Hello, goodbye Hanoi

admin — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 01:09:52 +0000

(Hanoi, Vietnam) — I don’t even know how to begin to explain this place. Hanoi is large, but it’s impossible to tell that as the streets are so tiny and dense with life that it seems impossible that they could go on for miles. I almost think it’s funny now that I found Ho Chi Minh City intense. Hanoi absolutely trumps it on that level. Here, on one little street, there will be bicyclists and pedestrians and a few small, pushy cars, not to mention people driving the wrong way on their motorbikes as they carry everything from their three children to a stack of mirrors (I saw the first instance, and someone told me about the latter). Every time I’m in the traffic, I marvel at how it works together so seamlessly, especially since people don’t use their brakes here. They use their horn instead. Near collisions are the norm, but surprisingly crashes don’t seem to be. I am in awe, even more than I was in Ho Chi Minh.

Must resist beautifully constructed tchotchkes...

The most exciting part about all this is that there is so much going on here that you get lost in the craziness. You are anonymous. I love it, and I had no idea how much I was craving that.

As a side note, last night I had to undergo a couple of painful, pricey rabies shots. They were ones I should have received seven days ago but was given bad advice at the time. Anyway, whatever. It’s all part of the adventure (and the part that will keep on giving for months — as I pay it off). The beautiful thing was how friendly and attentive the medical personnel were. One young guy talked to me about living in Colorado, where he did his studies, and when I asked him if he ever skied, he sort of brushed it off and explained it was too dangerous. When I told him the traffic seemed more dangerous here, he proudly said he’d never been in an accident. Again, the awe is kicking in.

It looks like this beehive will just be a stopover for me. I’m headed on a train to Sapa tonight, and when I get back I’m going to head off to Ha Long Bay for a few days. Part of me wants to sink into the craziness here, but I’ve got forces pulling me east and west. One of my doctors last night summed up Sapa by calling it “very beautiful and very weird.” I don’t really know what that means, but it sounds kind of perfect.

These kids looked like they were having a good time in Hoi An.

Well, I leave you with more pictures of Hoi An, my last stop. So far, that small town has been my favorite of the journey. It has a gentle feel to it, one that’s hard to describe but almost instantly palpable. One of the days I spent there I just rode a bike all across town, and that juicy bit of freedom was enthralling. I loved exploring little back alleys and small country roads and finding slices of life off the beaten path. I already miss the quiet, personal feel of the place, and I’m happy I’ll be there again soon.

Until I find another internet outlet, here are some more pictures of Hoi An.

This woman makes all kinds of pottery at her shop, a mile or so out of Hoi An.

I found this overgrown Chinese cemetery as I wandered around Hoi An on my rented bike.

This 90-year-old woman makes her living selling 50¢ ceramic animal whistles to tourists. Of course I bought a few.

These ruins at My Son (near Hoi An) were created by Javanese people centuries and centuries ago.

A couple looks into the ruins at My Son.

What can I get y’all?

admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 03:50:48 +0000

(AUSTIN, Texas) — Turkey Reuben. Voodoo Blue Cheese Burger. Primadora Omelet. This is what has been on my mind during the month I haven’t been writing you.

I apologize for the long absence. It’s lame, I know, and I hope you haven’t lost patience with me. My world has simply been an exhausting series of surprises recently. I feel like creating monologues and short stories about my entry back into real, honest-to-God ordinary life, but I find I’m so deeply vested in it that I often forget I can. Right now I am a friendly host and a new and shaky waitress at a cool restaurant in south Austin. This has been my entire world for weeks, and I don’t mind. A large part of me wants to capture every nuance of my experiences right now — from the young, Berkeley-like atmosphere of South Congress Avenue to the intimidating and invigorating experience of working amongst so many young folks — and save it for later reflection. I am in a world of neon-lit signs and music and more boys with long sideburns and snappy cowboy shirts than I can shake a stick at. Austin may be a city of 800,000, but if feels more like a hyper-cool and congested big town. It is, at once, creative, ordinary, edgy and very Americana. Innovations like movie theater brew pubs and Airstreams that offer everything from Humane Society pets to tacos are the norm, but so are annoyances like poor wages and apocalyptic traffic. I don’t really know this city, but I respect it, and I feel this is a special time for me. A pause between the notes, I think. I have this hope that in my future I’ll look back on my Austin life and get nostalgic. First though, I know I have to be here and try to live it well.

And that seems like the hard part.

I’m reminded of an article I wrote a couple of years ago for a newspaper in Colorado. It was about a girl with severe cerebral palsy who was so disabled that she couldn’t talk or run and could hardly read. But she could paint and draw, and every moment she was in an art class I observed, she looked delighted. As I spoke with her teacher, a kindly woman, the instructor kept bringing up the same point, using similar words over and over:

Being successful at something is wonderful.

How basic, how true. Perhaps it seems like a cheap shot to compare my desire to go through a day at my restaurant without spilling water on myself with the plight of a special needs girl who simply wants to express her creativity, but maybe not. We’re all just human, just doing the best we can. Doing well feels good and doing poorly feels bad, and there’s no amount of philosophizing that can change that. For years, I have been a newspaper writer and photographer, and I have been good at what I do. That sense of accomplishment and confidence about my skills has been a huge part of my personality. That just ain’t so in the restaurant world. Tomorrow, I’m going to do a five-hour shift of waiting tables (my third such shift), and if I do well, my job will be safe and my mood will be light, and the world will feel possible. If I’m terrible, I just don’t know what will happen. Things are still quite probationary with me and this job, and the need to prove myself hangs in the air as thick as Crisco in that place. Or maybe that’s just my take on it.

Ah, but if things aren’t sometimes uncertain, and you never feel crazy and and question everything about your world and feel as though failure is imminent, is anything really worth it? Does the good stuff even matter?

I must keep those kinds of questions in mind as I fumble through learning to be a waitress again. I dearly want to succeed. It’s strange, I’m thinking now, that if I took my customers one by one and interviewed them and snapped their photos and wrote little profile pieces on their lives, that I would succeed at telling some of the truth of their existences probably more often than not. But as their waitress, when all I need to do is get their eggs to them on time, the odds aren’t so much in my favor.

Yes, Friday shall be interesting.

Stina's Trip » traffic

Hello, goodbye Hanoi

What can I get y’all?