I think the best advice I’ve received during my entire trip so far was from a local shopkeeper in Siam Reap, Cambodia, who taught me how to cross a street in Asia. Now, I like to consider myself a particularly street-wise person, especially after so many months traveling to reinforce good habits with regards to people and environment, and generally being self-aware. That being said, I was completely unprepared to cross a street in this part of the world, simply because streets here are unlike any other street in the world.
To give you an idea as to what traffic in this part of the world is like, you need to first understand that in Vietnam a person’s most prized possession is their motor bike. To that end, some people save for years to be able to afford a basic one as a symbol of personal success, and once they have one they sacrifice mightily to ride it everywhere. The result, of course, is that Vietnamese cities are FILLED with motor bikes; hundreds of thousands of them, moving through streets like a massive school of migrating fish with little regard for traffic laws or, seemingly, personal safety.
In order to survive crossing the street in such a place, my shopkeeper friend had simple but irreplaceable advice that probably saved my life more than once: “Don’t run, don’t stop”. The theory is that, due to the fact that crosswalks mean nothing and no one obeys traffic laws, you’ll always have to deal with motorbikes while crossing the street. If they can predict your motion, they can move around you. If you start moving irregularly, trying to make a break for it or stopping, or trying to turn your street crossing into a real-life game of frogger with painful consequences, bad things will happen. Doing this takes a bit of false confidence when you’re faced with a massive sea of oncoming motorbikes, but it actually works. To give you an idea what this actually looks like in practice, I found a video of a foreigner crossing the street in Hanoi. This isn’t an exaggeration – it actually was like this often, especially during the afternoons. Notice his good form (don't run, don't stop).
Besides getting really good at crossing the street, Vietnam taught me a lot and surprised me even more. Being an outsider, I expected to find Vietnam to be the repressed, communist society it appears on paper. In actuality, communism is thin veneer on top of what is actually a raging capitalist machine. “The Dragon is Rising,” as they say in Vietnam about their own country, and it really is – the country is one of the fastest growing economies in Asia, and is positioning itself to be a leader in technology and innovation. I think the most telling single vision I had about just where the state of Vietnam is right now happened in Saigon (called Ho Chi Minh City by the government), my first stop in Vietnam from Cambodia, where I went to see the People’s Committee Building, which is ostensibly the heart of communism in southern Vietnam. Literally right across the street was a series of high end western shops like Burberry and Calvin Klein. Within a block of the building were two mega malls that would have given any mall in the States a run for its money.
Indeed, the people in Vietnam have nearly complete economic freedom. I say “nearly” because there are still moments of almost comical showmanship by the communist government in an attempt to remain relevant. In Hanoi, the capital in the north, Karen (a traveling friend who I met a few days before) and I watched the street food vendor across the street from the one we were squatting at while eating dinner get “shut down” by a police raid for not having the right license. In what could have been taken straight out of a Bond movie parody, a covered army vehicle squealed up, and a number of armed military men jumped out. Immediately the men started picking up all the chairs and tables (which, as is the style, are just tiny plastic things you squat on/next to) and throwing them in the back of the van. The leader began speaking quietly with the owner, shaking his head and pointing, and then, just like that, they squealed away.
You might imagine that the people who were eating at the street food stall would have been alarmed or frightened by the event (as Karen and I, even safely at a distance, were), but no. The people, in an almost bored fashion, just stood up from their tables and chairs and let them be taken. They didn’t even stop eating, instead just choosing to hold the trays between a group of people while they continued on with their conversations, chaos and armed military men raging around them. Within two minutes of the van driving off, the owner produced a new cache of chairs a tables; a second set kept, apparently, exactly for this eventuality. We later learned that the shop owner would go to the communist police station the next day and buy back all the confiscated furniture for about five cents per piece. Little shows like this are evidently quite common occurrences, and the people stoically accept them as a price for the economic prosperity they are all quite acutely experiencing. “A rising tide lifts all boats,” as the saying goes, and the people (rightly) associate the rising tide in Vietnam with generally sensible and successful policies their government is enacting. Even so, the question remained with me for my entire trip in Vietnam: how long can a people put up with so much economic freedom, but so little political freedom?
Besides the cities of Saigon and Hanoi, I had the extraordinary privilege to see some of the natural wonders of Vietnam. Truly, this country is one of the most beautiful on earth, and I hope one day to be able to come back and see more. My first incredible stop to this end was Ha Long Bay, to the northeast of Hanoi.
Formed when a limestone mountain range sank partially into the ocean, Ha Long Bay covers a massive area, and literally thousands of tiny, picturesque sandstone islands spring up throughout the bay, creating a vista that you wouldn’t believe. I spent two days on a boat traveling through the bay with some other travelers from Hanoi, and it was such an incredible way to experience the area. The second night we spent the night on a private island and had the chance to swim, rock climb, and even wakeboard.
I never thought I’d get to wakeboard on this trip, and definitely not in such an amazing locale. Admittedly it was a very touristy thing to do, but sue me, it was fucking awesome.
The other place I got to visit was Ninh Binh, a rice-growing area to the southeast of Hanoi. Like Ha Long Bay, the area is punctuated by limestone mountains, but instead of rising from the sea, they rice from fluorescent green rice paddies.
The countryside here is almost too big to take in at once. The only way to really experience it is to just sit still and look for a while and really soak it in. Karen and I took a little river boat ride through some caves on our first rainy morning there, and after that spent our time exploring a couple local temples and taking a motor-bike tour. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves here.
I was sad to leave Vietnam after Ninh Binh. Vitenam broke all my expectations. The people were mostly happy and excited about their country’s future – they felt relatively free, and have managed to keep a lot of their culture and heritage intact in the face of modernization. Their society is becoming more and more liberated – couples canoodle in the park and eat icecream cones. In fact, walking along the lake in Hanoi in the evening reminded me more of Paris than of Bangkok or Phnom Phen. The country has extraordinary natural resources that they seem to genuinely respect and want to protect. It’s not all rainbows and butterflies; there’s still a lot of work (and reform) to do before it can be considered a truly free place, but of all the places I’ve been, the Vietnamese seem most eager and willing (and capable) of meeting that challenge.
From Hanoi I fly to Bangkok for a short visit before heading off to Sri Lanka for a week of diving!
Much Love,
Clay
No comments:
Post a Comment