the protest of Tat, the bus dude wasn’t going to have a bar of it. We were Westerners, therefore expected to pay an inflated fare. Liberally applied yet slightly annoying, but an understandable tactic in Vietnam. This time the local versus Westerner mark-up was a staggering 20,000 Dong. Yes, that sounds like a lot of money but once you get your brain around to convert back to the Aussie dollar, then it is a less daunting figure. At the time A$1 equalled about 18791.23 Dong. So not worth getting work up about and, after all, we were on the way to a wedding.

The invitation to the occasion wasn’t a usual one. During our stay in Hanoi we lodged in a small family-run hostel. Which besides from having light-filled rooms, a balcony overlooking an alley full of life: selling, buying, chopping, mincing, weighing and bargaining action. It also had cable TV, packed with good channels, most notable two, all day, soccer channels called GoalTV1 and GoalTV2. What a score! Yan Tien Hotel was run by a lovely gaggle of brothers, sisters, cousins and uncles and aunties. We enjoyed putting up camp there and it seemed that the feeling was mutual, as on our second time there, being shyly asked if we would like to visit the family’s home village to witness one of their uncle’s wedding.

We, along with Tat, Cecille (a French-Swiss working for a Swiss NGO who had in the past logged for a lengthy time at Yan Tien) and her housemate- Jack the Brisbanian, were un-ceremoniously dropped off the bus in the anonymity of nightfall somewhere in the north countryside outside Hanoi. Despite that initial uncertainness, from that very moment onwards we were in safe hands. We were driven on scooters from the highway to the village and then through the whole night and the next day by an assortment of friends and family members. We felt very lucky to get an insight to Vietnamese family and rural life. But on looking back, the most we got an insight on really was rice wine.

come in, there is a party going on

Friday night sort of was the buck’s party and by the time we arrived at the groom’s family home the revellers had been going strong for nearly the entire day. Obviously, we had some catching up to do. The boys wasted no time helping us to do so- and fast. By the time were shown and stumbled into our night quarters our tummies were full of local delicacies, mostly of the liquid kind. Our sweat drenched skins from too much raucous dancing to surprisingly hard, maybe even Gabba-like techno, and the lungs recovering from smoking forced offered ciggies. And of course, we hit the pillows with huge smiles on our faces. We were granted a short amount of recovery sleep before we got gently woken with a knock on the door and to rattling noises of sewing machines. We didn’t realise on our arrival, but the family’s home we stayed at also functioned as some sort of sweatshop, with employees assembling shirts destined for Spain. We probably could have done with some new clothes too as were only dressed in our backpacking best. Birkenstocks, unironed shirts and colour-stained bottoms but nobody was going to judge us on our clothing. What mattered more was our capability to keep up drinking shots of rice wine, and more dancing. All in all the second day of the wedding start shaping up like the buck’s previous night’s, with the difference that there now heaps more people gathered at the groom’s family home. Neighbours, friends, and family soon added to around 750 invited guests. All were feasting and drinking to the occasion. Thom, the groom was moving from table to table accepting congratulations and occasionally envelopes, containing Dong’s for the future ahead. The bride was yet to appear, as she celebrated at her own family home, torn apart with the joy of joining her lover, yet sad as the day also meant she had to move away from her own family and join the groom’s family; to care for her husband and his parents equally.   

hey ladies

not another round!

 As visitors, all we were expected to do was sit and be served. The food was plentiful and delicious. We had rotating company joining us for the everlasting meal and in true Vietnamese tradition, those people would pick out what they deemed the best and tastiest pieces from the array of dishes one chopstick load at a time in to our individual bowls. The hardest proved yet to come as we had to find the time to eat as a queue of fellows eagerly jostled up, wide grins, pleasantries and question in Vietnamese on their tongues and a bottle of rice wine in their hand. Each one would pour our ceramic cups, raise them, impatiently urge us to do likewise and shoot the fermented goodness downwards. Lastly, upon putting our cups back on the table, everyone of the drinking round would raise to their feet to respectfully shake hands with the carrier of the bottle. And that is how it went for a long time, the next guy in the line already pushing forward ready to repeat the custom to his honour.

 We got a welcomed reprieve when it was time for the groom to “claim” his wife from her place. A spirited delegation was on their way on scooters, choosing the scenic back roads for obvious reasons, ready to meet the betrothed. Upon arrival it seemed that their party had been set at a different pace. Most noticeably fragile looking jugs of tea substituted booze bottles. In general everyone sort of sat more composed on their chairs. The girl’s parents probably had last minute doubts seeing the barbarians arrive, but it was too late, as dowries had been exchanged and their gorgeous looking yet teary daughter was off. That said she wasn’t off until the DJ had finished his set. And being it appeared to be the guy from last night, the parting tunes banged at roughly 180 bpm. 

dance floor action, with wed couple portray

on ya!

Hours later, having dropped off the goods safely at the groom’s home, eaten, drunk and smoked more we were back on our way home to Hanoi. Fittingly for the end of a perfect day, the flagged down bus didn’t overcharge us, the skies were painted in old master colours, and the evening air was a warm breeze. My head out of the window, taking it all in, my eyes appeared watery. I could have blamed a grain of corn, but honestly, I don’t think it was.

drinking buddies

kids of drinking buddies

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