1. Having very comfortable pillows and beds, perfect for relaxing on as I finished editing a fellowship essay
2. Having a strangely un-private bathroom: one wall of the rainforest shower is a glass window into the bedroom, and the shades can only be controlled from the outside. Kinda weird.
3. Having delicious room service! First bowl of authentic Vietnamese pho: check! So you understand how good it is, I’ve included a pho-to (haha, get it?)
Getting out of the hotel in the morning was even more exciting than pho...my first time in Asia non-Minor! The first thing you have to adjust to in Vietnam is the extraordinary numbers of motorbikes that weave in and out of Hanoi traffic. The only rule they follow is that they go where they want, and any time you want to cross the street, you just have to take a deep breath and go for it. Sudden movements are a bad idea. As our professor told us from her day of experience: walk with a "measured gait" so they can swerve around you—which they usually do pretty effectively.
These motorbikes carry Vietnamese professionals on their way to work, young couples out for the day, entire families, decorative items, or furniture stacked high on the back…and almost every individual on a bike is (unbelievably) wearing a helmet. I was told the government recently instituted a law requiring helmet use, and once the law went into effect, behavior changed overnight. Credit it to a good public education campaign (the fee is more expensive than buying a helmet!), a government with the authority to make things happen, or the fact that helmets come in so many styles and colors they become a fashion statement of coolness…whatever it was, it worked. The next step would be encouraging people to actually straps on the helmets-—Burberry patterns aren’t magically protective if the helmet flies off your head in an accident.
We managed to safely dodge all the bikes on our walk from the Moevenpick to Hoan Kiem Lake, and took in the peacefulness of the temple on the lake before diving into the bustling streets of the old quarter. Women in the traditional cone hats look like giant scales of justice as they tote their wares on platters hanging from the ends of bamboo poles—you decide if the dragonfruit or the pollution masks look more deserving of your attention and a few thousand dong (it’s the currency…and no, Princeton students aren’t all that mature so yes, we’ve made plenty of jokes about this).
In need of sustenance, I opted for an early lunch—more pho! It’s a chopstick challenge, but it’s worth the effort—and it sounded better than fried roodles:
After lunch, Maura and I took what we thought would be a quick detour into a salon for a bikini wax. Rather than take the standard 20 minutes, we were in there for over an hour and a half, as the ladies waxing were painstakingly thorough—with an emphasis on the pain. Ready for a more enjoyable experience, we meandered over to a market, where we decided the Vietnamese are no longer Communist. Knock-off Converse, North Face, designer jeans, and plenty of non-essential crap were available in abundance. We did find something we wanted at the fabric vendor stalls though, and bought some beautiful patterned silk to take to a dressmaker. But by now, the jet lag was kicking in, and I was in need of a nap. Taxi back to the hotel, and I collapsed on the feather-soft pillows of the Moevenpick and was instantly asleep.
Three hours later, I groggily awoke to realize I needed to get ready for dinner. Our first meeting of the trip was with a WWS alumnus who is now the Clinton Foundation’s country director in Vietnam, working on environmental and waste initiatives. Benny took us to a fantastic Vietnamese restaurant, where we gorged on spring rolls, various meats, leafy veggies, and plenty of rice while swapping stories of the beloved Woo. Benny wanted to take us out, but we begged off until another night—too many meetings tomorrow and way too tired.
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