Win: Critter Catcher Extrordinaire

I am the proud girlfriend of a creature catcher. Bugs, frogs, lizards, fish -- you name it, he can most likely catch it. And if he can’t, it won’t be for a lack of trying. He even once was part of a project to build a fly-powered airplane, which, as one can imagine, involved capturing a whole herd of flies.

In any batch of Rachel-taken pictures, we end up with a minimum of one picture in which Win has captured an unwitting animal. He stalks, swivels, and hedges them in, just for the fun of it. From my end, there’s something really curious about seeing something so tiny and foreign so close up. Always released in one piece (although sometimes flash-dazed), the critters then hop, skitter and slip away to resume their lives. 

It’s a bizarre talent but delightful nonetheless. I mean, honestly, there’s something magical about a whispered “Hey, I got you something” referring to a momentarily still butterfly.

Vietnam Thrifty

Beer: 3000 dong per glass (15 cents)

Toothpaste: 3500 dong (17 cents)

Birdie for foot badminton: 20,000 dong (1 dollar)

Massage during dinner: 40,000 dong (2 dollars)

Toothpaste again when you drop the cap down the sink: 3500 dong (17 cents)

Low-quality photocopied book: 80,000 dong (4 dollars)

Q-tips from roving street vendor: 4000 dong (20 cents)

Ducklings: 10,000 dong apiece (50 cents) 

A Colorful Calm

While in Saigon, we joined a trip to Tay Ninh in order to see the Cao Dai temple and watch their midday mass. Officially established in 1926, Caodaiism is a colorful mixture of religions. The religion combines elements of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Christianity, and animism, and one of their three main saints is Victor Hugo, whose picture occupies a prestigious place in the temple. 

The temple itself is equally colorful in every sense. From the outside, the windows are made of the All-Seeing Eye surrounded by flowers. While inside, a massive orb with the Divine Eye sits center stage. Green dragons spiral around pink pillars, sporting colorful faces and displaying striped tongues. And the ceiling is covered in stars and clouds. 

Mass is led by a handful of musicians and practitioners singing hymns. The men and women sit separately, cross-legged on the floor in evenly spaced rows, their traditional robes always seeming to make perfect rectangles about them. The higher-ups don red, yellow, and blue, each representing one of the three main belief systems, while the women and those lower on the totem pole dress in all white. 

The music reigns, all else is silent save for the occasional bell, which reverberates throughout the temple, causing those gathered to cascade into bows. The bells resonate rich and pure, bouncing from the walls, tumbling over the room. You can feel it in your chest. It drowns out the murmur of the tourists watching from the balcony. The onlookers cease to matter; they are enveloped in prayer, overtaken by the music.  The scene becomes nearly hypnotic as a sense of tranquility settles over the temple. 

The American War

While a difference of perspective was to be expected, we were blown away by the overall portrayal of the Vietnam War in Vietnamese museums. There was no talk of it having anything to do with north versus south; it was Vietnam versus the American soldiers. The South Vietnamese? Oh they were just waiting for the North to liberate them. 

The Hanoi Hilton first displayed pictures of the atrocities performed by the French when imprisoning Vietnamese patriots, followed immediately by pictures demonstrating what pleasant lives American soldiers shot down over Hanoi enjoyed in the prison. They played chess and basketball; John McCain received the best medical treatment. The Vietnamese nursed the soldiers back to health; they even let them have pets and huge Christmas celebrations. Torture? Not on their watch.

In each museum, there was an exhibit about how the rest of the world stood behind Vietnam in protests and rallies. Nothing to do with peace. They just were supporting (North) Vietnam against the Americans. Remember that monk who committed self immolation? Also listed as a supporter of Vietnam, not peace.

The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City (or still Saigon to everyone in Vietnam) displayed war-era photos of soldiers “smiling after killing Vietnamese patriots” and the like. The Historical Truths exhibit claimed that we were there because we were afraid of losing the tin exported from Vietnam. And at the Cu Chi Tunnels we watched a video about the villagers, pivotal in winning the war against the Americans, who were awarded the Hero Medal for Killing American Soldiers.  

It was almost enough to make us use fake British accents. If only it weren’t quite so twisted and one-sided. Way to go, Communism. 

A Chill in the Air

Northern Vietnam was cold. Arriving at night, people were bundled up in winter clothing, coats buttoned up to the throat, hats pulled down snug over ears. By our standards it was an overreaction, but all over Hanoi, on motorbikes and on sidewalks, seated on tiny plastic chairs, clothing was layered to fend off the chill. The sky was grey, ominous, the sun rare. It wasn’t bitter winter cold, more like fall crisp, but the change was dramatic. Even we put on jeans and long sleeves.

Whether it was the weather, or simply a regional disposition, the chill seemed to be in the personalities as well. The people were aggressive. Smiles seemed rare. A foggy trip to Halong Bay ended in a yelling match – tourists vs. tour guide, 18 to 1 – after he kept us waiting on a street corner for over an hour and then tried to leave some people behind. We hadn’t seen the sun in days; dealing with people was tiresome. We decided to cut our losses, make one more stop, and head the 800 km down the coast to central Vietnam.

Before leaving we stopped in Ninh Binh, more commonly known as ‘the Halong Bay of the rice fields’. It was yet another rainy day, preventing us from renting bikes (read: saving money) and biking around in comfort. But by the time we arrived at the tourist dock, the temperature was rising, leaving only a thick fog around in its wake. 

As we left the dock, a hush seemed to settle over the landscape, interrupted only by the steady sound of the oars. Immense limestone cliffs towered above us, layered over one another like construction paper cutouts. On either side of the waterway, villagers tended to their rice paddies, boats tied up nearby. We drifted leisurely down the river, through natural tunnels in the cliffs, past vendors and homes. 

It was a tiny, but much-needed, spoonful of tranquility in our stressed-out North Vietnam soup.