The Journey to Vietnam

Why am I going to Vietnam? 

The practical reason is it's on my list, and I got laid off during a month when it's too cold to explore Eastern Europe. I suddenly had time, so I chose someplace that's warm this time of year, 

I also wanted to go someplace unlike anywhere I'd ever been. I wanted to be challenged. 

And on some level, I want to go someplace that was presented as a cultural enemy in movies and songs from when I was a boy. 

If you were playing a game of Password or The Match Game and someone said, "Vietnam," I'm certain almost everyone would say "War" or maybe "Vet" in response.  I don't want the garbage politics of the previous generation to define the world for me. 

                                                   

Many years ago, when I moved to Brooklyn, the joke in my family with my older relatives was, "Are you kidding? We worked as hard as we could for most of our lives to get OUT of Brooklyn, and you move there?!"

With Vietnam, my father (and many of the men I know from that generation) did everything they could to avoid the draft. And now I'm going there for fun.

The world is different. 

                                          

I'll be there for two weeks. I booked the first six days in Hanoi (in the North) and have left the rest open. I want to take a side trip to see Angkor Wat in Cambodia, so I got visas for both countries. Seattle (where I live now) has a Cambodian embassy in it, so it was simple to drop by and pick one up.

The Vietnamese visa required working with an online company that might have been scamming me, but they charged so much I figured I would actually get the visa.

A real scam would have been disguised as a bargain.

The money in Vietnam is called the dong, so I made all the predictable jokes. "Everyone is going to be competing for my dong, etc." I couldn't get any ahead of time, but I'd read that American $2 bills are considered lucky over there, so I got a stack to give out.

The money is the thing I'm most worried about. The conversion rate is 22,400 dong to one dollar, and that math is confusing to me. I hoped my lucky twos would be cool for tipping, so I don't accidentally make someone a millionaire or insult them. 

I made arrangements for my cat to have a sitter, had a long good-bye afternoon with a special lady, shoved some camera lenses, books, and t-shirts into my backpack and headed out. 

In an absolutely marvelous appetizer for my mission of keeping an open mind about people from "enemy" countries, the Uber driver was from Basra, Iraq. His nine-year-old son was in the front seat, and he told me he hoped I had a good time.

"It will be a long trip," he said in his high little-boy voice, "but it might be worth it."

They got me there in plenty of time.

The flight was scheduled to be thirteen hours to Taiwan, a four-hour layover, and then three more to Hanoi. So, it was going to be what the kids call "a minute." The airline was called EVA and was listed as one of the top-ten best in the world by Forbes magazine. 

Forbes, no less!

Waiting to board were monks in robes and frail, elderly folks who looked like it might be the last time they would be making this trip. The line of wheelchairs was exceptionally long. The women, they were all women, had grave, dignified expressions on their faces. It seemed almost like a status symbol. 

A welcoming army of smiling jade-uniformed attendants led me to my seat. It felt like a normal airplane, except the people boarded exceptionally quickly.

                                          

I was seated next to a Vietnamese man named Van. He was in his late sixties and was immediately all over me. When he learned my name, he used it with great regularity. Usually people who do this have read something on how to influence people, so I figured him for a corporate dude.

"Simon, I have to tell you, Simon, I have known much sorrow in my life. But also, Simon, a lot of happiness. A lot of happiness, Simon. I am going to Vietnam for the first time in over fifty years to see if my brother is still alive. Have you ever chased a cold trail, Simon?"

He was very nice, and his stories were interesting, but I could feel his breath in my throat, and he would take things out of my hands and casually stroke my forearm. His wife sat behind us. I figured I was in the wrong to be uncomfortable. This was the first opportunity to embrace a cultural difference.

Our Western notions of personal space are absurd. Is the theory. (I still like it, though)

He wrote helpful Vietnamese phrases in my journal and told me how much he loved Tom Clancy novels.

He asked to see my guidebook to see if it was any good. That was where I'd stored the stack of $2 bills, and he asked why I was using the book as a wallet. I told him I'd heard they were lucky and was that true?

He said, "Sure. Sure, Simon. Two dollars are lucky, but five dollars are more than twice as lucky."

We laughed about that for hours.

He told me the Vietnamese word "ma" can mean mother, horse, grave, a neutral color, and several other things based on the tone you use. I told him I would be careful not to accidentally tell someone their mom was a dead beige horse.

Eventually we fell asleep.

The flight was troubled by turbulence but nothing serious.

                                            

The food was good, but also nothing serious. One of the side dishes was "fish floss" which was an orange powder with a sugary, fishy taste. It looked and smelled too much like what we used to sprinkle in our home aquarium for me to eat it.

I'm canceling my subscription to Forbes magazine.

I endured pictures of Van's grandchildren. I met his wife. He told me about a "fast-growing sport among seniors" called pickleball. It's apparently like ping pong with a large ball and no table.

He was very nice. It was a long flight. Amazingly, people got off as quickly as they got on. It took half the time of a domestic flight? What's the secret?

Van and I said good-bye forever in Taipei. Perhaps we will meet once more on the pickleball fields of Valhalla.

Layover! It was a pretty fancy airport. Lots of liquor. Lots of perfume. There was a Starbucks, and I got a coffee. Like a person! I needed the taste of home to wash away the fish floss.

Hello Kitty had a strong presence. There was an enormous play-area for kids with her face all over it, and she was all over the phones. I figured if I picked up the receiver, Jasmine or Ariel or Mulan would answer.

While I waited, I re-read the section in the guidebook about how to handle myself at the Hanoi airport. I also read a short story by Stefan Zweig. Then it was time to go.

I passed out for much of that flight, but I woke up for the fresh fruit and mineral water.

The clouds outside the window were tremendous. Incomparable beauty. Architecture made of vapor. Looking at them, I felt something like wonder. I felt renewed. I was as open-minded as a nine-year-old boy in the front seat of his father's Uber.

I was ready for Hanoi.