Hanoi - Day Two - John McCain's Flight Suit

I crept downstairs at 5am. The free breakfast was going to be served at 7am, and I figured I'd explore a little while the city was quiet, watch the sun rise at the lake, and come back for some of the amazing coffee that flows from the taps here.

The lobby was dark, and the hotel staff were sleeping in cots on the floor. Just sprawled out there on their backs. A small electric fan cooled them. It made me think of Sleeping Beauty when the wicked fairy's spell casts the court into an enchanted slumber. I tiptoed around them and discovered the door was bolted with a giant bicycle lock. The wicked fairy's thorns.

I couldn't leave without waking them. But which one to kiss?

I just sat on a couch and looked through the locked glass door out into the street. An old woman was arranging some flowers on the sidewalk. An old man was smoking from what looked like a three-foot bamboo stalk. A few cars. A few bicycles. A motorbike crawled by with a slaughtered pig in sections strapped to the front. He must have been headed to the butcher shop. I'll never get that picture.

With the orange glow of the street lamps, it was like the lobby was trapping me in amber. Perhaps future generations will clone me from my DNA and I'll rage around a theme park. Another old woman came to the door with two bags of bananas. She placed them on the steps and left. I waved to her, and she waved back. She made no noise, but one of the sleeping boys woke up. He saw me and frowned. When he undid the lock to get the bananas, I slipped out.

I had a very beautiful creep-around in the pre-dawn. Crossing the street was easy! Made my way to the lake where I saw a platoon of old ladies doing tai chi. And a bunch of shirtless dudes doing vigorous calisthenics, twisting and slapping themselves on the back.

I'm sure it invigorated the blood.

In a giant plaza, at least a hundred women of all ages were doing a large group exercise to that "Sandstorm" song. It played from a junky old boombox. I saw other women in doorways across the street copying them and also a block away.

I loved seeing it. It was, like, five-thirty in the morning and it seemed like the whole city was getting ready for a day of dodging motorcycles. I got choked up watching them. It was beautiful. The commitment to health and community.

Moved on and watched men unwrapping batches of newspapers, hundreds of titles, daily papers and magazines from every city in Vietnam and at least ten of the surrounding countries. The men worked quickly to get their inventory and to nail down a spot on the post office steps. They would be there all day yelling the equivalent of "Extra! Extra!"

I watched the sun rise above the Opera House, its curved roof outlined in pink and tangerine light. My belly was crowing like a rooster, so I made my way back to the hotel. Many of the people I had seen setting up their flowers and fruit were now open for business.

I saw three construction workers kneeling at a makeshift shrine on the concrete. Incense curled around their hardhats. They were making an offering to Our Lady of the I-Beam, perhaps.

The sidewalks here. are everything at once - kitchen counter, living room, workbench, cafe, garage, lounge, product showroom, and temple.

Back at the hotel, the cots were all put away and the lights were on. The staff were acting like they'd been awake and attentive the whole time. The free breakfast was a feast. Noodles, pho, melon, scrambled eggs, toasted baguettes, congee, cucumber, grilled fish, and all the coffee you could drink with all the milk they could condense.

What must they serve in the "nice" hotels?

Thus fortified, I took a full-bellied shower and went back out for a long sight-seeing city-attack. Made my way to St. Joseph's Cathedral. It's soiled towers jut into the sky like decayed fangs.

The city was alive now, it was bright and hot and dangerous and beautiful. It smelled like broth and gasoline. Over half of the women wear bright face protectors, and they often coordinate with their outfit. The uniform when driving is a crazy-patterned hoodie with matching surgical mask.

I was only a few blocks from the "Hanoi Hilton" so I followed the line of proud white-haired Texans and humble elderly Ohioans headed there. I heard then chattering about it in the street. Not sure why they were so excited. I guess at a certain age, war museums are the only thing that heats your can of beans.

The literature promised them that John McCain's flight suit was inside. It was, along with a bunch of sad history. It was a giant prison the French built for unruly natives, and it didn't reflect very well on our Gallic brothers. Inside is a guillotine they used to chop women's heads off. In 1930. Shackles, pits, dark rooms, cold. A prison. 

I couldn't get over the idea that they were using a guillotine in 1930.

In WWII, the French had some trouble at home, so they had to go, but they were replaced by the Japanese. Who were even worse to the locals. The whole Pacific part of the war is much less familiar to me. It's all starvation and rain and bayonets.

Then the Japanese had some trouble at home, so they left, and the French tried to crawl back, but it wasn't easy. Eventually, the Vietnamese controlled the North (where Hanoi is) and they decided to keep the prison open. And young Senator John McCain was over here on Spring Break and got caught stealing a pack of Virginia Slims, so they stuck him in a tiger cage.

So, I'm glad I saw it, but it was sad. Overcrowding, disease, starvation, shackles. It was nice to get back out into the streets. I was grateful for the opportunity to be run over as a free man.

Long walk through a part of the city I hadn't yet been in. My night and morning had all been in the Old Quarter, but I moved Northeast toward the monuments and through a more "modern" part of town. wide avenues and European-style cafes and shops. A gorgeous old flag tower flagtowered over everything, but the wind had wrapped the flag around itself, so I didn't take a picture.

Across the street was a large statue of Lenin. The park surrounding him was empty.

There's plenty of Communist iconography here, and the government is Communist, but everyone is still religious and there's plenty of good old-fashioned Capitalism in the couch cushions. It almost feels like the whole country is the equivalent of a rebellious teenager in a Che t-shirt.

They love the aesthetic but not the practice. Tee hee, I have a Soviet star pinned to my leather jacket. Rad, right? So, uh, could you open a Wrigley's Spearmint gum factory here? We don't really need the workers to own the means of production.

There was a lot more traffic here, because there was more road for them to go crazy on. I did this thing where I would wait for other people to cross the street and join them for the whole "safety in numbers" thing. I was part of their family for purposes of manslaughter-avoidance.

I watched schoolkids play soccer in the park with a small, plastic ball. I passed an interesting temple, I came upon the enormous complex of embassies, state buildings, and parks surrounding the mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh's body is preserved in a Jello mold.

There was also a cute little pagoda all dolled up on stilts like Baba Yaga's hut. A long line of American seniors was lined up to peer inside. I took pictures of the souvenir table. The clerks all yelled, "Hey, Buy something!"

It took me a while to realize it was a question and not a command.

The tomb is a nice enough monument. I didn't go inside.

For a long time, I walked north. I saw a giant fountain carved to look like a lotus blossom. I saw people sleeping on their bicycles. I walked between two enormous lakes. One of the Libra scales women came up to see if I wanted any bananas, but I didn't.

I turned to take a picture of a graffiti face on an electrical panel and I was suddenly blind with a pain in my shoulder. I felt my camera being pulled out of my hands.

Of course, when you're travelling, you sort of constantly half daydream about being robbed or assaulted. I have this sort of always-simmering noonmare where my camera is snatched and I chase them begging them to just let me keep the SD card so I don't lose the pictures.

So, was it happening? The pain in my shoulder was the banana scales. The woman had taken it off her shoulder and put it on mine. It was very heavy. How do they do that all day? I groan about my camera bag when it has more than one lens in it.

I was blind, because she had jammed her conical straw hat on my head. She was grabbing at the camera because she was hoping I would want her to take a picture of me all dolled up like a native.

I really wasn't into that. I didn't bear her any animosity (though she had given me a moment of panic), but I just hate the idea of someone being like, "Hee haw, look at me, I'm a poor farmer person. Hyuck. My chauffeur better not see this, or he'll think he has to give ME a Christmas bonus."

I was able to extricate myself from the whole mess pretty quickly. I just got away from it, and I felt sorry for the woman afterward (though she had assaulted me. sort of. Felt bad for not giving her a couple of bucks, but I reasoned the Texans from the Hanoi Hilton would make it this way eventually, and they'd pose for sure.

Chop Chop back at the ranch is going to lose his shit over this one. Hey, Chop Chop, I look like you!

I watched men fish with strange wooden-circle reels and I marveled at a very large pagoda. There were floating lounges and coffee shops, there were swan boats.

A long walk there meant a long walk back. I wandered forever and ran out of water. I was slick with travelsauce, so I stopped into a cafe.

My map was badly creased from my constant folding and unfolding, and I was in the crease not quite sure where I was.

I ordered a hibiscus tea. It came with many tiny pieces of diced apple. Too many, maybe. The straw wasn't up to the task of managing them.

Refreshed and oriented, I found an enormous flea market. Four stories of cheap clothing and shoes and plastic corn. Also, lots of wind-up toys of that Gangnam Style guy. I saw a cat on a very short leash, and it made me homesick and sad. There were tiny sores on its face.

Its owner gave it fish, and the cat ate greedily and licked its chops choppily. I told myself the cat was well taken care of, and maybe it was true. Maybe the cat was even happy. I felt lucky I had seen her feed it. It let me tell myself a better story.

That was it for me. I went back to the hotel. Showered. Read a little Sinclair Lewis (a brilliant novelist) and napped. I went down to the lobby and arranged with Mr. Tong to visit Ha Long Bay the next day.

He wanted my dong instead of my American Express, so I had to go back out for money. Took the long way and ate some very nice fried rice at a little street cafe.

Got the cash, came back home and paid the man. He asked me where I was from. When I told him Seattle, he said, "Oh, Oklahoma City steal your team!" A wonderfully random end to a long rambling day.

Ha Long Bay in the morning. See it by bus!