Rustico

I'm back in the good ol' Transit Lounge in Taipei, Taiwan's international airport.  This is the conversation between me and an airport employee who was waiting for me when I got off the flight.
"Mary?"
"Yeeeessss?"
"You are flying to LAX?"
"Yeeeesssss?"
"Please follow me."
"Okayyyy."
I was getting nervous, but apparently the fog here has been pretty bad the last couple days and they're trying to put me on an earlier flight, so I'd leave in three hours instead of eight.  That's perfectly fine with me.  I was going to attempt to venture out into the city, but transportation was proving a serious problem, and I wouldn't have had but a couple hours of daylight anyway.  I was up till 2:30am packing and blogging and doing a million last-minute things.  Waking up at eight this morning was surprisingly easy.  As I said in yesterday's post, I wasn't really ready to leave and slept restlessly as a result.


But my last day in Vietnam, though somewhat rustic, was a really great way to spend what little time I had left.  Kyle and I started off bright and early with a Friends of Vietnam Heritage excursion to an incense village, Doc La, southeast of Hanoi.  Though not particularly well-organized, it was neat to see (and smell and inhale) incense sticks being made by the thousands, both by machine and by hand.  Ninety percent of the village is involved in making incense, mostly for Buddhist and ancestor worship but also for use in Catholic churches.

Un-incensed sticks drying in these beautiful "bouquets."

This is just from one shop, presumably made just the day before.

Preparing cinnamon to put into the incense mixture that covers the sticks.

Women covering the sticks by hand. It was crazy dusty, and you just know working in this industry can't be good for their health. The process in shown in the video below.

Carrying the now-covered sticks out to dry.

Incense goop that goes in the machine in the video below and squirts out incense-covered sticks.

This town also makes the spiral, conical incense. It's just more spiral than cone at this stage.

This guy is screen-printing little plastic bags to hold the incense sticks.

This lady, from whom we bought, is speedily wrapping handfuls of incense in paper.

This village is apparently doing well for itself, because it's pagoda is surprisingly new, large and decorated.

We went with Aussie Sue and Aussie David. All of us enjoyed the trip, but were underwhelmed by the organization. Still, we definitely managed to enjoy ourselves, if only by complaining about the conditions. ;)

My last STUPAS!

Our next stop of the day was the Hanoi Museum, opened in October 2010 as part of Hanoi's 1000 Year Anniversary celebrations.  The building's pretty cool: an upside down pyramid made of glass.  Inside was another story.  Kyle, Roman, Aussie Sue and Aussie David could all tell, without any archaeology or museum experience, that this place was desperately lacking in presentation, security and overall visitor experience.  I was going crazy in a there-are-so-many-things-so-very-wrong-my-head-is-about-to-explode kind of way.  Extension cords all over the floor partially covered in just enough tape to keep people from tripping; exposed wires; elevator music being pumped through speakers on the first floor and wafting up the next three; misspelled descriptions; a general lack of signage to indicate the theme of the area into which you were walking; ripped display case backgrounds; large objects haphazardly displayed on the ground with no case, cording and stanchions, or guards who yell at people who touch them (though I was sorely tempted to do their job for them, Amy-style).  Kyle and I kept playing guess-the-theme-of-this-series-of-apparently-randomly-put-together-set-of-cases.  It was torturous.  I was in literal physical and mental pain for the two hours we toured the facility.  I accumulated some visual evidence to support my case.

Looks great from outside, right?

These canoes had a sign in Vietnamese saying "Do not touch." that even I could decipher. I watched at least half a dozen people touch them, each time wanting to slap their hands away and yell "Don't touch wooden objects, asshat!" because the guard just stood there and watched them do it. :(

Wow. Thanks for counting the objects for us. Also, thanks for not bothering to tell us what the objects are or where they were found. It's not like we come to museums to learn things. You really understand your demographic.

What a sophisticated security precaution. US museums could learn a thing or two.

Hey! I've never seen a "cloeection" before! Cool!

I'm so glad they left this pink styrofoam pedestal visible for visitors to see. It really helps you visualize the object in its original atmosphere.

No sign. Don't know if they were putting these together or if they fell down.

What a pretty vase...unsuccessfully hiding some exposed wires...

"Hey! This thing looks cool! I wonder what it does?" I'm still wondering what it does. :/

I almost ran into the pot on the left because 1. I was looking at the giant palanquin next to it and B. It never occurred to me that there would be precious objects just placed on the floor with no security measures.

This English is not English.

What a cool soil sample...sharing a case with a dead fly...

This broke my heart. This bronze drum has bronze disease causing the bronze to corrode. It will eventually be completely eaten away. This drum was sitting in the open air with no humidity-controlled case. :(

The really tragic part is that the museum had a beautiful and extensive collection that, if displayed in an atmosphere that resembled anything close to decent, would have made for a great experience and a wonderful representation of national pride.  Kyle told me to think of the museum as Vietnam's healthcare system, and then I would have an understanding of how he feels about work everyday.  Poor guy.

Pot found at a shipwreck with coral still attached.

Also from a shipwreck with shell attached.

Lime pots. They hold the lime used in betel nut quids.

Remember the one linga left in situ at Angkor? This is a Cham (southern Vietnamese) version with its base that represents the lady equivalent of the linga's phallic shape.

The bottom object looks like some sort of Romulan torture device.

Kyle and some sort of gigantic musical instrument.

The palanquin that drew my attention away from the pots I should have known would be littering the gallery floor.

We finally left the museum and had dinner at the BEST SEAFOOD restaurant west of the International Date Line.  Grilled clams and prawns, blue crab and clam porridge...I asked Roman why we hadn't been eating there every single night since my arrival!  It was messy and we ate on preschool-sized plastic stools in semi-darkness on the edge of Truc Bach Lake, but it was quite possibly the best meal I had in Vietnam and definitely the day's highlight.  I don't know if that was because it was my last night and I was trying to savor every final sensation and experience.  We ended with a trip back to the best creme karamel place in Hanoi for chilled coconuts (they add gelatin to the coconut milk and chill the entire fruit) and, well, creme karamel.  It was (pardon the pun) a perfectly sweet ending to a trip that added unfathomably to my life.

Final YUMS!!!