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!!!

Country Mouse

This post is brought to you by the word ANTI-CLIMACTIC.  So, we decided to set out on a country excursion Sunday, in search of caves to spelunk and rivers to ride, and none of that happened.  A lot happened and a lot didn't happen, just none of it was what we'd hoped would happen.

Apparently, this is a haunted rice paddy.

 

We headed to Hoa Binh, west-southwest of Hanoi, knowing that it had a large open-air reservoir (and having only recently discovered there are no caves to be found there) on which we were hoping to ride.  And we sort of did for about ten minutes--on a barge that we'd tried to rent for an hour from some old woman at the docks--before the "captain" (or whoever) said we were turning around because he had to get back to work.  *anti-climactic shrug*  The dam itself was actually, well not cool, but kind of visually engaging.  People were fishing off the top with hundreds of feet of line that they somehow magically kept from getting as tangled as a soap opera storyline.  And while passing through the town (after turning down the legitimate boat renters who tried to savagely rip us off), we came upon a woman roasting little minnow-esque fish that you more or less eat whole.  She and her gaggle of gossippy watchers got a real kick out of our fascination by the clever fish-roasting process and were positively tickled pink when Roman bought a couple dozen off them...that might be the most interesting thing that happened that day.

Dam! Would you look at that!

People actually fish off the side--you can see them sitting at the tippy top.

Tiny minnows being roasted between strips of split bamboo. You dip them in an herb/MSG mixture and eat them whole, save for the spine.

So, of course, Roman bought a whole strip and made me try one...I left a lot more than just the spine.

I have no idea how I managed to neither fall down the rocky side of this muddy hill or off the gang-plank to the boat.

And then, much to my chagrin as I was ready to get the hell out of this weird backwoods, we hiked up to the top of one of the hills/small mountains surrounding this little cove in an effort to get a distant view of the dam.  Here's what happened with that.

I managed to find the dam...

...but only by scrambling up this gravel mountain down which I just assumed I would fall and parts of which would be permanently embedded in my flesh. But, fortuitously, I made it down scot-free.

I also serendipitously came up with this.

So, the only other thing to do in Hoa Binh was visit the Muong Ethnic Minority Museum...don't get too excited.  It was actually fairly cool but was mostly a bunch of Muong-style houses and a couple rooms of ethnic tools and objects, plus a library in which every single book was in Vietnamese.  *anti-climactic shrug*  The best part was the overall atmosphere in which this little museum-village is located, lush with trees and surrounded by misted mountains.  We managed to have a few laughs and a bounteous picnic lunch.

Entering the Muong Ethnic Minority "Museum."

Kyle said he wanted "good," rather than silly pics of him from now on.

What a handsome pair. :)

Gigantic fish traps.

Traditional Muong hut.

Kyle getting his comeuppance for being nosy.

This was the loudest, most chatty cat I've ever met.

The view from our Muong picnic.

Bamboo being held underwater, presumably to make it pliable enough to weave into fences.

Outside the museum and down some "road" a ways is another village that would have made for absolutely beautiful photos were it not for the cable lines cutting across it and the mountainous backdrop no matter what angle you tried.

Terraced village. The tiny dots of color are the welcome committee, from whom we fled before they were halfway down the hill.

Just chillaxin'.

Sunday could have, needless to say, been better.  But we got some fresh (i.e. filled with just dust rather than a dust-exhaust fumes mixture) air and some exercise.  And the young Polish couple with whom we went had it way worse than we did as they had to get up at eight in the morning following a farewell party the night before.  They were, unsurprisingly, a bit worse for wear Sunday and slept every time we were in the car for more than ten minutes.  How I envied their somnial abilities.


Monday, Roman and I headed off to a country wedding.  We were invited by a friend of his who is...somehow related to the happy couple.  I think it's one of those villages that's so small, most people are inter-related in some way or another, making relationships complicated and hard to determine.  On top of that, I think he was reeeally distantly related to them.  I wore my new silk dress and drew a ton of attention on the forty five minute bus ride to some village outside Hanoi, where we were unceremoniously dropped off FIVE MILES OUTSIDE OF TOWN because the bus driver didn't want to wait out a traffic jam.  I was rather perturbed but not at all surprised by this turn of events.  It was one of those unrealistically disastrous moments where you just have to laugh.  Roman tried to tell his friend to just go on without us, but he insisted on picking us up and driving back to the wedding, making us over an hour late.  So, we missed the actual ceremony but arrived in time for the reception-like portion of events.  Unfortunately, our arrival coincided precisely with that of the bride and groom, drawing attention away from them.  This happened for the next hour and a half.  We felt really badly about it.  An uncle of the groom insisted on putting us at a table at the very front of the reception tent and people wanted to take our pictures while the bride and groom were having their pictures taken.  Ugh. 

The happy, albeit somewhat somber, couple.

We were finally allowed to move to a room at the very, very back, where we held court while eating a late lunch, with various uncles and brothers-in-law and even the mother of the groom coming to toast us.  We must have had at least a dozen toasts with rice liquor, and every time they wanted us to drain our little shot cups.  I managed to just touch it to my lips each time (or I'd have been under the table after the first half hour), but Roman turned to me part way through and said, "I need to stop drinking for a little while."  Poor guy.  But I don't feel too badly for him, because he forced me to try betel nut, a popular pastime here.  You chew (DON'T SWALLOW!) areca, or betel, nut wrapped in betel leaf with a bit lime (not the fruit, but the mineral :/) and swallow just your saliva.  It's extremely bitter--even one of the older women who's used to it made a face when she first tried this particular concoction--and I could only keep it in my mouth for forty five seconds before I couldn't take it anymore.  Roman asked how it tasted and I replied, "Awful incarnate."  We then made our way to Roman's friend's grandmother's house (got all that?) followed by every single schoolchild in the village.  It probably looked like we were being run out of a town of dwarves.

I felt like the Piper of Hamlin with all these kids following me to the edge of town.

Kids going home through the rice fields for lunch.

Wilburs.

You want a highlight, you say?  That's a toughy this time.  Nothing really comes to mind.  Monday I picked up my final piece from the tailor, a top that I might like even better than my fabulous dresses.  And there you have it.  Just one more piece of evidence that I am in no way, shape or form a country mouse.  I didn't think I was a city mouse either, until I came to Hanoi and managed to carry on fairly easily.  Suburban mouse is probably most accurate.  Regardless, green acres just aren't the place for me.