(This post was supposed to be posted almost 2 weeks ago…I'm sorry!!!)
This excursion is our last one in the program before ISP begins. It has been different from other excursions we have had because we are constantly moving and changing locations. Since the last time I posted, we have spent a night in the forest, slept in a stilt Muong house, and rowed boats through a bay of caves and rock cliffs. The general theme of the trip has been more ecological/environmental based. Before we left to the forest, we spent two days in Hanoi doing as much sightseeing as we could given the flooding circumstances. We ended up having to cancel many of our scheduled trips because the flooding completely devastated most areas of the city. People were without electricity and clean water. Upwards of 50 people have died so far in and around Hanoi proper. We even had to reserve a larger bus so that we could drive through the floody streets. On our way to our lecture at the Institute for Social Development, for example, there were parts of the road that were so flooded that men were literally fishing in the street and catching upwards of five fish at a time. The cost of food has nearly quadrupled since the flooding started, which is even evident in the very minimal selection of fruits on the side of the road driving in the villages. One village we drove through had boats delivering instant noodles to the people because they were unable to even leave their homes, let alone travel to a market. In Hanoi we also ate lunch at a restaurant that is an NGO for street children and runs a program to get them off the street. We also visited the Temple of Literature, which considered to be the first university in Vietnam. It had a completely Chinese feeling to it – the rich red colors interspersed throughout, the architectural design similar to a pagoda, and the intricately designed gardens that were expansive throughout. On our last day in Hanoi before leaving for Cuc Phuong National Park, we were supposed to have an all-day seminar at the National University in Hanoi. Because of the flood, however, the entire university was shut down and many areas of it destroyed. We ended up having the same lectures in the guesthouse. Although the lectures were all quite interesting and we also had the chance to spend more time with the Hanoi University students (one of which agreed to be my translator for my ISP!), I had a hard time being stuck in a dark room all day without any sunshine.
Luckily the rains slowed by the evening and we were able to take a long walk around the lake and attend the water puppet show, which is a traditional and trademark element of Hanoi. It is a puppet show, which incorporates Chinese and French influence but has a uniquely Vietnamese twist to it, which is particularly evident in the content of the puppet show stories. The marionette puppets are all intricately designed, ranging from dragons, snakes, to people, and are controlled by a group of about four or five people standing behind the bamboo wall. The most distinct feature of this puppet show is that it is done in two or so feet of water. Vietnamese singers provide the background songs to this production, which left us in our wonderful second row seats a bit wet by the show's end after getting splashed quite a few times throughout the program.
After the show, we walked along the streets by the lake on our way to a late dinner. Co Thanh just radiates energy when she is walking along the streets of Hanoi, which helps fuel my own intrigue with the city. On this walk, we saw so many exciting things, from clothing stores, street vendors, pharmacies, and hotels. All the streets here are compartmentalized – there are streets entirely devoted to shoes, to cups of fresh fruit with yogurt, to scarves, to pharmacies etc. Unlike in HCMC, the sidewalk in Hanoi is an actual sidewalk where people walk. There are even spray-painted lines structuring the rows of parked motorbikes in some parts of the city. In the middle of our walk, Co Thanh quickly crossed the street and told us she would be right back. We saw her talking with a street-vendor woman selling sticky rice. Co Thanh came back to our side of the street with two bags full of sticky rice, each ball of which was wrapped individually in newspaper and felt hot to the touch. Because the walk to our restaurant for dinner was far, she wanted us to have a chance to experience this sticky rice. This is the vendor where she enjoyed sticky rice as a child growing up in Hanoi. Looking back at this small food vendor, nestled away onto the sidewalk of this street, I realized how appreciative I am of Co Thanh and her desire for us to see Vietnam not as tourists. I'm not exactly sure what I am here, but I know that no tourist stops on the side of the road and picks THIS woman to buy rice from. As I bit into this foreign food, I realized that this country is becoming less and less foreign to me after all. I'm learning to enjoy this increasing degree of comfort and confidence in both myself and life in this country with each passing day.
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