Chuc Mung Nam Moi

After crossing into Jordan and arriving at the Amman airport with almost too few inconveniences, I was left with twelve hours to kill before my flight to Bangkok. I kill much of the time switching back and forth between a book called "Bethlehem Besieged" and my Hanoi guidebook, sort of easing my way into a less intense breed of travel. I arrive in Hanoi the following night and, after my reserved hostel proved to not exist, I catch one of the last available cots at the Backpackers Hostel, which turns out to be, for all intents, an international bar (Australians making up the large and boisterous majority) with a bunch of beds. ___________________________________________________

It only takes me a day to see most of the sights in my book, and while some of them are definitely worth seeing (a couple of nice pagodas, a nice complex dedicated to Ho Chi Minh) they are pretty overrun by other tourists. I find a little more interest in just searching for an average neighborhood--it's not readily apparent where residential streets actually are--and I think I find one when I dip into a side street just south of the Temple of Literature. The disjointed "streets" are really no more than five feet wide, and the small balconies of the attached tube houses almost touch each other, leaving a sliver of daylight. I weave my way through, and notice that almost all the doors are open, exposing these cozy, beautifully decorated living rooms. ___________________________________________________

I read in my guidebook that Hanoi is an interesting mix of communist reverence and full-blown capitalist impulses, and I find the description to be very accurate--Ho Chi Minh is treated like a god and the biggest downtown park is named after Lenin, but people are everywhere working to make a buck in one way or another. I also note immediately that the motorbike drivers of the city have foregone both ethoses in favor of complete and total anarchy. The drivers, which essentially fill up entire streets in giant packs, weave through one another with almost no regard for traffic signals, crossing or oncoming traffic, or the well-being of bewildered American tourists. On one occasion on my second day, after getting hopelessly lost several miles off of the boundaries of my map, I had the pleasure/terror of hugging one of these bikes for dear life behind an especially reckless driver who would not stop at any cost. When we reach the center of town near the hostel, he lets me off, smiles warmly, and gives me a firm handshake. I tell him he's the best cyclo driver ever, which was pretty much gibberish to him, and limp away. ___________________________________________________ Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, is celebrated the night after my arrival with a degree of free reign as well. I arrive at the street around Hoan Kiem Lake, the centerpoint of the city, around an hour before midnight, and it is packed shoulder-to-shoulder. I look up at the sky and maybe about thirty den troi are peacefully floating above--as soon as one disappears into the smog, another shoots up in its place. Eventually I start passing groups huddled around the den troi, lighting them and holding them upright for flight, and I realize this sport is actually somewhat dangerous, as there's no guarantee they actually leave the ground when you let them go. Also, it is seemingly impossible to control their direction--thank goodness nothing flammable is around the lake, other than a couple hundred trees. ___________________________________________________ The teenagers are by far the most festive in the crowd--as the crowd slowly moves, chains of up to fifty kids intermittently tear through with great joy, each holding the hips of the one in front of them. And at one point along the lake, one teen is beating a drum on a rickshaw while several others take turns holding a giant dragon mask over their heads and charging at the crowd, creating a small circle for this dance of sorts. At one point a car inexplicably comes through the crowd and the kid with the mask jumps and dances on its hood and roof, to loud cheers (the driver appears not to be pleased). After a big fireworks display, I walk back to the hostel--older people are on the curb in front of nearly every door, silently and methodically making small fires and burning away fake money and paper ornaments.