Waking up in Hanoi.
You wake up in Hanoi. Turn on the cable-tv that has provided the facade that you might actually be closer to home than you really are. You switch it off and set out for breakfast.
It seems the entire population of 3 and a half million is scattered around your block. Electric saws carve into hard metal, sparks go flying next to oil covered mechanics and labor workers. Another block, another saw, another ear-drum piercing noise. You continue on to a food stall that looks just comfortable enough to sit in for ten minutes.
Like most meals, it’s noodle soup. You eat around the beef that doesn’t look so much like beef, more like a pig fell into a blender for a few seconds. Delicious, but not enough, you miss the American breakfasts that were advertised all over in Thailand and even Laos.
You return to the hotel, the manager is holding your laundry hostage. 24 hours from the point you dropped it off, and it will be ready. He asks you sternly your plans for the day, motions to the various tours advertised on the walls. They’re cheap yes, but the smiles that lured you into the hotel turned to wide-eyes stares and intensity as he tries, almost demands that you book one of the tours to Halong Bay or Sapa whose advertisements line the walls with colorful pictures of smiling tourists. I’m going to Sapa tonight, but on my own, no hotel managers involved.
And so this is the plan. Book a 10 o’clock night train for Lao Cai, and catch the bus to Sapa when the train rolls in at 8 o’clock the next morning. The berths are little rooms with four bunk beds, and this shall be my accomodation for tonight rolling along at 60 mph.
The fervent pace of Hanoi charmed me for yesterday morning but now is starting to wear on me. I shall play the tourist, visiting sight to sight to occupy my time until 10. I long for the quiet mountain air of Sapa and shall smell it tomorrow. All is well, but I long for the mountains, clean air, and a sparse population.
Tags: Thailand, Laos, Vietnam 2006
bumwaiter
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