Hanoi - Day One - "Hello, Buy Something?"

"Ugly Shoe! Ugly Shoe!"

A lady in pink had my name printed out on a little piece of cardboard. It was nice. She was part of a team of greeters from the company I'd arranged the visa with.  You meet them, hand over your passport and wait. They bring it to a grumpy old wizard who puts the stamp in.

Having flown here on such a stormy flight, it made me think of The Tempest. The pink lady was Ariel, the visa stamper was Prospero, and I suppose if you look around and don't see Caliban, you're it.

They didn't ask me any questions at the passport counter. I was ready with my hotel address and everything.  A Vietnamese guy from Vancouver was in line with me. He had to fly here last minute to attend a funeral. He lives in Vancouver and wore the entire line of Vancouver Canucks hockey gear.

Then I was in the baggage area where it was the usual scene of tired folks waiting for their guitars to come around on the conveyor belt and taxi drivers with exaggerated smiles.  I needed local money to make one of those smiles real.

There were three ATMs but only one of them took American cards, so I used that one. It let me type in my passcode and then a message popped up saying the machine was undergoing maintenance. I would have preferred that to have happened before I'd entered my code.

Would I get to my hotel to find myself cleaned out?

I had a fistful of Uncle Sam's salad, though, and there were plenty of folks begging me to trade it in. Oh how they clamored and competed for it. I handed one of them $100 and became a Vietnamese millionaire. Just like that.

I'd read not to pay more than 250k for a ride into the city. I slid into a cab, and the driver asked for 450k. I'd also read that you're expected to bargain for everything.

I was like, no, no, 250! And he was like, 350! And I thought it was a good strategy to act shocked at the price, and I said 350??!! And he said, "Ok, 350!" and took off.

We drove through the farms I had seen from the air and made our way to the busy, busy Old Quarter.

The ride was like one of those Krav Maga fight scenes in the Bourne movies.

Wheelbarrows full of pineapples, a driver stopping in the middle of the highway so he could pee on the side of the road (he just put his hazard lights on and got out, didn't pull over), a thousand and one motorcycles, woman in straw hats carrying heavy burdens into the flow of traffic, people forcing their way into the car during a traffic jam (the driver cursed them until they left), sudden stops, no signs, no lights, shattered coffee cups in the avenues, flatbed trucks full of decorative trees.

We were on the right, and the hotel was on the left, so he just honked out Morse Code for, "See you in one of the nine hells," diagonaled into the flow of Vespas, kept going onto the sidewalk, and made a phone call.

While I was staggering out with my bags, he remembered to reach back for the money.

A bunch of yellow-uniformed folks opened the door and took my bags and beckoned me inside. The one who spoke English bossed the others around. I was seated on a couch and told by a Mr. Tung that my room was being cooled for me.

One of the attendants brought me a glass with a thin orange liquid in it. It tasted like Kool-Aid.

It was an ordinary hotel lobby, though very small, with tile and a few couches. There was a little shrine in the corner with burning incense and some spotted fruit.

Another man who spoke English came down. His name tag read Mr. Tong.

Mr. Tong and Mr. Tung.  Perhaps there's a children's book in which one has terrible manners and meets his doom and the other says please and thank you and grows up rich and happy.

Mr. Tong always asks for permission before getting up from dinner. He folds his napkin and rises quietly.  Mr. Tung's chair makes a noisy scraping sound when he suddenly pushes away from the table.

Which would you rather be, a Mr. Tong or a Mr. Tung?

They carried my bags upstairs and I was shown my room. Fresh flower petals were arranged on the bed, an air conditioner made the place very comfortable. There was a free basket of bottled water and some packages of powdered coffee.

This place is $20 a night and I'd already received at least $85.50 in luxurious services.

I unpacked, showered, changed into clean clothes and tried to nap. Not happening. Nap nope, nope nap.

Went out into the action.

And action it truly was.

How to describe it? Narrow streets boiling with motorcycles and the occasional car. The sidewalks were parking lots for motorcycles and also used as storefronts. Folks just grind keys right there on the side of the road or weld motorcycle parts or stir soup.

You can buy a soda, from a little cart, but you don't get the bottle. They pour half of it into a plastic bag and give you a straw. You walk down the street holding your shifty bag of liquid and sip to your heart's content.

There are also hundreds of bicycles modified to carry every sort of good. They're essentially mobile bodegas. Women, always women, peddle by with an enormous basket of toenail clippers, crazy glue, lug nuts, brown berries, plastic Happy New Year horns, flashlights, and Chap Stick.

Some specialize. I saw many with just flowers or just feather dusters, or just fruit. A lot of banana bicycle stores.

Joining the crowd on foot are the women, always women, with these sort of bamboo Libra scales balanced on their shoulders with a pole. The baskets almost always had food of some kind. Something wrapped in banana leaves sometimes but mostly fruit.

And finally, the lowest caste, the women who carry a single tray of some kind of sweet baked bread. They're the most vocal, blocking your path and crying "Doan-ah! Doan-ah!" (doughnut?) and "Try! Try and buy!"

The men are more aggressive, plucking at your shoulder saying "Motorbike! You motorbike!"

They meant they wanted to drive me somewhere with me clinging to their back. You take a taxi to the suburbs or to the airport. For city transport, you hug a cyclist.

There are also the shoe shine men. Many of them just point to your feet and make a disgusted face. They're very good at shaking their heads in a disappointed way. Your dusty boots make me fucking sick. Mr. Tong's shoes gleam. You're a nasty Mr. Tung.

One particularly deranged dude jumped around a corner and tried to swipe my boot with his wet brush. When I pulled away, he hopped up and down in my face yelling "Ugly shoe! Ugly shoe!"

I moved away from him as quickly as I could, and he chased me pointing and yelling.

This was an issue, because your freedom of movement is severely restricted. Narrow sidewalk. One one side are storefronts, and construction projects. On the other is the river of death called the street. And, as I've described, all of these characters are on the sidewalk with you.

As well as people just eating dinner on a plastic chair or cooking dinner or, like you, trying to get somewhere.  And most of the other tourists were pairs of good-looking German, British, or American couples. All very fit. All very sunburnt and blond. It was very easy to imagine them fucking.

So, living convenience stores, workshops and kitchens with open flame, walking bakeries, and deli counters on wheels on the sidewalk and then you have to cross the street.

Pure terror. Teeth-gritting, jaw-clenching, tension. And fear. And religion.

You wait, but you can't wait long, because if you stay on the corner you'll have a doughnut in your hand, a banana in your shirt pocket, and your shoes will sparkle.

And there's no right of way or flow of traffic. Motorbikes come from left, right, behind you, right at you. They start up on the sidewalk next to you.  

So you write your blood type on your arm with a Sharpie and step off the curb.

In Dune, the soldiers wear these laser shields that are impervious to slashing swords. You can only stab them by moving in very deliberately with a dagger. The mantra repeated throughout the book is "The slow blade penetrates the shield."

And that is what I had to keep telling myself as I crossed the street. The only way to do it is to slowly walk across the street and let everyone curse and roar their way around you. Every cell in your body is programmed to trigger your flight instinct.

It was very hard not to run the last few steps. But the few times I did, I almost got run the fuck over.

I took a nice walk around the lake in the Old Quarter. I had to brush away a dozen or so folks selling greeting cards, "For your darling! You buy! Get card for your darling!" but there were lots of tourists here, so they drifted off to pursue other opportunities.

A bunch of local couples were having their pictures professionally taken in front of a pretty, red bridge. They looked like glamorous calendar models.

Located some useful stuff for later, coffee shops, ATMs, etc. and had a quiet dinner in a little fish place. The restaurant boys cooked it in a little pot at the table and I ate it. It was delicious.

It was the only thing on the menu.

Went back out into the inside-out shopping mall they call the street, slow-bladed my way back to the hotel and slept like a champion of sleeping.  

Mr. Tung stays up all night playing video games. Mr. Tong brushes his teeth and goes to bed.