Hanoi, Day 21

I'm in Hanoi, Vietnam where I've been for the past four days. I've been travelling around with a group of JETs, all female, who have been doing humanitarian work in Vietnam, and most importantly with Veronica. I dropped in during the vacation phase of their tour (avoiding the hard part, yes) and we've done a few of the major tourist things in Vietnam, working our way northwards along the coast from Nha Trang.

Ha Noi, a tourist town about 8 hours from Nha Trang by train was full of shops and tailors. Veronica had a jacket and jeans custom tailored for her and Michelle and Rachel also had clothes made. I considered it, especially for custom shoes, but decided that money and bag space were issues. Besides, I didn't want it to become entirely a shopping experience. Despite that intention I spent many hours in the used bookstores negotiating over an exchange of my old Lonely Planet Thailand for a cheap photocopy of a novel. The bookstores in Vietnam are rife with cheap photocopies - or should I say ridiculously overpriced at about 7 dollars a book. Most places didn't want my book, but I eventually got an exchange for some light reading - "The King of Torts" by Grisham.

Later we took off for a tour of the Chang temple ruins - a very exciting look into thousand year-old ruins that are still in use today by the Chang people. There were many yonis and lingams which are used as symbols of fertility - large stone cisterns and pillars. The place was crawling with tourists so it was hard to get good shots, but maybe it's okay to have photos of the ruins with lots of German, Italian and Israeli tourists, because that was what I saw there. Coming back from the ruins we took a boat along the Red river (no, not the one near Winnipeg) and visited a few local settlements with handicraft economies. Tourist traps they were, and one little boy was relentless in pushing his clay whistles on all the tourists, frowning and saying "5000 dong for four. You buy. You buy. 5000 dong for four." At one point I was going to buy it but at the last second he said "10 000 dong" so I declined. It's difficult to know what to feel - sure I felt a bit annoyed but this kid is trying to eke out a living, not make big profits. Veronica and I and a few Italian tourists got lost in the village and when we got to the boat everyone was waiting lined up on their seats, looking at us. We did it again later in Ha Long, but what can I say, I like looking around and they don't give us all that much time.

When we got back from My Son (the Chang ruins) we took a taxi to the Da Nang airport, and then flew to Hanoi. In Hanoi we did the Ha Long Bay boat tour for two days, and slept aboard a luxurious Junk. Yes, Junk can be luxurious. We saw the famous caves - huge caverns of stalactites lit up with many-coloured lights, and a concrete path running through for about 600 metres or so. The caverns were covered with an undulating stone roof that had been formed by the lapping of waves centuries earlier - perhaps millenia. It was definitely a dead cave, meaning that it had dried out and the stalactites were frozen in their current state. This is something I learned from a Danish man while on my hill tribe trek in Chiang Mai. After the cave tour we went back to the boat, which was anchored in a bay surrounded by rock hills rising from the water, and filled with many other wooden sea boats of Asian design. The view is spectacular, and is considered as one of the unofficial wonders of the world. Later that night we played cards and drank beer in the dining room of our boat, and had great fun.

These past few days since Ha Long we've spent in Hanoi, seeing the famous Water Puppet show - it's crazy! the stage is a pool of water and the puppets are dragons and fishermen and leopards that climb trees - and generally walking around. We visited Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum - he was the communist leader of Vietnam and their liberator - although that's a contentious interpretation, especially in the south. They made us walk single file down a broad paved road to get to the tomb, and took away our posessions, and hushed us when we talked. Very Foucaultian control of the body.

Now I'm awaiting my flight, my stupid flight back to Bangkok before I fly back to Seoul and then Osaka. I tried to change it to a more direct flight to Seoul but the ticket was a discount one, and not negotiable. Looking for omiyage, the gifts that are expected in Japan when I return from a vacation abroad.