Textick

After the creative non-fiction piece, there were a few unassociated observations I wished to make. If you’re still reading, then please, read on.

Thursday 1st December Additions

Even though I was too chicken to crawl through the tunnels, I was one of the first people to drink the funky alcohol. Funky in both seasons of the word: cool, and gross. Jackie held up a bottle, grabbed a shot glass and said,
“Who try?”
Then he swigged with a boyish giggle. Everybody stared at the bottle. Inside the bottle was a cobra, with a scorpion hanging out of its mouth. Along for the ride was a gecko and some ginseng. With all these in the bottle, it was amazing there was room for alcohol. James and the Irishmen watched in fascinated horror as I knocked it back.
“Not bad!” I said. It wasn’t! It was like a sweet liqueur. It was made of rice wine, and I don’t know what the reptiles were in there for, probably as a drawcard for tourists more than anything. Jackie said this wine had never existed until the arrival of tourists (and there have only been tourists in Vietnam for 15 years, so it’s amazing to think how quickly this place has become tourist oriented). After seeing me knock back the creepy wine, James and the Irishmen had to try some as well, all with the same response of “Yeah! That’s not too bad at all!” Interestingly, their shots were much larger than mine, but we attributed this to the fact that by the time they got around to drinking some Jackie had had more than one large swig of the bottle. He was definitely more ebullient by the time the shots reached them.
The countryside we passed on the way to the tunnels was fascinating. We passed rice paddies, and any cattle we saw was either upsettingly thin, or grazing by the roadside. The villages were mostly like shanty-towns, made up of metal sheets somehow stuck together, and a lot of industrial work was carried out on the sidewalk. Sheds were filled with timber or bricks stacked in precarious piles. As we drove toward the tunnels, we also saw the Vietnamese Army training. James got very excited and scrabbled for his camera. He managed to get a few good shots.
The Vietnamese are a very limber people. I’m noticing more and more that there are barely any chairs around because the Vietnamese simply squat on the spot. They sit so their buttocks rest on the backs of their heels, and their elbows rest on their knees. They are so compact! They seem to simply fold in half, even the old women can crouch like this.
There are often stalls set up along the side of the road, even if it seems like there are no houses anywhere nearby. Workers from the rice paddies eat here, and nap in hammocks strung between trees. Houses that we did see often had posts out the front with statues of dogs that looked like Alsatians on the top. We thought this probably had something to do with having spirits of protection over the property or something.
Also, on the way out, I saw a man riding a scooter, holding a baby of about 1 year with one arm, and steering with the other. They had no protection aside from the hope that he had a strong grip.

James and I have just moved out onto our balcony. It’s a warm night in Ho Chi Minh; it’s about 10:15, and it hasn’t rained too severely yet. This is the first night that we’ve been spared from a downpour. James is reading “The Quiet American” while I write. I’ve been writing for hours tonight, but today was big day and as long as I’m typing we’re not out drinking and spending money. This hotel room has really blown our budget, but we’re still living within our means. We’re just being cautious about what we spend money on. Tonight we halved our dinner costs by eating vegetarian, and it was delicious! I could get used to it! I had braised tofu and mushrooms with steamed rice and James had noodles with mixed vegetables. We had a drink each, so the meal ended up costing us 43,000 Dong, which is about $3.60. However, we did have our first major meal drama, when we asked for Diet Coke and got two beers, and I had to explain that we didn’t want beer, we wanted Diet Coke. The girl looked baffled, said something beginning with the syllable “coc,” I said yes, and she vanished, then came back with two coconut daiquiris. I was like “no, COCA-COLA!” She had to go get an older woman, who finally understood, and got us two Diet Pepsi’s apologising that they weren’t Coke. We gave up, and drank the awfulness that is Diet Pepsi. It tasted like post-mix, when the syrup has run out and it’s mostly soda water. It was hideous, but that’s no different from the Diet Pepsi at home. The meal’s made up for it, though. They were delicious! We spent the rest of the evening watching TV, writing and chatting. We did lose half of this afternoon as well, when we got back from the tour and decided to nap. Next thing I knew, James was waking me up. It was 5:30. We’d slept for hours. I was so confused. We had both slept a ridiculously deep sleep. I remember waking at one time and wondering why I was sleeping in my bra, but I justified it to myself somehow as making sense. When James woke, I thought it was 5:30am, not 5:30pm, because the sinking sun, in my confused state, seemed like a rising sun. I couldn’t understand why James was up, and why he was waking me. I apparently said to him,
“Why are you up?” or “What are doing out of bed?”
He had to explain a few times that we’d been napping, not sleeping, and it took awhile for me to get my head around this. I don’t often nap during the day, so when I do I get very disoriented when I wake. Now it’s going to be a long time before we’re tired enough to go to bed again.

Some more points I observed today. The funeral parlour’s here are fascinating. The coffins are lacquered, brightly coloured and intricately patterned, and often come with a shrine. Most of the coffins are nicer than the houses for the living. The cemeteries aren’t obviously ordered; they are overgrown, and the graves seem to be haphazard and random. The exception to this was the Communist cemetery we passed, which was regimented and strictly ordered. I don’t think there were bodies there, just plaques for the fallen.
Also, the people around here (mostly the women) ride their scooters with face-masks over their mouths like surgeons, and shoulder-length gloves protecting their arms. This is for two reasons: the first, the most obvious, is protection. The second is because white skin is considered extremely attractive in Asia. Some women even bleach their skin. The lighter your skin is, the more desirable, apparently. Most TV hosts are Eurasian; you rarely see a full-blood Asian celebrity on fashion or commercial TV. Sometimes men wear the face-masks too, but that’s more for protection from pollution than vanity. You can buy face-masks in different colours and patterns; they have become fashion accessories here.
Also saw a woman crouched by the road, with an item that we couldn’t figure out if it was an instrument or a broom. She had a wide-brimmed hat on, and glasses that took up most of her face. She peered up at people as they passed, given them toothless grins and gripping her broom-instrument.
There is rubbish everywhere here, as well. People dump it where they want. Occasionally you’ll see a worker with a large bin on the back of a scooter collecting bags of rubbish left by the roadside, but I don’t the whole ‘Tuesday Night Bin Night’ thing happens here much!
There is a lot of honking in Ho Chi Minh, but you get used to it, and tune out fairly fast. It’s a constant stream of noise, so much that it ends up becoming a background blur. The only time we really notice the honking is when you’re trying to cross the road. A person on the tour this morning pointed out that there’s no real road rage here. People cut each other off, but nobody gets angry. The honking is for attention and awareness, not aggression and frustration. It’s to let scooters know a bigger vehicle is coming up behind them. People seem to understand the road system here, even if there are no logical rules. They give way left right and centre, they slow down, speed up. It’s about being aware of everything around at once. When you cross the road, there are two key points. 1) Do NOT stop walking, and 2) Do NOT run! You head across at steady pace, with determination. You just walk. Step out onto the road, watch the scooters, but don’t be scared by them. They’ll go around you. Sometimes they’ll honk, but I think it’s more for the fun of seeing you jump or scurry than because you’re really in their way.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 1st, 2005 at 7:51 pm and is filed under Travel, Vietnam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.