The Road to Phnom Penh

Vietnam uses the Latin alphabet but add a hundred diacritic marks to it. So you get all these familiar letters with tons of  apostrophes and tails and horns slapped on there. It seemed in line, really, with the way they stack things on their bikes and how piled and coiled and twisty the powerlines are. They take what they have, and they max it out.

It probably has something to do with an inconsistency in the way city names are listed. Some maps say Ha Noi for Hanoi and Sa Pa for Sapa. I have to imagine it has something to do with those marks.

They get a lot more use out of those 26 letters than we do, and that seems in line with how generally wasteful we are.

Cambodia uses its own alphabet. It's snaky and sort of crampy and, I think, very pretty even when it's warning you of the dangers of road work or electric shock. A bunch of sweet little inchworms have a message for you.

Mentioning this, because being in Cambodia felt even more like I was "away" than the wildness of Hanoi did. Strange letters will do that. And because I wanted to continue chasing that feeling, instead of flying to Saigon, I decided to take a bus to Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital.

Quickly arranged an airbnb to stay in, found a bus ticket on something called Giant Ibis and got dear old Mitchell to take me down to the depot. I was happy to have an opportunity to say goodbye to him, I gave him my email address.

Bus was comfortable. I was a little worried because I'd seen some minivans that looked like old action figure carrying cases, just crammed with people like in a newspaper strip about India or something. But, Giant Ibis was a big old bird with a mighty fine wingspan.

I was seated next to a tech worker from Oakland who wore a t-shirt that said Ipho in the Iphone font. There was a picture of a steaming bowl of pho. I figured, like me, he had just bought a three-dollar t-shirt, since, like me, most of his were soaked in sweat.

I bought one in the Night Market that showed an elephant using his trunk to take a selfie. It was cute, but it fell apart. I had also bought one in Hanoi that showed a bunch of crazy scribbles and said Hanoi Traffic, but it gave me a rash.

I was finishing Tar Baby and he was tackling Pynchon (tech workers!), so we didn't speak too much. The view outside the window got very rural very quickly, Cambodia is a little rustic. The roads were dirt or had seen better days. The villages were pretty run down but all had immaculate temples in the middle of them.

Easy, pleasant scenes of those skinny white cows with the goofy hunch on their necks. Clear, cool pools with pink flowers on lily pads, naked children paddling around, women farming, men smoking.

One town was all taken up by an enormous statue of an elephant fighting two tigers. The elephant was winning.

I saw four monks crossing a metal bridge. They walked in single file (to hide their numbers) and each wore a differently colored robewrap wraprobe. Orange and blue and deep red and yellow. It was like a beautiful advertisement for popsicles.

At a roadside noodle stand, the techie told me about his experiences and I shared mine. He laughed at the story of my having been scammed by the Milk Powder Conwoman. He was like, "I'm traveling with a Chilean and a Guatemalan, and my friends can spot a liar at once. They grew up with that shit."

As we got closer to the Big City, the roads got a little less goofy, and most of us were able to sleep. I didn't want to miss any of the things I was sure I would never have the chance to see again, but.. so... sleepy.

The bus didn't have a restroom, but we'd stopped frequently enough that it wasn't an issue. Apparently the fish amok-related illness from the previous evening wasn't an issue either. It worked its way through my system and vanished forever. Au revoir, le poisson amok.

At one of these roadside WC breaks, there was a little table with some amazing paper-mache masks. Golden monkeys mostly. I loved them but was certain they would crack in my bag. A little square of flypaper was on the table with them and displayed its many still-twitching victims.

A dog was nosing around, but the woman at the fruit stand flapped her arms at him like a banana stork. I'm sure they fed him later. It looked more like something she was doing for show. I bought some brown berries from her. They had a very thin skin and a sweet, lychee-like flesh inside. Also an enormous seed that seemed bigger than the berry. An anomaly of physics!

What I thought was a decoration in the men's room was, in fact, an active hornet's nest. It hung on the door at face level, the little tunnels were like the holes in a microphone. Speak to the wasps, invite them out. Is this thing on?

We arrived and were immediately surrounded by tuk tuk drivers. None of your touristtown soft sell Siem Reap smiles here, this was the big city. You need a tuk tuk sir, it is not safe to walk.

They use US dollars here, so it's much easier to tell if you're being messed with. A guy told me he'd take me where I wanted to go for three bucks and I accepted his bid. Simple little ride down long, crowded boulevards. Monuments loomed over empty parks.

He, the tuk tuk driver, was named Liam, and he wore a baseball hat with a fanged Pac-Man on it. Kind of cute. He wanted to know how long I was staying and where I would be going and would I be interested in having him be my man for any and all of it.

I told him I wasn't sure yet, but he could pick me up in the morning and he could be my guy. He was very happy. I made a man happy. He told me not to go out at night tonight because the place was crawling with crooks for the last day of the Water or Moon festival.

The apartment was behind a hotel, so I had asked Liam to take me to the front since it was an easy landmark. I figured I would then just walk around it and find my host. But Liam didn't like this. Hadn't he just warned me? "Why behind hotel?"

I'm staying in an apartment here.

Hotel is here!

Then the host came out, and he was a slim little Japanese guy named Yuma. Liam did not like this at all. He actually said, "What are you?"

Meaning, "You aren't one of me, and you're not a Great White Whale, so back off. I don't know what you're selling pal, but have this guy under contract for tomorrow."

I was able to get him to understand, though, and Yuma was spared any more glares. I wonder what was up there. Is there animosity between those countries? My guess is it had more to do with Liam wanting to protect me from a stranger in an alley behind the hotel. He may have been thinking about those Last-Day-of-the-Festival Con Men.

The room was cool but in a heavily guarded fortress with a series of heavy padlocks and iron bars and the narrowest stairs I've ever climbed. Like, I had to turn sideways to climb them and I had to take my pack off. It was almost like the place was built with ropes in mind. Swiss Family Robinson house. 

Yuma was friendly but noticeably lost his cool when I walked in without taking my shoes off. I never think about that. He really blanched like it was a deep insult. Otherwise, all cool. Good shower. Good wireless signal. 

He left, and I decided I would nap a little before I went out for dinner. It was late afternoon. I watched a line of ants crawling on the ceiling. I followed them to their source, an outlet in the wall. Electric ants. 

They hypnotized me to sleep, but I could still hear club music from the hotel. It was nice, somehow, and I slept through it. Slept all through dinner and more. Yuma had stocked the place with ramen noodles, though, so I boiled some water.

The noodle packages were crawling with ants. I think I found them all before I put the noodles in the water. I'm sure of it. I'm sure I didn't eat any ants. 

The Khmer Smile

I've been more careless on this trip than in the past. I left some shampoo in Hanoi and my good razor... somewhere. I left for Sapa without my camera's SD Card. I left my phone on the bus.

Nothing too too awful, but inconvenient and, I feel, unlike me. I wonder if it's because I'm so focused on crossing the street and making sure I make all my buses, etc, that the little things are getting pushed out.

 I was fortunate to have gotten the phone back, as it serves as my primary alarm, and I needed to be up way early today to see the sun rise behind Angkor Wat. It was clever of the ancients to place it in front of the sun.

Sleep was a little fitful, since it turns out I'm here on some species of Cambodian holiday (Moon festival? Water festival? I couldn't get a straight answer), so the streets were loud outside, and there were some thrashy lizards in the room. Their tails whipped the garbage bag in the waste basket. I guess I had some of that primitive concern about sharing my bed with one.

Weaksleep or no, the idea of seeing this world-famous landmark provided enough adrenaline to get me up and out where Mitchell, faithful Mitchell, and his loyal tuk tuk were wide awake and waiting.

If I haven't described it yet, a tuk tuk is a motorcycle with a open carriage attached to it. It's a motorized rickshaw.

 He was going to take me everywhere I wanted to go, he knew where everything was, and he was mine all day for $20. Packed the camera and we took off into the pre-dawn dark.

The temples are open for visitors starting at 5:30, since many folks want to experience the sunrise there. You can buy tickets at starting at 5am, though, so we booked it for the ticket office. Several of the guide books suggested the sunrise thing was for the hardcore and was a kind of secret, but there were hundreds of people waiting in line when I got there.

 But, they know exactly what they're doing at that ticket office, and everybody was back in their tuk tuks or on their bikes or on their horses (!!!) in no time at all, really. Mitchell parked himself in the place where the hired men play dominoes, and pointed somewhere in the dark. I'll be here, he said, you go there. I went there.

 You really couldn't see much, but there were tons of folks in white clothes and tons of folks documenting their lives on camera, so by the glow of a hundred wifebeaters and video screens I found my way to the sacred temple.

 As the sun gradually rose, you could begin to make out that famous profile, and you could hear and feel people gasping and weeping. It was a genuine energy. Whether or not it was religious fervor or the power of realizing you're actually doing something you've always wanted to do, or just the Magic of Recognition, it was real. My face was wet too.

 It was like seeing Leonard Cohen in concert!

Like everyone, I angled to get the shot where you see it reflected in the water. I was satisfied with the result. There were merchants there selling, weirdly, giant paper puppets and paintings. They sat on blankets just outside the crescent of tourists. It seemed unlikely anyone would want an enormous monk puppet at 5:45am that you would have to carry around all day, but one lives in hope.

 And, it's certainly true that we have no better way of expressing our emotions than buying something.

 It still wasn't quiiite light enough to see, but I headed into the temple anyway. I figured that might make it more fun. Like, it would be cool to stumble around and then have the walls and floor gradually revealed.

I walked toward the Famous World Monument-shaped shadow and climbed inside. 

Spooky and musty and cool. Indiana Jones. Tomb Raider. Etc. Peaceful and interesting. Bats live there too. I could hear their squeaky dreams.

 Giant, distinctly Cambodian stone lions that kind of looked like ducks. Their curling roar-lips resemble a bill to me. Their faces were mostly worn away. Also big cobra-looking things. Most the bannisters and railings were their snake bodies. I learned later they're called "naga," which is probably something I've heard before but maybe didn't associate with Buddhism?

As things became more visible, you could see actual monks lighting incense and praying and you could see actual Europeans complaining that they couldn't climb all the stairs. One German woman was irate that she could see someone on a higher level than she was allowed to be.

 She yelled at a monk, "I suppose he paid you? How much!?" She reminded me of one of the parents from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. "All right, Monka, 'ow much for the Buddha? My little girl 'as to 'ave one."

 I think what happened was, the folks in the forbidden zone had climbed up there in the dark before the holy staff could put out the sacred signage. Anyway, it's weird the sense of entitlement people get in these situations. There were some beautiful relief carvings and a general sense of order. It was impressive and very pretty. The real action, however, was down the road at Angkor Thom.

The complex of temples is large, and you can do it on foot, but you'll be doing it for a very long time. I thought I was being luxurious (almost decadent!) by hiring Mitchell, but it's really almost a necessity. I went back to where the tuk tuks were parked.

Many of the drivers were sleeping in little hammocks they'd set up in the carriage. I loved this. They just hang out until their fare is done doing whatever. I have no idea how Mitchell spent his idle time, because one of his charms was he always found me first. I'd be poking around the parking lot and hear his gentle "Mr. Simon? Mr. Simon? Here here." And we'd be off.

 Angkor Thom features The Bayon, which is the stone pile of amazement with all the faces carved in. To get there, you cross some pretty cool bridges where giant figures play tug of war with a naga. Mitchell took my picture at one of them. He was fascinated with the focus ring on the lens.

 An old monkey was sleeping at one of the gates and a guy was cracking up pretending he needed to show the monkey his ticket. Am I allowed in, monkey? He was really amusing himself. It was sweet to see an old man making himself so happy with an old monkey.

Once again, Mitchell parked and sent me templeward.

 The Bayon was fantastic, filled with the strange intelligence of ancient artists. The stone smile was sweet, scary, leering, and welcoming all at once. Enigmatic, you might say! It reminded me of the motorcycle men in the Night Market.

They ask you if you want a ride on their bike, but they are also pimps, so there's a parenthetical after each request.

It's like this: "Hello sir, want motorbike? (want lady?)"

 The parenthetical is spoken aloud. Not whispered exactly, but spoken in a conspiratorial register and delivered with that stone smile from The Bayon.

 "Hello sir, want motorbike? (want laaady?)

"Most certainly not! (how much?)"

I spent a very nice time counting the faces and experiencing genuine awe at the scale and skill of it. It's very different than anything else I've seen, really. Like, the pyramids are amazing. The Eiffel Tower is cool, but there's something a little more... remote about them. They're just sort of... famous shapes.

 This had a kind of majestic purpose mingled with a freaky aesthetic. I was pretty amazed they let you walk around in there. It was like being one of those people who get a "pagan license" and are allowed to sleep with the rocks at Stonehenge or something. Another famous shape.

 I don't know. I loved it. It was strange and beautiful. And people were cool, not running around or acting like goofballs. Just sort of gasping softly and appreciating it.

I found Mitchell again (or rather, he found me - Mr. Simon? Here, here!) and we motored on to Ta Prohm, which is the one you've seen in the movies with the trees reclaiming everything.

Story goes, the Frenchmen who rediscovered all this stuff (the remnants of the mighty Khmer empire), wanted to leave one temple the way he had found it, so folks would get a sense of what it was like for him. I love that.

The rest (Angkor Wat, The Bayon, many others) are being restored and are as I saw them (clean, fascinating) but Ta Prohm is wild and filled with roots and smashed columns, etc.

I was like, "Hey, Mitchell, will you be my date to Ta Prohm?" but he didn't get it. He was like, "It is here. We are here now."

 Like the others, it's an enormous structure with towers and temples and ornate carvings. This one just has spooky Wizard of Oz trees in it.

Of the thousands of carvings inside, I had read that one of them was supposed to resemble a Stegosaurus. It was supposed to be in a tiny circle somewhere in the vast complex. A Jurrassic needle in a Buddhist haystack.

It's said, an exaggerated claim, I'm sure, that Christian fundamentalists use this stegosaurus carving to claim that dinosaurs and men were on the earth at the same time and that the world is just fifty years old or some shit.

 Take that, Darwin. Too bad the Beagle didn't sail up the Mekong River, or you would have known the truth! Praises to His Highest!

It had been a long morning after a rough night, and the mid-day sun was hot, but I was determined not to leave until I found it. I looked, of course, and if I heard someone speaking English, I asked them, "Have you found the dinosaur?" and they 100% had not found the dinosaur and 110% wanted me to get the hell away from them.

 Their loss! I found it!! After a really sweaty hour! (a guide knew where it was). It kind of looked fake and also could have been a rhino with leaves behind it? It also really looked like a Stegosaurus with a Triceratops head. Anyway, I loved it.

Mitchell found my soaked body and was like "More temples?" and I was like, "No way in Buddhist hell. Take me home at once!" 

So, it was farewell to the great majesty of this sacred region and back to the hotel. Like a person. 

I gave him a massive tip and we said goodbye. I took a massive shower and felt cool and refreshed. Then I took a massive nap and woke up to a sky shaking early-evening rainstorm. God, what if that had happened a few hours earlier?

 Super hungry, so I tip-toed through the mud and went back to the Danger Zone.

I drank a Black Russian, which for some reason they make with Coca Cola here (you Khmer for this one!) and ordered another heaping helping of Fish Amok!! While I ate, I watched a Spanish teenager roll her eyes at her sunburned parents.

I really overate, and the rice and the fish paste and the amok and coke and the eye rolling were kind of making me sick.

But, there was too much fun to be had, so I paid a few dollars to let fish eat the dead skin on my feet, but I could only stand it for a few seconds. You put your toes in a tank.

They REALLY go for it!! I was giggling like a crazy old woman. It tickled so much. I did everything I could to keep quiet and still, but those fish were merciless.

Then a beggargirl tricked me into buying some expensive milk powder for a baby that probably wasn't hers, and I felt like a chump. She was probably in cahoots with the store owner.

What are you gonna do? It cost more money than a day's worth of Mitchell, this milk powder.

Then I got another massage, and this time the mattress was even dirtier and there were four ladies. I was like, "Whaaaat is thiiiis?" and she was like, "Four-lady massage. Costs four time." They REALLY go for it!!

I was like, "I don't have that much money," but one of the four found my pants in the corner and was like, "Here's all of your money. It's not enough."

 She had gone through my pockets. It was like a movie where someone goes through your pants pockets.

So, I was like, "It's all I have, and I'm going to keep it? And leave?" and eight hands held me down and two voices said they would go back to my hotel with me and help me find my ATM card, and I was like, "Noap!"

And four voices said, fine! It would be enough. Just this one time, though. Special price. Don't tell anyone how you cheated four poor ladies.

 So, if I hadn't been ripped off with the Cambodian Powdered Milk Scam, it would have happened here anyway. Siem Reap is gonna get your money one way or the other. Sooner or later, you dance with the Siem Reaper!

 The Cambodian version of massage involves a lot of rolling and twisting, and with my tummy having gone amok from before, I didn't enjoy it as much as the previous night. I guess two ladies really are better than four. Five's a crowd!

 So, I left, penniless, but relaxed, but kind of gurgly in the guts.

I fell asleep cursing the Coca Cola Russian and the fish paste and the milk beggar and the quartet of pickpockets.

I woke up to loud fireworks. The fucking moon festival! Or water festival!!

 I was wet, something cold and horrible was in the bed with me. Had a lizard gotten in the bed!!!?? Had I rolled over and crushed a lizard!!!??

No, it was just shit. I had befouled myself in my sleep. Fish amok!

That's never happened to me before.

I cleaned it up (surprisingly easy), took another shower and went back to bed.

 I cracked myself up thinking, "Angkor Wat was so amazing, I shit myself."

 In the morning, I would take a bus to Phnom Penh

Snake Town and the Night Market

I was at a crossroads. When I prepared for the trip, I made a list of all the things I wanted to see and quickly discovered it was going to take more than fourteen days to see them all. Vietnam is a pretty long country, and they don't have the high-speed train system like in Europe.

They do, however, have lots of cheap airlines and lots of airports. So.. you can get anywhere, but you have to plan it a little differently than I'm used to. When I'm in Eastern Europe, I like just walking up to the train station fifteen minutes before the "all aboard!"

After six days using Hanoi as a base for day trips, it was time to move on. One option was to visit Central Vietnam where the ancient town of Hoi An and the preserved old capital of Hue hide themselves. Descriptions promised alleyways strung with lanterns and crumbling old palaces.

Most of the people I'd met on the cruise to Ha Long Bay had been there or were on there way there next.

I also wanted to fly to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat.

If I did both, I would have to skip Ho Chi Minh City. So, it was like that old maxim - "Fast, Cheap, and Quality - Choose Two"

When I was asking the Canadians for advice, the Quebecois was like "If you go to Cambodia, you need a visa," and I was like, "I got one," and he was like, "Yes, yes, but you ALSO need to make sure your Vietnamese visa allows for multiple entries because you will be LEAVING Vietnam and then will try to come BACK."

And I was like, "I got the multiple entry visa," and he was like, "Are you CERTAIN!" and his wife shushed him.

And she was like, "If you went to all that trouble, why wouldn't you go? Why live for 'just-in-case? You have it, so do it."

An argument could be made to save Angkor Wat for a later trip to Thailand, but... who knows if I'll be eating beans out of a can next year. This could be the last of the red-hot vacations, so I booked the flight.

Why live for "just-in-case"

The way it worked out, I had three hours to kill before I had to skip to the airport, so I decided to take a quick taxi to the suburb of Le Mat, the village of cobras.

Drowned myself in too too much coffee and ate too too many cucumber slices at the Free Breakfast Barn and went down to the lobby. Mr. Tong asked me what my pleasure was. I told him I wanted to go to Le Mat. He made a blank face.

In general, the staff had a habit of saying things they don't offer tours to are crappy. Every guide book said to see a town called Haiphong (a two-hour ride away) but Tong and Tung were like, "Haiphong? Say Goodbye-phong, it sucks."

So, I wasn't sure if this was more of the same. But he legit had no idea. I was like, "Snake village?" and he was like, "oh, oh! ok, you can take a taxi there for $5." I was like, cool. Then he was like, real casual like, "Oh, hey, was the phone you lost expensive?"

And I was like, "Not really. It was a pretty cheap Fire phone. They don't even make it any more."

And he pulled a phone out from under the counter, and I thought he was going to offer to let me use his, but.... it was mine!

The bus driver found it when the alarm went off at 5:30am, and he had to come to this neighborhood to pick folks up anyway, so he dropped it off. Pretty great.

I thanked him, asked him to thank the driver for me, and I jumped into a cab. How about that? Reunited with phonefriend.

I asked the driver to take me to Le Mat, and he was like, "Buh?" and I was like, "Uh, snake village?" and he was like, "Nur?" and I made a snake shape out of my hand and forearm and I was like "Ssst! Ssst!" and he laughed and nodded and we took off.

About a half-hour drive over a bridge and into the suburbs. I saw a guy getting his hair cut on the sidewalk while motorcycles drove around him. I need to add "barber shop" to the ever-expanding list of uses for the Hanoi sidewalks.

Le Mat, which they must call something else, was clearly labeled as Le Mat on street signs and local billboards, so I don't know what's up with the non-recognition. It may have been because there's really no reason to go there.

When we arrived, I made the snake-hand again and paid him that way. "Tssst! Tssst! Here's your dong."

I thought it was going to be a kitschy sidestreet with snake puppets and snake charmers and cobra hats and magnets and stuff, but... it was a very quiet neighborhood with three or four restaurants.

You go there to eat snake, and that's it. I asked what the deal was at one of the restaurants.

You can't just get a snake taco, you have to buy the whole snake. They have them in tanks like lobsters. I saw a sweet, stringy pile of them, and they saw me. Shoelaces with eyes.

If you go for it, it's like $50 and they kill it and skin it in front of you. They put the blood in a shot glass, and they put the still-beating heart on top of the shot glass.

Chug-a-lug, Donna.

An old man pointed to the fishtank and made a "shots shots shots!" gesture.

I declined this pleasure, so there was really no reason for me to be there. Maybe I'll come back with a British bachelor party or a Temple of Doom reenactment society.

                                        

I had about an hour to get back, and this was strictly nowheresville, but I wandered around a little. It was nice to see that folks have quiet places to live here. It's not all the chaos of the Big Bad City. Laundry on lines. Open doors at the end of peaceful alleys. Kids studying in courtyards. Bicycles.

A boy on a bike rode by me saying, "Hello! Hello! Hello!" in precisely the way you would say "Meow!" to a cat. I was the kind of animal who made those sounds.

I saw a cab drop off two superolds, and I waved to it. What a score for this guy. He thought he might have to drive back to the city empty. Instead, he picked up a fare!

Picked up my bags, made a final farewell to Misters Tong and Tung, gave them some lucky two-dollar bills, and went to the airport. I was headed to Siem Reap in Cambodia. New country!

No hassles at all with Vietnam Airlines. They don't make you take your shoes off or remove your laptop or anything. They're just like, 'Get on the plane, please sir or madam, we would like to fly, and we assume you have the same wish."

Maybe it's because they have genuine things to worry about here and don't have to manufacture fear to stimulate the economy. Like. We. Do. At. Home.

America? They oughtta call it Ascaredicat. (I'll work on that one).

Read Toni Morrison's Tar Baby on the flight. It's excellent. She is a genius, and I don't know why people aren't always talking about her and never shutting up about her. Why aren't I sick of hearing about her?

It is true that I chose to bring it on this trip, because I didn't want to be seen on the bus in Seattle with the cover's giant yellow "TAR BABY" on it.

Landed, deplaned. Plane travel here is a pleasure and a breeze. Cheapish, they don't molest you, and they always feed you. The hotel I booked online arranged to have a tuk tuk driver meet me at the airport.

Amusingly, he was on his phone when I got out of passport control, and I could only see the bottom and top of the letters in my name. He was blocking the rest with his forearm. It was like he was hugging me!

His name was Mitchell, and he was both the first Cambodian I met and responsible for my first tuk tuk ride.

                                           

It was breezy and wild and seemed dangerous but wasn't. It was dark, but I wore sunglasses to keep the road dust out of my eyes.

Mitchell said he'd take me to all the temples in the morning and drive me anywhere I wanted to go and wait for me and just be my guy all day for $20. I agreed. He dropped me off at the place, and we pledged to meet again in the morning, Mischief managed.

Hotel had a hot lobby and sleepy staff. It was really only about 9pm or so, but it gets dark early and stays muggy. They slowly gave me the key, I slowly took it, and I slowly swam upstairs.

My room had lizards and bugs in it, but they stayed on their side. I had a nice view of a swimming pool. Who knew they had those here?

I was sleepy but hungry, so I went back down and asked where I could get a bite at this hour. He was like, "Everywhere, man. Just go to the Night Market."

It made me think a little bit of the lyrics in Down in Mexico.

"I said, a-tell me dad, when does the fun begin/He just winked his eye and said, hey man, be cool."
 
                                            

It was about a ten-minute walk on dirt streets that open suddenly into wide, wild avenues. Found the action area with no trouble. And, it was everything you're picturing, reader - Sin and Souvenirs. Silk scarves, and street meat, and $1 cocktails, and foot rubs, and fish sticks.

I stopped at a little tent and ordered something called "fish amok," which is a kind of fish-paste-based curry and was amazing, and I want it again.

I was full and warm and buzzing with the energy of the market. Many hundreds of folks laughing and selling. Tall whitegirls with sunburned shoulders, built-up whiteboys with blond four-day beards and six-day hangovers, neon martinis, tarantula tapas, and everywhere local girls with everything to sell.

About forty people were in a little fenced-off area getting neck massages with their feet in a little whirlpool. A lady pulled at my sleeve and showed me a laminated card with anatomical spot illustrations of the body's various systems. Circulatory, musculature, nerves.

She asked me if I wanted a massage for $3. I was like, "Sure." Why live for just-in-case?
I pointed to my neck, It was sore around the nape from all the hauling of all the bags.

She was like, "Yes, neck good," and she took my hand and led me past the recliners and down a little hall.

She asked me to take off my shoes and enter a little room with five or six mattresses separated by curtains. It was indicated that I should remove my shirt and lie down. I did. The curtain was drawn.

Why was I brought here off the street? Maybe the recliners had to be reserved in advance.

I was alone for a while. I expected that she was going off to turn on some New Age music or start a fountain to a'trickling, or something, but all I could here was muffled speech and the distant sounds of the street outside. I wondered when the mattress last was cleaned.

She returned with a second lady. "You want two-lady massage?" she asked.

I was charged $6, but that made sense. A burden shared is halved, but the price is doubled.

It was supremely relaxing. Many hands make light work.

Drifted home through the lights and noise then through the no-lights and no-noise. My cares and pains distant. My sleep sound.

In the morning, I would meet Mitchell for a trip to one of the holiest places on Earth,

The Tale of the Four Red Dao

A long sleep was broken by an aggressive rooster. The sun wasn't up yet, but he had a lot of hope. He was being proactive, I think. I spent some time trying to think of a word for "rooster snooze button" (snooster?) and drifted back to halfdoze.

Sleep of one, half-dozing of the other.

The human roosters started hammering around 7am, and there was no going back. This is a boom town, and there are hostels and hotels going up all over the place. A lot of construction. It's like Seattle!

I had slept well, however, and I had a good shower and headed down for breakfast. One of the three Austrailian ladies was missing. The other two said, "Shiela's piked it!" If I've heard that expression before, I don't remember it. It really made me laugh, delivered in that cheerful way.

At breakfast, Kim asked me how old I was. I told him 43. He said he was 38 and that since I was older "In my country, you are big and I am small." He implied he had to defer to my requests, carry my bags, etc. Then he said, "But you pay beer."

He asked me what I did for a living. I didn't tell him I'd been laid off and in a sort of severance limbo. Too complicated. I just said I was a writer for Amazon's travel site. He made a confused face and typed on his phone for a few moments. Then he turned the screen to me.

There were a bunch of Korean characters and underneath was the English word: envious.

I was in a good mood and it was enhanced when Nye came in all dolled up in her native garb for the day's trip to her home village.

The Indianans were also spritely, despite a long evening ramble with the natives. I never got the full story there. We triggered their buddies when we walked outside. Hello, buy something? You have wifesister home like purse?

We got safely inside the minivan. As the last person was climbing in, I thought, "They are coming! Get to the chopper!"

Easy little ride to a Hmong village. It was just too too remote, darling.

Great valley view and our cameras went to our faces, and.... disaster. I had left my SD card at the hotel. Camera no work without. I got such a jolt. What a fuckup. I thought about invoking my age privilege and forcing Kim to give me his.

The Indianans totally had three extra, though, so they saved my worthless ass. I will cheer for Purdue the next chance I get.

More ducklings, of course. They knoweth where the minibuth doth stop. They marched with us for hours, priming and prepping us for the Big Sale. The older ones used the Power of Pity, the younger, the Sympathy of Speech. If they hadn't yet had menopause, they were pregnant.

Nye too. I hadn't noticed, but the Aussies did and remarked on it. They have a sense for such things, coming as they do from such a fertile land. Remarkable to watch these ladies with heavy baskets on their backs and babies in their bellies sure-footedly picking their way through these trails and over rocks in sandaled feet .

While we stumbled in our boots and sneakers.

I was at last targeted by May. As we trekked into the hilly forest, she wove grasses with her hands (most of them did) and asked me questions about my life. The answers to which could have no meaning.

The day was clear and bright, and the surroundings were like nothing I've seen. Full and green and jagged and strange. Agricultural mastery of the savage wilderness.

After about thirty minutes of hiking, small talk, and farm animals, we got to another little hilltop where Nye stripped a bunch of sugarcane for us. She asked who wanted to try it. Weirdly, I was the only one who raised his hand.

So I asked how to do it. And she handed me a segment.

You just bite it and suck the juice and spit out the resulting pulp. It was fuuuucking delicious. Cool and refreshing and not-too-sweet. It was also satisfying to make the old ptoo sound as you cleared your mouth for the next bite. I spat cane pulp all over Mt. Cuspidor.

When they saw I hadn't died, the Aussies and others tried some. I was like, "This is the fresh taste the corn industry is trying to keep us from knowing about!" but there was no reaction. They're all deep in the pocket of Big Fructose!

A little boy all done up like a French preppie on a yacht rambled by with a wheelbarrow, and we followed him deeper into the forest.

May told me that if I'd only been here one month ago, I would have seen different colors, since the rice was being harvested then. I told her I was sorry I missed it. Then she handed me a cunning little horse she'd woven out of thick grasses. It was amazing, really.

While I marveled at it, I thought, "I will buy all of your garbage now forever. May, my love, you've won my heart. We shall ride this grass horse together across the rice fields of commerce forever." The use of color! The sweet tail. The tasteful mane!

If it had rained, they would have had to cancel this walk, because we were going through some twisty slides and steeperies. Nye said the ducklings we had seen make this walk every morning in the dark, so they can be at the bus depot when people arrive. God.

You do what you have to to get that buck. I'm sure the idea of sitting at a desk for six - eight hours would make them think I was the crazy one.

They don't get the minibus to cut out the middle portion, so it's like a three-hour pre-rooster walk for the chance to make two or three dollars.

We crossed a bouncy little bridge and were, at last, in the village. Which was a collection of shops and slaughterhouses.

We were now joined by people from many different tribes. Welcome, weary traveler! You have mothersisterwife? You buy something?  There was a little place to get water and Fanta, so we stopped. It was like the Mos Eisley spaceport.

                                                

May dumped out her basket of nonsense, and I bought a scarf and tote bag to thank her for the horse. This inflamed the desires of everyone else. You buy me too? You help me too! A woman with gold teeth and a tight red headscarf got right in my face.

You buy from Hmong, now buy from Dao. I am Dao people. Buy from Dao people.

I said, ok, and three more popped up. I was surrounded. The Australians were cracking up. The four of them made me pinkie promise to buy from each of them when I was done drinking. What had I done?

While I sipped my water and rested, they were behind me saying, "Do not forget Dao! You buy from Red Dao."

A few more Hmong came up, but I showed them the goods May had sold me. "I have already. See?" This didn't help. "Why you buy her not me? You help her no help me?"

We moved on. Most of us had been soaked for ten - twelve bucks and carried bracelets and change purses and tiny stone carvings. Most of us thought showing that we had something already would make people stop trying to sell us things, but it had the opposite effect. It just let them know we put out.

My Four Red Dao stayed with me, two on each side. I was like Dorothy with her companions strolling through a strange country to a distant palace. I thought they were leading me to their store, and I kept asking, "Is your store close?" and they would nod.

But we kept moving on, and I didn't see any Dao stores. It was all Hmong shops. Nye needed to help the Indianans negotiate for a chess set, so we paused at a little stonemaker's place. My Daos were like, "You buy now?"

Turns out they were their own stores. Everything they had to sell was in their backbaskets the whole time. I don't catch on very quickly.

I was like, "Ok, let's do this," and they all dumped out a pile of crap on the ground and started lifting it to my face. Buy! Buy!

                                           

I handed them each 100,000 dong, and I was like, "Ok, you each get a hunnertthousand, so you all have the same, so I'll take one thing from each of you."

100k dong is roughly $5, so I was paying $20. I could have bought a North Face Cloak of Invisibility for that much.

But they were like, "You give us each 200k," and I was like, "No," and they were like, "150 each and 50 for baby."

A baby materialized.

I said 30k for baby but no more. They were like, ok. I picked out a giant fistful of stuff and they pretended to be disappointed, but they were creaming their native underthings in delight. It was a big score for them.

The Dao Industrial Average was soaring! Boom! Finance joke!! Ka-blam!

The Purdue folks had their chess set, and it was time to go.

Nye took us to her mother's house. Tiny little shedshack with a concrete floor. Momma Nye had broken her leg somehow, so she couldn't sell change purses anymore. She waved sadly from her bed. We waved back, Some of us put money on the floor.

Outside, my four Dao were waiting again. I was like, "aww, come on" but they were like, "Gift for you, gift for you!" and they gave me a bunch of free bracelets and one of them put a sort of charm with bells on my camera strap. It was charming.

They must have felt guilty for fleecing me.

A fifth came out of nowhere. "You buy from Dao!"

I was like, "You are late to the party, sister. You missed the pinkie promise parade earlier."

She held a bunch of change purses in my face.

I pulled out the eight or so I had and fanned them like a poker hand. I was like "You buy from me!"

The Australians craaacked up, So did my Four.

Fivey was like, "Ok, ha ha, how much?" I said "Two hundred thousand!" and she said, "Ok, ok, I give you fifty!" and we all had a great laugh, and then it was over.

She wrote her phone number down for me. "For home stay," she said, "For when you visit with you wife and sons."

That's a thing here. You can skip the hotel and sleep in the village. It's supposed to be cool and you get breakfast and a mosquito net.

Then we were gone. We escaped the Selling Fields of Vietnam.

Easy ride back to the hotel to pack up. There was about an hour to buy more North Face clothing should one desire and many did desire. I returned the SD card to its home state. So grateful to those Boilermakers.

Nice little lunch where the Australians were reunited with their companion. One of them told her how "I got some native digits" in the village, and I pulled out the card with Five's number on it, and we all giggled.

Then Tung showed back up to take us to the big bus to take us back to Hanoi.

Friendly farewell to Nye. And Kim. He was there for two more days. He's going to have enough inventory to open a change-purse warehouse back in South Korea.

Sapa was beautiful to see. Raw and interesting. You can see where the older way of life is going to get squeezed out when this place becomes Moab-with-rice fields in five years or so, but it's a really charming mix right now.

Finished the Sinclair Lewis book on the long ride back. He's fantastic. I wrote down some situations and quotes to steal.

We stopped again at the roadside banana leaf hotdog place. I got two dumplings this time instead.

A local boy got on with us and sat next to me. He seemed pretty heartbroken.

Turns out he was a "fixer" for the South American version of The Amazing Race. They shoot their show here all the time, and it's his job to help them navigate local stuff. What a cool job. He showed me videos on his phone of Colombian contestants pillow fighting while balanced on logs. And stuff.

They were apparently South American celebrities.

So, he was like a bunch of people I know in NY, LA, or New Orleans. Useful locals who show up when a production comes to town.

His sorrow came from trouble he was having with a girl in Sapa. They have a long-distance thing going on, and she had posted a picture of herself with a different boy on Facebook. He flipped out, and she blocked him.

He made the six hour bus ride up there to patch things up, but she wouldn't see him. He was riding back in defeat.

I couldn't tell if she was a village girl or a city girl up there making money as a guide or as a hotel counterperson or what, but I was like, "Hey, guy, you're good looking, you have a good job, and it will mean a lot to her that you came up there to fix things. She's thinking about you right now, I'm sure of it. It will work out."

He said that made him feel better. He showed me some pictures of her on his phone. I dug mine out and showed him some pics on mine.

We said goodbye in the road in Hanoi as motorcycles swarmed around us. We're Facebook friends now, so I'll find out if he wins her back.

Tung took everyone back to their hotels in a van one by one. I sat with my bags in my lap until it was my turn.

It was very nice to see the Original Mr. Tung and Mr. Tong again. I told them I had a wonderful time.

In my room, I realized I'd left my phone on one of the buses. Probably when I took it out to swap chickpics with Jacky.

Careless, man. It was late at night, and I was leaving in the morning. Would I ever get it back, or was a Red Dao woman even now using it to order a pizza? I phoned down to Mr. Tong.

Do you suppose, I said? I will see, he said.

Among the Hmong in the Rice Fields of Sapa

The morning bus to Sapa was scheduled to leave at 6am, which meant I would miss out on the hotel's free breakfast. Alas! When I went downstairs to wait, Mr. Tong had a little bag of toast and bananas for me. Also coffee. So nice!

Bag of toast!

Sapa is in the mountainous northwest of the country near the border with Laos and China. It's where the "ethnic" tribes live, the Hmong, the Red Dao and others. It's the "other" 12% or so of Vietnam's makeup.

Their lives are hard, since they are often pushed out of their historic lands to make room for dams and hydroelectric power stations and stuff to help out the populated parts of the country. In Sapa, however, they appear to be doing quite well for themselves.

A new group of pals to enjoy the temporary company of on the bus. Three marvelously vocal Australian ladies in their sixties, a Japanese girl with a selfie stick, an American couple from Indiana (they wore Purdue t-shirts) , and a Korean guy named Kim. His English was rudimentary, but he had a lot of enthusiasm and I had a lot of patience, so we got along very nicely.

He wanted me to be very clear that he was from South Korea, held out both palms to me and said "South! South!"

The driver's hype man, the Lics of this tour, was mercifully silent. His name was also Tung, and he was a Tung that did not speak. I was able to read and nap.

We stopped at a little roadside thing, and I bought one of everything in a dude's pot. A bready dumpling, the sort I'm familiar with from Chinatown dim sums, and something in a banana leaf tightly bound with rubber bands.

It took a long time to get it open. Layer upon layer, and then, at the center, a weird compressed lump of... meat. Grey. Tough. All that unwrapping and mystery led to Vietnamese... bologna? A hot dog?

I put a lot of hot sauce on it.

Otherwise uneventful ramble up and up into the hills. They would open suddenly into valleys of shocking green. Water buffaloes watched us go by, wet grass dripping from their mouths, just like in my dreams. Fascinating terraced rice fields of light green and pale gold.

Spent some time looking at the map the Canadians had given me in Ha Long. There's lots to do around here. If you're the sporting sort, you can hike forever. I was going to be content to try some foods and see a few villages.

After a semi-sick-making corkscrew of a final stretch, we all seeped out of the bus at the mountain station. We were immediately surrounded by local craftswomen. They are merciless in their requests for you to buy change purses and bolts of cloth from the baskets they carry on their backs. An organized gang of about seven of them competed for our attention, followed us all the way to the hotel and stayed in front the entire time we were there.

They had imprinted on us like ducklings.

The older ones just say, "You buy something me?" but the younger ones have conversational English and German. They ask you where you are from and about your family. It's the equivalent of taking a date out to dinner first. "Ok, ok, you have nice name. USA very good. You buy something me?"

Later, a local guide told me they used to ask female travelers, "How many children you have?" assuming they have at least three. For many reasons, the question can trigger sadness or anger. And when you say "No children," the natives think there's something medically wrong with you.

The awkward feeling is bad for business. So, they quickly adapted to ask, "You have brother or sister? How many?"

A woman with a baby was able to exact many promises from the Indianans. They told her she could be their local guide and their official change-purse supplier.

I was mostly left alone. I didn't make eye contact and it was an otherwise target-rich environment, so they would move on after their cheery, "Buy something for you wife, you sister, you mother?" went unanswered. I'm sympathetic, and I would buy many things later, but right off the bus I wanted some coffee.

Like a person.

Charming, cool-aired little mountain town. Lots of sporting equipment for sale and lots of restaurants and rustic hotels. Also a large, sunken soccer field with kids running around. I watched two boys play a game where they threw bottle caps at a wall. I guess it was like "penny pitching," but they don't have coins here.

At the hotel, we were fed buffet style. I sat with Kim and he did a funny thing where he would take a single grain of rice or a tiny bean off of my plate. He was showing off his chopstick dexterity, I guess. I kept laughing, so he kept doing it.

I work(ed) with a Korean American back in Seattle and I told Kim that my coworker says the game Starcraft is very popular in Korea. Kim lit up and said yes yes, Starcraft. Then he said, "We call it... ah, finger sports."

Video games are finger sports. I liked that. I also liked that my coworker's story had been true and useful.

Then we checked in and I took a long, hot shower. It was hard to tell which container held which cleansing liquid. There was some trial and error.

Then we all met again in the lobby for a late-afternoon visit to Cat Cat village. Our assigned beggars were laughing together outside. I loved their colorful headscarves and sturdy baskets. As we exited the lobby they sprang to life. It was money time. "Remember you promise buy something? You need guide now?"

Heartbreaking.

It was like we were the hotdog at the center of the banana leaf. They kept unwrapping our resolve layer by little until they could get that lump of grey meat. The Indianans made more promises as we were whisked away in a mini-bus.

The local guide was named Nye. She was a Hmong lady who spoke very good English. She told us not to buy anything in Cat Cat because she could get us a better price in her village tomorrow. That's what it all boils down to. Which tribe would win the Yankee gold?

We were let out at a scenic spot, and I took a lot of pictures. The farms and fields and foggy mountaintops were very beautiful. Locals laughed to see us pointing our cameras at chickens and pigs. Babies ran around with sticks in their mouths. Boys played King of the Mountain.

A nice little hike over a rocky path. We were followed by some older women, but they had a more dignified sales pitch. Houses and strange birds. Buffaloes and shedshacks. We got to a little organized market area. I defied Nye's advice and bought a little handmade rag buffalo toy.

As I was paying I noticed it had a tear in the horn. Some stuffing was coming out. It was the only buffalo, and that was what I wanted. Everything else was elephants and dogs and chickens. I showed the lady and she called out to one of the other market women.

I thought she was asking her if she had a buffalo in her pile, but the woman came over with needle and thread. While I watched, she patched up the horn. Fixed it. I loved watching her work. She bit the thread when she was done. I was sorry that my first thought was, "Just get another one." This one is just fine. It took her maybe three minutes. I love him more for his stitches. He'll have a name by the end of the trip.

Probably Snitchy, since snitches get stitches.

Then, a scenic waterfall! Folks competed for pictures in front of it. The Japanese girl put them all to shame with her selfie stick. Some live music started playing, and I made myself laugh thinking about old jungle movie lines like, "When you hear the drums, it means you're already dead."

Some dancing folks were folk dancing in a little shed. They did the thing were you hop and try not to get your ankles chopped by bamboo sticks, and they did they thing were you find a girl and high five her. They danced on a little stage, and the back wall was painted to look like a cavern. When they exited, it was like they were going back inside the mountain.

Cute little show. Then a longer walk. We passed some concrete posts in the ground and I said, "Behold, an ancient clock!" but nobody laughed, so I repeated "When you hear the drums, it means you're already dead" to myself until we were back at the mini-bus.

Some dudes had a pig tied to a motorcycle. I guess that's how you get pigs up and down there. It was sad to see. While I watched, they took it down by means of the enormous wooden pole it was tied to. The pig shrieked as it was suspended in the air, and there was a terrible cracking sound.

                                               

I hated hearing that shriek and that crack. I was filled with rage and grief at once, a processed bologna of emotions.

The pig calmed down when it was safe on the ground, so I figured it was the pole that had made the sound and not the pig's hoof or leg. I'm glad, ultimately, that I saw it. I mean, it would be ridiculous to leave feeling like, "Ah, the people and the animals, they live here in perfect peace and harmony. Pets and their vegetarian friends."

I'm not articulating this very well. I guess what I mean is, as is often noted, we live far away from our food sources. It's very easy for me to feel like a package of pork chops is a completely separate thing from a sweet pig nosing through the brush and grunting.

I hope that the pity I felt for the pig will stay with me, but it's so hard to change my habits. I am certain I'll eat bacon again. I just wish it were more possible to retain the idea that I'm making a conscious choice to have something killed for my consumption. Our diets are dishonest. Southeast Asia has turned me into Lisa Simpson.

We mini-bused back to the mega-hotel and most of us went shopping in town for North Face jackets. The factory is local, and the goods are impossibly cheap. Without shipping and labor in the equation, these things are $15 - $20. At home, they're $300.

I sure bought one. A giant down-stuffed winter coat with a hood for $15. Made in Vietnam!

The Indianans were true to the oaths they'd sworn to the ducklings, and they went off on a little walking tour with them. How did they have the energy? And where would they go, the Fabulous Alley of Cloth Bracelets? I went to sleep like a person. I held Snitchy in the crook of my elbow, and we dreamed together as we lay on the soft jacket.