Tet a Tete

Chuc mung nam moi! (Happy New Year!)

Upon our return from Cambodia on Saturday, we were greeted by a festive Hanoian atmosphere and some serious price gouging by airport taxis.  Like double what should have been charged.  To the extent that Kyle was asking for names and procuring evidence of fraudulence while loudly threatening to complain to a higher power.  But we swiftly put this negativity behind us and set out Sunday morning-ish for the Museum of Ethnology, which was holding a Tet celebration with traditional games and ethnic minority food.

Solid effort, Kyle.

The point is to try to swing as high as possible. It's traditionally done by a couple as a means to get to know one another while being chaperoned by the whole community.

These American guys really showed what's what.

This kid scored the only hole-in-one I witnessed. Kyle and I both sucked. :/

Making rice flour flowers.

This kid kicked ass at "stick-butting," an inverse of tug-o-war where you try to push the other person out of the circle.

Calligraphy.

Ink blocks. Kyle got one of a baby with a lobster because he says it's adorable...I'm still not convinced.

We didn't actually make it inside the building, which means I've been to the Museum three times, including volunteering, and still haven't managed to catch a single glimpse of their renowned exhibits.  But the museum grounds are filled with reproductions of ethnic houses from various groups, furnished with traditional housewares, at which mouth-watering snacks awaited us.  There were tonnnns of people there, so the pictures of the houses are generally from a week before when I went exploring one day after volunteering.

This one's my favorite. It's got its own aqueduct--swanky.

Entrance into the long house, over one hundred feet long. Yes, I used the right ladder, but I was very careful about my hand placement. ;)

Tall communal house.

This house was huge! Climbing twenty feet up the rustic ladder was fine, but figuring out how to make my way back down proved a bit trickier. I waited to watch how someone else fared then followed in suit when they made it safely down.

Parental discretion advised. This is an ethnic minority tomb. The sexual scenes aren't pornographic but rather represent the cycle of life.

These tombs also have carved weeping statues. This people comes from central Vietnam and have been highly influenced by Indonesia.

Stilt house, where the best food was served. :)

No food yet, but Kyle and I are enjoying our chopstick party.

Awesome! (Sorry, my vegetarian friends, but this smelled gooood.)

Delicious sausage. It went superbly with purple sticky rice.

The Ethnology Museum is one of the few places in Hanoi where you can take in a water puppet show.  We were fortunate enough to catch one today.  My favorites were the Dragons and Wizard Afraid of Ghost.  Check it out.

Dragons!

Monday morning was still a holiday, according to the U.S. embassy, so in continuance of our Tet-cation Kyle, Roman and I visited a supposedly haunted battlefield, now in the middle of Hanoi, on the anniversary of Vietnam's defeat of a Chinese army.  Alas, there were no Chinese ghosts in sight, but thousands of people in their Tet best came out to watch parades and dances, to eat sweets and snacks, and to buy balloons and rice flour figures.  I received a lovely purple rose molded from rice flour that has proceeded to harden to concrete.

The Vietnamese general who defeated the Chinese. He looks pretty hardcore.

Baby-sized balloons.

Rice flour figures! There were flowers, dragons and Power-Ranger-looking ninjas.

We finished up the day by visiting a nearby dinh (communal house) and pagoda to take part in some traditional ancestor worship and Buddhist ritual.  Burning fake money and papers with coins printed on them while thinking of your ancestors aids their prosperity in heaven and, hopefully, yours on Earth.  You then burn incense (in odd numbers and NEVER in fours, since that's the number of DEATH) and place the sticks in the incense holder before the pagoda entrance and at the stupas (small structures usually containing the remains of important Buddhist monks) while praying.

Burning fake money.

The stupas on which you place your incense...mine almost refused to light, but I managed to take part after some fire finagling.

It's been wonderful to see all of Hanoi in such high spirits with everyone smiling in their "Sunday best."  I'm very grateful I've been in Vietnam during the Tet season and have been able to have two New Years this time around.  Surely that's providential for next year.  So far my resolution of being stalwart and fearless in 2011 has been upheld more often than not.  Buddha willing, I'll keep it up. :)

Let's Talk About Pot...

...tery.  Pottery.  Get your head in the game, people.  Kyle had today off for Martin Luther King, Jr Day, so we made an early morning excursion out to Bat Trang, THE pottery village around Hanoi.  We took the bus out there.

It cost 3,000 dong ($.15!) for the thirty-minute ride out there.  It was very pleasant, but on the ride back fifty high school kids turned the bus into a can of sardines...just think about taking the 1L in Austin with sixty five other people.  Oogie.

Our first stop, of course, was the pottery market.  The village has become somewhat diversified, but the vast majority of people are still involved in the pottery industry in one way or another.  They specialize in white and white-and-blue pottery, but there's one black sheep in the village who started using terracotta and now he's being imitated by several shops in town.  Way to start a movement, Mr. Independent Thinker.

I kept feeling like a bull in a China shop, but, thank God, I didn't break a single thing.

I just think this tree is super cool. The branches grow from the trunk at the same level and make it look like an umbrella when it's at full bloom.

We then attempted to follow the self-guided walk in our tour book...and we came pretty close to achieving that goal.  First stop was the town pagoda...

Followed closely by a trip to the town dinh, or communal house, which was unfortunately undergoing a crap-ton of construction.  But I was fortunate enough to meet one of the workmen, who knew just enough English to tell me that he only spoke German.  Ce la vie.  The Temple of Literature, dedicated to Confucius and his disciples was closed, but the panel over the door says "Heaven and earth move in rhythm."  How great is that?!  We then meandered by the river and down the twisty twirly alleyways for which the village is also known.

It's a terracotta fairy village!

Cocks...for fighting! Geez, people, your heads are really in the gutter today.

Dinh under construction.

The wall's lined with a mixture of soot and terracotta that has been slapped against the surface, leaving a hand print embedded in each one. You pull them off when they dry and use them as a fuel, akin to charcoal.

The niche below the 624 is called a "coffin corner." The alleys are so narrow, the villagers had to carve into the walls to allow coffins to be carried around the corners. Morbid. :D

Skiiiiiiiinny alley.

We then stumbled upon this huge open area filled with bonsai trees.  It was awesome!!!  Each was so different than the last one my eyes had perused, and they looked like miniaturized eco-systems.  They had such a primordial quality to them, but I kept thinking of the movie Fern Gully the whole time and expected for swarms of pixies to burst through the tangled convolutions of braided branches.

This one's MY FAVORITE! Doesn't it kind of remind you of the tree in Fern Gully?!

There were LOTS!

This one even came with a bird cage. Fancy.

And then I was about to die of starvation, so we went to this little cafe Kyle had been to before and got Bun Cha, rice noodles that you dip into broth containing strips of grilled pork and thinly sliced pieces of papaya.  IT WAS AMAZING!!!  By leaps and bounds my favorite Vietnamese dish so far.  I will be sorely tempted to order it every single time I eat for the next five and a half weeks.  We bounced around the village for a short while longer before being bombarded by that tsunami of teenagers on the bus back.  I didn't buy anything, but I really want to go back and get a tea set, one that's not made of silver or an heirloom and which I won't be afraid to use.

When we got back, I raced off to the first day of my internship.  Dr. Rapoport has called me a different name each time I see him.  The first day, he thought my name was Dawn and today he introduced me to a group of tourists as Sarah Ward.  I can't wait to find out who I'll be tomorrow.  Today was slightly anti-climactic, simply because nothing was really accomplished.  I enjoyed watching Dr. R. give his spiel about his extensive collection and talking to and helping the large group of tourists (to whom I reintroduced myself on the sly), but I still have no idea exactly what he wants me to do...I'm fairly certain he doesn't really have any idea either.  And then over and over, going up and down the seven flights of stairs in his shop...oy!  After my mountainside workout yesterday, my calves have been shrieking and taut as a tightrope all day.  But tomorrow will better.  No doubt in my mind.

Finally, Kyle (who works as a microbiologist specializing in AIDS research) had some colleagues over for a dinner party.  I wish I could say I picked up some key facts about microbiology, but that would be a bald-faced lie.  I just hope the lamplight wasn't glinting off my glazed eyes in too blinding a fashion.  They were lovely people; I just have very little to contribute to a conversation on the logistics of research labs throughout Vietnam.  Today's highlight: definitely the whimsical bonsai trees.  They were such a delightful and giddy surprise.

Stranger in a Strange Land

And now for today.  Roman gave a tour in the Old Quarter, the historic shop district in Hanoi, for The Friends of Vietnam Heritage, an NGO for which he volunteers.  We started at 9:30 am and finished at 12:30.  It was tiring but terribly informative.

Entrance gate into Old Quarter and part of original citadel.

I

t was dreadfully loud and crowded and dirty, normally the trifecta of misery, but there was a plethora of things to see and smell and feel, resulting in a literally sensational experience.  We visited a Buddhist pagoda, the name of which I don't currently know, but there are LOTS in Hanoi.  Pagodas here refer to Buddhist religious centers, while temple denotes a Taoist place of worship.  Please understand that what I've gleaned about Vietnamese Buddhism and Taoism is sparse and limited, so take everything I say on the subject with a grain of salt.  From what I understand, Buddhism here is an amalgamation of Indian Buddhism (but in a religious, rather than philosophical, form), Taoism, animism and ancestor worship...make of that what you will.

Main entrance to pagoda, open only on certain days.

Itty bitty alley through which we walked to the side entrance. 

Taoist section of Buddhist pagoda.

Angry guy to left of Taoist statue. He's red and intimidating and sitting on a lion while holding its tail.

Empty chair in invitation for the Buddhist god to come have a seat.

Gold leaf is a specialty in some Vietnamese villages. This is directly above a large, tiered display of Buddhas representing various principles and practices.

Ancestor worship in the same room as the Buddhas. These dudes are half of the ten guys who rule the ten levels of hell through which one must pass in order to make it to one or all of the six heavens. That is, of course, highly simplified.

Animistic mother goddesses representing water, metal, wood, fire and earth.

Animistic patriarchs...I think.

This cat picture is dedicated to my sister. ;)

These are bats, which hold some significance in Vietnamese Buddhism. They just reminded me of Austin.

We then went to Cho Dong Xuan (please note that I am not including the correct Vietnamese tonal characteristics because I could never figure out how to convey them via my laptop and because I am too lazy), the oldest and largest market in Hanoi.  It houses stall after stall of merchandise including, but not limited to, fabrics, bags, clothing, cookware, toys, sunglasses, and basically anything you could ever need and didn't know you wanted.

Everyone and their mom rides a motorbike here. I'm going to try to convey how many are used here through a series of photos depicting them in vast quantities throughout various areas of the city. Stay tuned.

It was gigantic and congested and I had to climb over people and squeeze under bundles to get out.

We walked around some more, visited a confectionary stand where I tried dried Vietnamese plum covered in grated ginger (eh), visited another pagoda and ended the tour at a dinh, or communal area, in which people go to visit, chill and worship.

I forgot I wanted to show you the cable system here. Very organized, obviously. Apparently, the city is working on a project to bury all wires like this, so this is a final vestige, although I've seen at least a dozen cases like this in the last two days.

In the worship area at the dinh. If there are too many people praying, you ring this bell to make sure that the Buddhist god hears you.

And off to a well-deserved lunch at Paris Deli on Church Street.  This area obviously caters to Westerners and is in the shadow of a French, Catholic Cathedral (St. Joseph's).

Delicious and Western. I got my comfort food: macaroni and cheese.

I'm going to go back and check this out. Will issue report shortly.

We then whiled away the afternoon walking around Hoan Kiem Lake, the cultural center of Hanoi.  The lake was huge and beautiful, with the Turtle Pagoda in the middle-esque.  There's a good story for its foundation, but I'll let you Google it if you really want to know.

There are some really cool displays around the lake and lots of food stands and coffee shops and benches for sitting.

Giant clock visible from space.

Yes, Vietnam is still Communist...I am still not.

My Converse, which were forcibly cleaned by a shoe-shiner who sweet-talked me out of my shoes.

Roman (left) and Kyle (not-left)  buying tea.

Awesome three-storied coffee shop on the terrace of which we took libations.

And finally, we went to a club owned by a friend of a friend called 21 Degrees North on West Lake.  I had drinks with six gentlemen who swing the other way, 2/3 of whom I saw coming a mile away (including a pint-sized Aussie who I wish I could carry around in my pocket and pluck out when I'm in the mood for a smile), but apparently I need to upgrade my Gaydar and download a VietGay app.

"Club" (more like nice bar)

Set of stairs on West Lake that lead straight into the water. I stuck the toe of my newly-cleaned Converse in the lake--I didn't actually want to let any of my skin come in contact with the questionable-looking water.

We were at the bar for happy hour and scored free beer and appetizers for two hours.  I tried steamed clams for the first time (better than expected) and got some more squid (yums).  Overall, today was awesome.  I met a Japanese woman, a Kiwi, two Canadians, an Aussie, five Vietnamese and two Poles.  Highlight: weaving on foot through relentless motorbike and car traffic without flinching (at least on the outside).