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!!!

Heads Up!

Roman was leading another Saturday morning three-hour tour, so I of course got shanghaied into tagging along.  Today, the name of the game is architecture, specifically French influence.  And there's a lot, let me tell ya.  There's a looooottttttt of history that I'm not going into, because this is a blog and not a lecture hall.  So we're just going to look at some pretty pictures and enjoy the view.

Starting out at the statue of Ly Thai To, emperor 1009-1028 and founder of the Ly Dynasty, which was a pretty awesome one.

Gazebo with French influences and teenagers hip-hop dancing.

The Bank. It's a transition between Art Deco (ornately decorated) and Machine Age (stream-lined) styles.

Art Deco door of the Bank.

The Dome of The Bank.

Asian Dragons + Greek Columns = Kickass Chimera

The governor's house with  French details, including lion head reliefs and ornate awning.

Metropole Hotel, built by the French at the turn of the century.

The Opera House! Absolutely sensational!

Former French department store, rebuilt as the stock exchange.

The History Museum, designed by Ernest Hebrard in the Idochine style. Lovely.

Fabulous example of Art Deco.

And again, through the back door.

After walking around for three-plus hours, we hopped the bus to the Botanical Garden to attend a picnic.  Although no longer an actual botanical garden, it is still a lovely park with a plethora of giant trees, peacocks, and unfortunately adorable monkeys in cages.  I'm very much aware of the fact that humans and monkeys share 98% of the same DNA, but this connection is one about which I very rarely think.  Observing these creatures with hands so like my own, watching a baby monkey scoot around the cage in such a child-like fashion, noting the complete lack of foliage on which to climb and hang and leap, was absolutely heart-breaking.  I stood there as long as I could, I suppose in an attempt to lend some kind of moral support to these distant cousins, but eventually had to turn away with tears in my eyes.

Dragon at the entrance to the park made from plates and tile by the village of Bat Trang.

Pigeon coup sky-rise.

Fortunately, the picnic helped to lift my spirits.  It was put on by a friend of Roman's who runs an English-teaching program.  There were games and food and many curious young Hanoians who were eager to practice their English with me.  Most were college students or recent college graduates and all were very jovial and sweet.  I must have taken a dozen pictures with them--each wanted a photo with the exoticism.

Roman really wanted me to put this story in, so here goes.

Roman then had a very unusual "business meeting" with this woman who'd found his name on a few websites about Hanoi.  She was looking for someone to promote a national forest area complete with camping and a supposedly quaint and traditional village.  He informed her that he's not a tour guide or a publicist or really even looking to be in business at all, but she insisted on transporting him and a few of his friends all the way out there (about an hour west of Hanoi) next week so he can check it out and hopefully post their events on his various websites and forums.  There's not a whole lot he can do, but he assured her everything within his power would be done.  The best I can say about the whole thing is that the chicken soup at the restaurant where we met was delicious and helped stave off this fluke of a bone-chillingly cold winter Hanoi's been having.

There, Roman. You're welcome.

Today's highlight: attending a concert at Hanoi Rock City by the UK band THE LOST SOULS CLUB.  Recently opened in December, HRC is a cool, slightly industrial structure catering mostly to ex-pats.  I'd never heard of the band, but found them on a local events website.  They were described as similar to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, with whom I'm currently in love, so for five bucks I couldn't pass up the opportunity to CHECK THEM OUT: Leave The Light On.  They were fabulous, blending dark blues and rock in a toe-tapping, body-swaying-inducing beat that gets in your blood and revs the pounding of your heart up to tempo.