TRAVELER's FORTUNE: Epilogue

These are just images that will stay with me, nice, precious moments, rare moments, moments when you hear yourself say: wow, this really is the time of my life!








 This is the internet plug that was just above the toilet in one of the hotel's bathroom in Vietnam.





These are the precious worms canned in alcohol, who knows what for!

The same, here's a bird being conserved and bottled, along with her plums... Next to the snakes...
 


Just a girl... "Dreamy Vietnamese Girl".



This photo belongs to a friend I've made in this trip. I'll use it cause it's beautiful and think it's a nice-panoramic-epilogue.



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TRAVELER real FORTUNE , Chapter 10: SAPA

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The last exceptional thing that happened to us is called SAPA, a village in the mountains, in the north, where there are some tribes living.

Here I discovered that the common sense and the true value of a life and its principals are never forgotten, even if the people believing in it can hardly read.

I remembered that being human has nothing to do with how many books you have read and it is a quality that we loose day by day in the society that we create, society meant to eventually self-destruct - but this is another story.

The lesson that the girls Black H’mong (the name of their tribe) gave us, was one that will stay with me always!

These girls, between 9 and 15 years, live already without their parents, down in the village, trying to help their families by selling things to the tourists; mostly they sell aluminum earrings, handmade bracelets or traditional clothes.

The boys about the same age are already working the land. Very few of them go to school, and around 15, they get married.

Most of these girls were coming at the reception of our hotel, we found them there every morning, playing cards. We easily became friends, they were very, very open, and as we have soon found out, very warm and tender.

The smallest in the group was always around me, touching me, always looking up and smiling, happy to be able to change a few words in English. Because, even if they do not go to school and they do not know how to write, well, they do speak English! They have learnt it with and from the tourists. Of course it helps the business also!

Well, this small one asks me if I want to buy something from her. I said yes and I asked her to bring me some earrings that, I noticed, were in a very fashion among them, and she promised to bring them to me the next day.

That very next day we were also living, so when in the morning I saw her at the hotel, I knew she was waiting for me. As it was raining and we had to spend the morning in, she was always around me and I was curious how and when will she give me the earrings, I was sure she had it!

After a while she finally show them to me, looking for confirmation that they were the ones I asked for. I said, “yes, thank you, this is it; tell me how much does it costs”. She looked down and she said that I have to give it a price. So… I gave her the equivalent of two dollars or so. You can not imagine the big-big eyes she made looking at the money!

I didn't know if the reaction was due to the fact that I gave her more than she was expecting, or less... But I went for it wasn't enough. So I offered her another dollar, asking if this will do. Her eyes got even bigger and she thanked me whispering the words.

I was so impressed by her reaction! Immediately her friend came over and asks me if I would like to buy something from her too. I said no, but I gave her the same equivalent of a dollar saying that I have enough jewelery for a day, but this is for her. She thanked me the same gentle way and they disappeared.

Five minutes later they were back, coming directly to me, taking both of my hands and putting bracelets on them. I said “no, I do not want to buy any more”. And the answer was; “These are not for sell, these are our presents for you!”

I swear I was so deeply, deeply touched!

In the afternoon we could visit a little more around and late afternoon we were in the bus, waiting to go back to Hanoi. The whole group of girls was there. They kissed us all and they told us to come back soon.

One of them, kind of a leader (the quickest one on cheating while playing cards) came next to the window of one of our colleagues and asked: “Why didn’t you buy anything from me? Yesterday I asked you and you said you will. I asked: you PROMISE? And you said YES. Now, why didn’t you buy?”

We all told the guy to give her some money. He searched his pockets and he handed it to her, through the window.

The girl looked directly in his eyes, said nothing and slowly turn her head looking away and up, obviously offended.

None of the girls beside her touched the money, even if the guy was waving them hoping that someone would pick it up.

The bus started to move but the girl stayed there, unmoved, looking up, proud, teaching us that in Sapa a promise is a promise !

This is the image that I keep.

This is the image that I left with.

This is the image that follows me and that made me love Vietnam.

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TRAVELER MISFORTUNE, Chapter 7: Ha Long Bay-byeeeee!

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I was lucky.
During the trip that we've done in our first weekend here, the guide was a very nice girl that speaks good English and we became friends, so I see her time to time, when she is not working.
( * we stayed in contact all these years and meanwhile she married a Romanian and she's living in Timisoara; life's full of surprises.)

(Remy's photo)

The trip was excellent; I felt in love with the things we saw: mountains growing out of the water in strange shapes and so straight and imposing, fishermen villages floating on the water, children and dogs jumping from a floating house to another - amazing !



(Remy's photo)



It started weird though. We were still at the hotel at the time (before moving in the hotel apartment with the laughing-at-my-ass-guardian) and even if we were living just for a couple of days and left all our stuff in the hotel room, cause we intended to keep the room for at least another week, we had to pay for the time we already stayed and for the night that we were supposed to be away, before going; even if they had the credit card number and could charge it any-time, even if we had all our stuff in the room, even the whole bus was waiting for us and even if we told the receptionist that our computers only, still in the room, costs more than his “putain d’hotel” (meaning of course, like you guessed, his "f... hotel") !

Well, he was stubbornly smiling and writing by hand invoice after invoice, one for each night we stayed in, and one for the night we were going to be away, as we left our stuff inside therefore keeping the room, he explained…

With about half an hour late and an impatiently-hot-waiting-bus, we left.

Not even ten minutes later we arrived in a place where a lot of tourists were waiting and we had to get down. We were waiting now with all the others; we soon found out that we were supposed to change the bus and then go for real.
As soon as we did, the guide, a small Vietnamese guy with the worse accent ever, got up and said: “Nowa weee sayyy byeee-byeee Haaanooi and…”
After this, nobody was listening any more. We were all laughing behind the chairs - I guess because we all had the same image of a bus full of wondering-why-the-hell-we-took-this-trip grown-ups, heads on a side, innocent looks, waiving and saying all at once with girlish voices: “byeeee-byeeee Haaanoooi”…


The fun continued in the back of the bus where we were seated with two other French. And it was really funny till we stopped and the same funny guide invited us at lunch.

Just when we were about to get down, he pushed us back saying that just four of us are going to eat here and the rest in another place.
OK, we said, even if it was weird; we are four (together with the two other French we met) and we would like to eat together.
He pushed us even harder and started to scream that No, the other two French can’t eat with us! That He is the guide so He knows !!!

Nobody understood why and after a long hurry-scurry we finally got the idea: as the other two French were supposed to stay longer in “Ha Long Bay” - the name of the place where we were going - their schedule was different, they were following another trajectory therefore eating in a different place; and they were supposed to change the bus (again).
But the poor guide-guy (fortunately his mission finished at lunch time and the two groups had each another guide) was unable to explain this in his byeee-byeee-Haaaanoooi-English ; explaining often seems the most difficult thing to do, especially when all they see is thy pride being hurt by these ungrateful-always-wanting-to-understand-everything foreigners!
...Well, I'm harsh! So, no, it is not difficult... it is actually impossible!

Most of the foreigners here are trying to learn some words in Vietnamese, so we kind of do want to meet middle-way; but the difficulty of the pronunciation and the contorted faces of the Vietnamese listener when hearing our nonsense efforts, kind of makes you loose the enthusiasm…
You can read on their faces “if you speak in English I don't understand a thing, and if it is my own language, I don’t recognize any of it !”
... So it's our turn to be useless and incapable ...

(Remy's photo)


Well, this last picture, it is not one my condescending jokes, it is actually nature's sculpture in one of the caves we've visited in Ha Long Bay; the lighting and the colours are not mine either, they are exactly like they are shown in the cave, for the eyes of those who could pass by without noticing it.

Thought deserve being displayed even if the photo is not mine either, it was taken by Remy, one of the French we met in the bus and that I accidentally met again on the way back to Paris; so during the flights and the eight hours waiting between planes in Singapore, we exchanged photos and we laughed our hearts out while telling each other our part of the Vietnamese experience.
So thanks Remy, wherever you are, hope you will not mind me using your photos after all these years. :)

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TRAVELER MISFORTUNE, Chapter 2: The gnashing

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After the scooters-flood and the tube-houses, I noticed the noise! A terrible noise! A continuous, loud, disturbing noise! The annoying noise of horns!

All drivers love to horn; ALL THE TIME!

When they overcome a car - they horn, when they overcome a scooter - they horn; when they don’t want to overcome anyone at all- they horn; when they are about to cross an intersection - they horn 200 meters before to announce their triumphal arrival !

Everybody seems to be able to drive only if they use the stupid horn !
It must be attached to the engine and probably as soon as it is released, you get no more gas, or something...
And this happens starting with six in the morning till about eleven in the evening.

And above all this horning, there are other sounds forming a kind of a street-orchestra with no harmonics.
The street-sellers, the ones selling popcorn for example, they have their own sound – more exactly their own way of making noise: a cute&loud song like “Lambada”, or carols, or “Oh, Su-sa-na, oh, don't you cry for me”... At a point, doesn't even matter if you are a Susana or not, all you feel like doing is crying OUT LOUD!

The ones who want to drive you around on their taxi-bikes, they also have a recognizable, specific loud sound/noise of their own. And a bell ringing is the sound/noise that let people know the garbage will be lifted.


But as an ultimate sound-stress torturing formula is this: on the pillars at the corners of the streets there are megaphones that announce the news; it is a loud-robot-female voice that talks in the same rhythm for 15 minutes… Every morning, every afternoon, every evening!

What can I say?! Since we are here, every single evening we have a headache!

After 2 months, the time we are supposed to stay here, it'll be very easy for anyone to make our deepest wish come true: silence… just a plain-big-sacred silence!

The thing is that the “good rooms” in the hotels are always facing the street and no matter how courageous and ready to experience it all you might think you are, I'm telling you, you do not want to experience this bad ones...

I looked one whole day for another hotel, on a little hidden street maybe, more silent, but they are all the same.
They are all the same as the noise is concerned, but I noticed that sometimes the bathroom is different: there is no bathtub or shower like we're use to have in a bathroom; there is just a long wire that comes out from the sink faucet serving as the shower itself.
So you can take the shower seated on the toilet if you want.

(Who am I kidding?! I had a shower like that for a few years when I was a student and living in the campus. And it was good, and fun! And I was always clean!)

The receptionist always assures you that there is hot water. Which makes me think that this is not so usual, otherwise it wouldn’t be mentioned, right? One more thing to make sure of when getting in a Vietnamese hotel then! Good to know!

All this noise-mess sounds to me just like a radio that never gets to catch hold of a channel. A perpetual unpleasant gnashing and if you know the sound, imagine how it must be to hear it all day...

I counted once in a morning, as I woke up at six, the longest moment of silence between horns: the record was 10 seconds.
We will move from this hotel! That's a must!

The apartment that we somehow managed to rent it is fortunately on a side street and the silence between horns could give you sometimes a holiday of about 20 seconds… which we know now, it is goooood !

And the bedroom is great: weekends we can sleep late if we close all the windows and doors!

If in China I was going blind in amazement, here I am definitely going deaf!




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