Holy Shit

Hanoi is nuts. Nuts! And I'm loving it. If not a bit overwhelmed.

Remember all that war stuff I wrote about? That's like ALL people can talk about here. I was called baby killer like 12 times tonight.

Not. Not not not.

I was offered 12 motorbike rides and lots of weed, and boy are they aggressive here.

So quick first impressions before I go off to sleep in my posh $18 a night downtown room.

We fly our Lao airlines prop plane, and somehow, live. I meet 2 Brits and we decide to form a little combat team to penetrate the Taxi phalanx. Yeah right. They pluck us like fish in a barrel.

He drives like a maniac. They all do. Cattle cross the highway. People cross the highway.

We bet 3-0 our taxi driver will not pull a scheme and will indeed take us to the proper hostel we requested. We lose.

We are taken to a 'hostel' with a similar name. This is a common scheme.

A man in a suit tries to open the taxi door and pull the Brit out. The Brit locks the door. The driver unlocks it. The Brit locks it again. The other Brit yells. I'm like, people, let's calm down. Driver, I know you know English, take us to the right place.

After some fuss, he does. We are dropped off in a crazy busy part of town. We check in.

I walk around in a daze. Burning Lao? Burning Lao was a campout. This is the real thing.

It's like New York, on crack. There are people everywhere. Sitting on tiny plastic stools eating delicious soups and various grilled items. Everywhere. Damn it I wish I packed that extra stomach.

Also they are all wearing these cool Asian pants called 'Jeans'. Damn me for not listening to my gut and instead listening to my hippie friends who said you don't need jeans in Asia. Yes, you do need jeans in Asia. You need jeans everywhere you go. If you went to a remote village in Burundi, you'd need jeans. You think villagers in Burundi wear tribal garb? You think Vietnamese people walk around in bamboo hats? No, they don't. And they sure as fuck don't wear Thai pants.

In any case, this place, so far, feels awesome. The energy is dizzying. The people seem cosmopolitan yet friendly. But they drive like fucking maniacs, or artists on shrooms. In any case there is no proper way to cross the street. Swarms of bikes and motorbikes weave by. All you can do, really, is just say a little prayer and hope for the best. Or you're not getting to the other side.

I love cities. So much. Laos was sweet, but it's a backwater. I feel like a farmer from Mars who was just plucked in the East Village.

A final word on traveling the 'beaten path'. I've been kind of criticizing myself for doing that, and then someone read my blog and basically says the same thing.

But wait a sec. If someone went to America and visited New York, Washington, the Grand Canyon, then hit LA, drove up highway 1, visited SF, then Muir woods, and finished up at Yosemite, you'd say, "Nice trip dude!" You wouldn't say, "Uh, Loser! That's what EVERYONE does. Cool people visit Oklahoma, Alabama, Detroit." No you wouldn't say that. Same goes for here. Yes i can ride my motorbike 80 miles to some village that's about as exciting as Wichitaw. Why? To say I did that. Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb.

Obviously I'm being a bit extreme. But you're getting me.

Really I want all the big stuff, plus the cool, inside job stuff. But how do you get the inside stuff? It took me 4 years of living in the Bay Area to find Fairfax, and 3 years of living in Fairfax to find Ana Sia. I have maybe a month in Vietnam. I'm gonna have to be a really lucky bastard to find the inside stuff.

OK I wil find some I hope. If you know anyone in Hanoi - anyone - let me know.

End disjointed crack-head post,
Roni

ps - a posse of 12 Vietnamese teenagers just walked in to this internet joint, which charges 65 cents an hour and is open all night. I like.