It was an awesome day, full to the brim with excitement and surprises.
It was also long.
It began at five a.m., when our overnight train arrived two hours early to Hanoi from Sapa (where we began the trek.) Four of the other girls came bursting through the train compartment door throwing in colorful balloons and yelling “Surprise!” and “Happy Birthday!” As unappreciated as I’m sure it was at 5:00 am by the other passengers, for me the day could not have started better. We spent the next 45 minutes walking to our hotel (rather than pay for six taxis we put all of our stuff into two and walked—Vietnam is significantly more expensive than India or Thailand.)
So at 5:30 a.m. on my 21st birthday, I was to be found wandering the streets of Hanoi, a balloon in one hand. It could not have been better, though, because I never would have experienced the pre-dawn life of Vietnam otherwise. This culture wakes up early! The market was booming, people were already perched on the little, wobbly plastic stools at noodle stands, and the park was alive with energy. People of all ages wake up early for mass exercising in the parks around the lake. Jogging, stretching, bouncing awkwardly, in groups listening to a tape recording of Tai Chi or aerobics, lifting weights that are brought out everyday apparently by someone, playing badminton mid-sidewalk, and doing any other sort of movement imaginable. It was beautiful! There was no embarrassment; everyone had amnesty to do whatever exercise or stretch they liked without feeling silly. We passed a group of about six women in a close circle, each giving the woman to the right a fast, karate-chopping back muscle massage. Abby and I went out the following morning at 6:00 to jog around the lake and stopped to do aerobics with a group of at least sixty women who were following an instructor and a tape. There is nothing like bouncing around to pop music remixes, throwing arms in the air, and doing pelvic thrusts in a public park with a bunch of old Vietnamese women and without a concern in the world. I love it all. Rather than run on a treadmill alone in front of a television or run alone with an ipod, you can be with an entire community of people every morning, life and fellow motivators all around. You do not feel alone, nor do you feel self-conscious (trust me: they do not.) Mattie said that this is left over from more overtly communist times when the government organized community exercise in the main parks and squares. (google it: I don’t know her source.)
When the sixteen of us arrived to the hotel, there naturally were not enough rooms open for us yet (standard check out usually is not before five a.m., even in Vietnam) so we stashed bags and were left to wander until noon.
I went with several of the girls to a salon; we had decided that we would have ourselves tweaked and polished back to normal society’s standards after our three months of no mirrors, no real homes, no real showers, no good laundry detergent, and no cares. Between the lot of us, there was hair to be cut, nails to be polished, feet to be pumiced, and hair to be waxed. For seven dollars, I had my hair washed with a half dozen products and massaged, blow-dried as if it were an art form, and cut. The Vietnamese girl who washed my hair spent at least a half an hour washing my hair, massaging my head, tugging on my roots, pulling my hair taught and flicking it (stimulates hair growth??) and then over another half an hour blow-drying my hair, more time accumulatively than I spend on my hair in a month.
As she finished, out of nowhere, appeared this glorious figure with a popped collar and a pristinely fashioned hairstyle with highlights. His name was, “my gorgeous Vietnamese hair man” and I spent the next half an hour awing over his glowing skin and eyes and welcoming smile as he cut my hair. He does good work, too.
I left my birthday balloon for the toddlers waiting in the salon and spent the afternoon wandering the city with Jordan, Emma and Nong (Dianna, but forever known as the Thai word for “little one” to me.) I stepped off the curb in my tennis shoes into a ditch one foot deep of putrid, I-don’t-even-want-to-know-what-is-in-it water, but not even that could rain on my birthday parade. I gave a big smile to all of the shocked and whispering Vietnamese who had seen, and carried on in my slushy shoe.
We met the group in the evening to see a performance of Vietnamese water puppets, and I was surprised with a big, pink, helium filled pig by Zac and John (my excited squeals of joy every time I see pigs must have cued them to something) and with Milano cookies, Vietnamese coffee, and a Vietnamese coffee maker by Mattie.
Vietnamese water puppets were traditionally used during flood time as a form of entertainment. When the rice paddies flooded peasants were unable to tend to the fields and were left with nothing to do, so they would dance puppets—people, dragons, dogs, water snakes, fish, etc.—on top of the water with long poles to tell stories of everyday life, from a drunk fisherman to a dog chasing the ducks. All of the animals were made with dragon-like interpretations, and they along with the rest of the scenery were of red, gold, and bright colors. The architecture reminded me very much of our idea of Eastern architecture that I saw in Thai temples or architecture in China—I do not know how much of this is from cross-over influence or just due to my untrained western eye. Live music, utilizing many unfamiliar eastern instruments such as the danbo, was accompanying the slapstick puppet humor.
We enjoyed the evening by walking around the lake and trying on black coats in a store—for me a sequiny Dolce and Gabana coat and for Abby a stylin’ leather one—but unfortunately as we have come to learn our sizes often are not even carried here. An entire store can run successfully here and only carry XS and S. So we walked away empty-handed (as if we were going to purchase Dolce & Gabana coats anyway) and we went out to the Funky Monkey so I could get in my birthday dancing.
Not to worry, as I said, I was up again the next morning at six to run!
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