"Where are you going? Where do you go? Are you looking for answers for the reasons under the stars?"-- "Where are you going?", Dave Matthews Band

Almost the entire time that I was wandering around Hanoi this song kept playing in my head… No real apparent reason, except that I really wasn’t sure where I was going. We originally got to Hanoi via an overnight train… stayed for a day, then the next morning took off to Halong Bay, then came back… and that was really it… I then had a couple of nights on my own as I just wandered around Hanoi… more or less aimlessly. Actually, it ended up that I just sat on the banks of the lake one day, and just read my book… which was rather brilliant… except that weird guys kept coming and sitting next to me and trying to talk to me… *you have to realize by this point I’d faced so many people trying to swindle me out of money through various methods, I basically reacted as what can only be described as a New Yorker. I’ve been bouncing back and forth whether to make it all one post or two… but I think I’m definitely going w/ two now… so just ignore most of whats written above… I was going to delete it but found it too amusing and need it to bolster this post a bit. But I’m really starting to get ahead of myself now… So lets throw this all back into reverse a few days….

Overnight trains are not my favorite thing on the planet… basically it tends to result in me being jostled awake every single time the train stops… which is really just annoying… What sticks out about this particular train ride were 2 things actually… 1st we actually got cabins… this did not stick out at the time… but would on later train rides… 2nd Louise went to get on her bunk, grabbed a towel rack, which ripped out of the wall and cause her to fall, only to be caught by a passing ticket man. There was also a girl with squeaky shoes that was really cute… Anywho… the train rolled in in the early morning… we’re talking still dark. Then we had to walk with all of our stuff for about 15 minutes… this was harder than you might be thinking for me, as I was also lugging around a bunch of suits and wood carvings etc… but I survived, which was good.

We crashed our stuff… but didn’t get to check in… so we went for a walk… *its still dark out*… but got lighter as we started approaching the lake…

Where we did Tai Chi (yes I was partaking in this too)… It was going over well until they started doing aerobic Tai Chi… super fast paced… we all know how I am w/ coordination. So after a while… our very tired selves became very disillusioned with tai chi. As we continued wandering around the lake we saw people doing all sorts of exercises… they play this came that’s like a cross between badminton and soccer, and then there were the weight lifters, and guys standing on their heads.

Then there was this square here, where everyone was doing all of it at the same time… tai chi, soccer, badminton… it was ridiculous… and I know when I do aerobics I need to be in front w/ a clear view of the leader… these people were standing on the other side of the street and following along… totally blew my mind… you couldn’t even hear the music… but the real kicker was when they all started… for lack of a better word… gyrating…. In our sleep drunk daze, it was pretty funny…

And then Thinh joined in…

We then headed over to Ho Chi Minh’s Mouseleum… Yes, I got to see my very first embalmed Dictator…. Preservation is absolutely terrifying… he definitely just looked like a little wax figure.

As far as evil dictators are concerned Minh falls more under the lines of idealist… a lot like Stalin. Being there and hearing different stories he really did believe in a lot of things he was doing, and at least seemed to care mostly about the people… hence why they now call him “uncle Ho”… And I’m not just reciting communist propaganda here. For instance… the above picture is the presidential palace. Minh looked at it… said that it was way to extravagant to live in and would cost too much to upkeep, so he built this little shack in the back called the house on stilts.

Now this place is literally a room on stilts… and its where he lived… and worked… He also specifically asked to be cremated when he died… be cost efficient to the state… but the over zealous commis, build a giant Russian communist style tomb and spend bazillions of dongs every few years to keep him embalmed… if he wasn’t in plain view, he’d probably be turning in his grave.

On another disturbing note, I completely damaged our tour guide’s mental world. He was telling us about Communism… and he points to two portraits… and starts talking about the founders of Communism… Lenin and Engels. Now I look at these pictures and very bluntly say… that’s Marx. I mean the guy is really recognizable… especially that picture… he’s got the whole insane lion thing going on. He tried to argue with me on this… “No, there was Lenin-Marx and there was Engels”… I’m pretty sure I may have slapped my head at this comment *remember, I hadn’t slept* and I then had to inform him that Lenin and Marx were two different people… then someone asked what they wrote… and I was like the Communist Manifesto… Marx wrote it… Hegel financed it… Lenin acted on it. “where was the written”—In England… marx was broke, lived w/ Engels, wrote it for England and Germany. “Oh, is that why he’s buried in London”… granted I realize I know way too much about this stuff off the top of my head to really be healthy… but still, Marx in a communist country ought to be recognized… everything else… not so much… and no one remembers Engels.

But again… I digress… Our tour took us round to the One Pillar Pagoda… which is supposed to represent a lotus flower… which I think it does pretty well.

And that was our big day wandering around Hanoi… I ended up shipping all my souvenirs home… they should get there around when I do… And as tends to happen when I’m doing lots of traveling w/ Europeans, I got sucked into the soccer matches… This lasted during most of the traveling… I find it’s a good bonding experience… and enjoy it just enough to have a favorite team (Manchester… though I’m still partial to Munich), understand rules, and recognize key figures from time to time. But as w/ most sports… I won’t watch it on my own.