I was in Hoi An sitting at a streetside vendor having a cup of coffee and minding my own business. These two women are gabbing away in Vietnamese when one of them turns to me and starts speaking in English (kind of) asking me where I'm from and what-have-you. We're chatting away for a few minutes, and just when I let my guard down she says "Come to see my shop!" Aw, shit. For those of you that don't know, Hoi An is the tailoring capital of Vietnam. There are probably over a hundred shops that will make you just about anything you want to wear... all you have to do is point to something in a magazine and you can have it the next day. Suits, jackets, shoes, shirts... The D.A. would go crazy here.
Anyway, next thing you know I'm with Emma at her shop across the street getting the business end of a measuring tape. I didn't even want a freakin' suit, I just wanted some linen pants for Vince's wedding. She's yapping away, talking some crazy shit in English then Vietnamese to her minions, pinching my cheeks, hugging me, and I think I just bought a suit, two shirts, two ties and a pair of pants for 200 bucks. Of course they take credit cards! "I make you look like James Bond!" Which is good, unless it's Roger Moore, seeing as how he's dead and all.
Hoi An is a riverside colonial town that is composed mainly of tailors, souvenir shops, restaurants, and hotels. It rained pretty much nonstop for 4 days while I was there, so I got to watch a lot of cable TV. I enjoyed watching Black Hawk Down in the original English version with an overdubbed Vietnamese woman doing all the voices. There was one three hour break in the rain that I used to visit the 8th century Champa ruins at My Son, but to be honest the motorbike ride there and back was the most exciting part of the trip. I came to Hoi An via Da Nang, and I think my Vietnam vet friends will be happy to hear that there's a Hyatt regency resort going up on China Beach across the way from the old U.S. air force base.
I did take in another excellent cooking class where I learned how to make Cha Ca and Pho from scratch. We got to visit a farm where they grow herbs and vegetables, and where this insane old Vietnamese woman served us tea. She was talking to herself for a while, then yelling at us, then staring off into space. Then she started yelling at her dog because it was climbing on the furniture, so I said something like "I think that dog has no idea of the consequences if he misbehaves." So a couple of people laughed and the woman thought we were laughing at her and started going nuts and our guide had to scramble to get us back to the van.
I also managed to memorize the script that all the street kid vendors use to sell you stuff... "You buy bracelet? Tiger Balm? Where you from? Do you have any coins for my collection?" They all come up and cycle through that same routine. I can't figure out what the angle is on the coins.
So the night before I'm set to fly back to Hanoi I go to pick up my clothes from Emma. Everything fits great... except the jacket. It looks like the sleeves were stitched to the shoulders by someone with Parkinson's. When I point this out to Emma, she just looks at me and gestures like I need to iron it out. Iron out my ass! I start pointing out the other jackets around the store and how they don't have this sort of poofy shape to the shoulders and she continues insisting it just needs ironing and then yelling at me in Vietnamese. I know I'm not going to win this argument because a) I'm a giant wuss, b) I already paid so I have no leverage, and, most importantly, c) she has scary foot claws. I'm not joking... her toenails extend to about half an inch beyond the end of her toes and they look sharp, like raptor talons with nail polish on them, or maybe it's dried blood. Whatever they are, it's freaking me out. So fuck it, maybe I can get Ang's tailor to fix the sleeves for me when I get back home. All I know is I got completely railroaded by a tiny Vietnamese woman into buying a mangled suit that I don't even need. I am such a jackass.
My next destination was Sa Pa, a mountain town known for its hikes in the northwest of Vietnam. To my eyes, it looks like the French got a hold of this place because it reminds me of an alpine village. I was on a two-day trip with four girls and a Vietnamese guide named Hung which took us through mostly minority hill towns belonging to the black H'Mong and the Dzay people. You might recognize the H'Mong from the pictures, the women wear all black and are constantly harrassing tourists trying to get them to buy trinkets, blankets and whatnot. They are freakin' persistent... one of them followed me around for about 15 minutes as I was walking around the town at a distance of five feet, our conversation consisting of her saying "You buy?" every few seconds and me saying "no." She even waited outside one of the shopts for me to come out so she could start in on me. They should have these people working on cold calls, not selling blankets. It was like the hill tribe version of Glengarry Glen Ross.... some village elder yelling at them to put that tea down, because tea is for closers.
We were told by our guide not to buy anything from the H'Mong, especially from the kids, because the Vietnamese feel like it perpetuates their cycle of poverty. Instead of sending the kids to schools, which are funded by the government, the families will send them out to sell trinkets repeating the same thing over and over again (it's kind of faint, you may have to turn up the volume)....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jXpBPlySOE
The government also wants them to stop having 10 or 12 kids per family and limit it to two. Well, good luck with that, because I dont' think they have cable up in the H'Mong villages. Although the Dzay seemed to have quite a few satellite dishes, but that's because they're really dialled into the homestay business.
Ethnic minority fun facts: 20% of the population of Vietnam is non-Vietnamese. There are 53 ethnic minorities spread throughout Vietnam. We spent the night in a Dzay village in a homestay hosted by Mr. Chin and his wife Doan. I don't remember a lot about the evening, except I learned "Moot, Hai, Ba, Zho!" which I think means "One, two, three, Go!" and "Chum pan chum" (I think) which means "100 percent". Yes, I am your international cultural envoy, ladies and gentlemen!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7H3wWbyuTQ
Sorry about the crappy quality of the video, I was in no condition to screw around with the settings. Mr. Chin doesn't speak any English but he does speak the international language of booze. Hung told me that they host travelers every day, sometimes as many as 20 at a time. If that's true, his liver should be on display somewhere.
The hike through the area around Sa Pa was outstanding. I've not been gifted with particularly flowery language, so I'll let the pictures do the talking. The trek was relatively easy... the upshot of having trekked in Nepal I guess. Wait... there is no upshot. Screw you Mark.
I had one last day in Hanoi and all I wanted was Bun Cha. I found a stand in an alley a few blocks from my hostel where the old lady serves up unlimited amounts of food for 15000 dong, which is about 80 cents. The only drawback is that whenever I sit down I feel like the oldest one at the kids' table. I barrel into everything like Will Ferrell when he has the dart in his neck in Old School... the Vietnamese people around me shaking their heads as they give me about a three-foot radius of eating space. Between that and the Banh My Pate, I was a happy boy.
Anyhow, I never thought I'd be looking forward to going to Thailand to get away from noise.
Here are the pics:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/dSxrN5KNtPs6BPQCA
Take 'er easy,
Dave