Traveling on.....

I realize that on this here blog there are many narrative threads that I have left dangling. I will sort of start to write about a trip, and then not really follow through (e.g. my experience at Maesa Elephant Camp). This is just utterly unacceptable, as the entire purpose of this blog is to keep family, friends, and loved ones informed about my fabulous adventures, not necessarily to talk about my own personal struggles and growth experiences and experiences with grief. And while the growth experiences have been numerous, and I learn so much each and every day here about myself and the things that need to (and have!!) change(d), really, the travel experiences are much more interesting. I think the reason why I have not been as prolific in my travel writing here is because I document every little detail of every trip in my pen and paper journal (and I even glue in ticket stubs and receipts and postcards and business cards and everything!), and so I therefore tend to not feel like writing about it all over again. However, that is all about to change. Behold! The new and improved era of The Milkman's Daughter!

One benefit of the economic downturn that is happening all over this great wide world is the fact that travel is cheap as all get out. Mind you, this "pro" is definitely countered by the "con" that is the fact that the baht is getting its ever-lovin' butt kicked and, thanks to the godawful exchange rate between the baht and the dollar currently, my salary is now basically worthless. Moving on......

Let me also make it clear for any longtime readers (hi, Mom!) that during last school year I only had 1.5 days off during the weekend. However, this school year I have two full days off!! Woo hoo!! More time to travel!!

So, back to cheap travel.....two weekends ago there was a special promotion on flights AND hotels in Vietnam, and last weekend there was a special promotion on flights to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Even though visas and departure taxes in these countries are somewhat pricey, I figured that these expensive logistics were completely worth it. I've had a total bee in my bonnet lately about getting back to Vietnam--to Hanoi, specifically, otherwise known as the Most Charming Place on Earth, and I spent five days in and around there last time I went--and I also figured that it's a cryin' shame that I had been to my beloved, beloved Cambodia three times and had yet to visit Angkor Wat.

And so....I went. And it is truly remarkable how much you can do, see, and experience in only a weekend. People look at me strangely when I tell them that I'm going to these places for only a weekend (which usually works out to be one night), but you can live a lifetime in a weekend.

Hanoi. I stayed at the exact same hotel that I did last time, and ate at all the same places that I did last time. I even went to some of the same shops. But that was sort of the point of this visit: revisiting the familar, reliving all of the experiences that I relished the first time, and just taking this city in to the greatest extent possible. Unlike other places (especially Siem Reap!!), Hanoi is not a destination where I tend to run around, crossing tons of items off of a packed itinerary, and keeping my nose buried in my Lonely Planet as I read about the zillions of things that I want to see as I am en route from one destination to another. I do love that sort of frantic way of traveling, where you are completely absorbed in your surroundings but also excited to get to the next sight or restaurant or activity. You become a one-woman inferno, consuming absolutely everything in your path. And Hanoi is quite frantic, but I move at a complete snail's pace. The first time I visited Hanoi I started the Old Quarter walking tour that is outlined in the Lonely Planet, and never ended up finishing it. This time I booked my ticket and had one (and only one) agenda item: finish the freakin' walking tour.

I totally did not finish that walking tour.

Hanoi is a fabulous place for a Piscean like myself--for the fish whose soul and intellect are constantly swimming at odds with one another. It forces you to wake up, pay attention, and stay present. The sheer volume of motorcycles, and their relentless and brazen invasion of personal space requires you to stay alert, walk in a straight line, and make no sudden moves. There are, if you are lucky, about four inches of sidewalk that are available for pedestrian use. The other inches are devoured by parked motorcycles, squat stools where people sit and slurp their piping hot pho, makeshift barber shops where you can get a shave and a haircut (two bits), women resting their loads of pineapples and bananas, and narrow stores overflowing with colorful wares as they try to entice buyers. So if you do not pay attention, you are likely to be run down or lose your balance or trip. And even though everything is completely chaotic, and at first glance it can all be somewhat frightening, there is a perfect and flowing harmony to all of this motion and noise and metal and smoke and silk. When exiting the hotel and entering the street, one must simply take a deep breath and allow oneself to be utterly swept up in all of it. And mind you, while there is constant and blaring movement everywhere, none of it is fast. The energy of this city buzzes and vibrates, but it is slow and careful, picking its way around everything, taking care not to muss its delicate charms, its soft colors.

And while Hanoi DOES force you to focus and pay attention, on the other hand it also has countless ways of diverting your attention. The shops....THE SHOPS!!! You've never seen so many lovely things in one place. The silks that have been embroidered by hand (oh the lucky ladies in my life, have YOU got some beautiful gifts comin' your way!!), and the lacquer paintings with eggshell and gold leaf details, and the brightly painted vases, and the water puppets, and the gemstones that have been so expertly polished, and the bags and quilts that have been sewn by hilltribe people with rough threads and bright colors, and the satin sleep sacks, and the stone carvings of traditional Vietnamese musicians, and the conical hats....I put myself on a very tight budget this time, and it was hard to stay within it (though I did manage). Every two steps is another beautiful shop (and I mean two steps literally....the shops in Hanoi are extremely narrow, as households and businesses built in the colonial period had to pay taxes according to how much of the actual street they took up, so they took the "tube" approach and built narrow buildings with deep hallways). Every two steps I must divert myself from my walking tour and feel the lacquer, touch the silks, and do some quick budget calculations. As soon as I get myself refocused and on my way, BAM. I must stop and look at something, or take a picture of a random sign (I think Vietnamese looks really cool in writing), or contemplate how a family of five can fit so comfortably on a motorcycle, or watch a group of live snails in a bucket ooze all over each other before they become delicacies.

At first glance the Vietnamese are not perpetually smiling like the Thais (I must admit, I always get a little homesick for Thailand and its beautiful, smiling people whenever I go elsewhere...there's just nothing else like it), nor are they aggressively friendly like the Cambodians. They have a calm, centered core that just radiates, and they can be feisty when they need to be. I love their energy. I love how everything there seems so completely random, like there is no order to anything at all, but it all somehow makes sense (and again, this is simply a glance, my own humble observation, and certainly not intended to be a cultural generalization that encompasses all Vietnamese or Thais or Cambodians everywhere). This place has steeped in its own complex history, has been fortified by its own quiet faith, and it has its own distinctive fingerprint. I feel such a deep reverence and respect for this place. This beautiful warrior (the beautiful female warrior being an image that is replicated over and over again in Hanoi's Fine Arts Museum), this place of blinding green rice paddies and gray skies and abrupt silhouettes of limestone cliffs, this place where the air is filled with bellowing horns and clanging bicyclce bells and an unidentified (to me, at least) smoke that men inhale out of large bamboo stalks.

It was an altogether fabulous trip.