Ahoy Hanoi: Mornings in Mai Châu

To take a rest from the hustle bustle of the city, I took a trip to the countryside a few days ago. Together with a class of some new-found Vietnamese friends, I sat on the bus for more than four hours on the high and winding road to Mai Châu. Don't worry though, if you are, because the pain in the ass will pay off. Look!


Upon arriving at Mai Châu proper, we traveled on a little further to get to our accommodation which was in a local farm village. We settled in a traditional stilt house, which in Vietnamese is called nhà sàn (/nya san/), got our bags and stuff unpacked, ate the welcoming lunch set underneath the house, and then proceeded to trek our way up a mountain to check out a cave that is just nearby. Amazingly, the way up there is paved with stone stair-steps. So if you're not the hiking-type of person, there is still actually nothing much to worry about. ... Besides, the number of steps (because more or less, the number of steps going up round up to at least a thousand or two). But again, hard work in Mai Châu pays off. All the locals there know that.


Getting inside the cave was definitely a treat! It was as cold and as refreshing as an opened fridge. You must not miss it. 

On our bikes, on the way back to the village, I steered away and decided to make a quick turn to some place else to explore the fields... and explore I did. I definitely got lost in the plain's wilderness. I had to cross a rushing stream (that came out of nowhere), carrying my 30-kilogram bike and all my electronics inside a plastic bag. I circled around two different villages, one village after the other. Twice. I ended up getting stranded in the middle of the rice fields because some the farmers were milling their newly-harvested rice.. in the middle of the road. So, I just took the time to snap some pictures and watch the sun as it sets.


I arrived back to the village just in time for dinner. Before the night capped, there was a little campfire prepared for us, and it kind of became the local folks' send-off party to us as we head back to Hanoi the next morning. The night was hot!

About 135 kilometers out of Hanoi lies the rural valley of Mai Châu. The place is inhabited by different ethnic groups of the northern province of Hòa Bình. Out there are endless vistas of lush mountains and golden rice plains. The local culture is rich and is kept intact in long threads of tradition; their spirit, a warm haven and in tune with the rhythm of their vast fertile land.
If you want to check out more photos of the trip, you can click here.
Reading Suggestion: "A Letter to Mai Châu" by Andy Engelson

Ahoy Hanoi: The Poem "In Hanoi, again"

In Hanoi, again

by Jennifer Fossenbell

The city, she opens her fingers to let me reenter the creases of her palm.
The city, she holds her head in front of the sun, keeping me in the shadow of her heavy hair.
The city, she plucks and cleaves and boils and picks and kneads, her hands as clever as cats and quick as lizards.
The city, she sings her wares alley by alley, bent beneath her bamboo yoke, plodding plastic-shod from rise to fall.
The city, she sleeps the sleep of worn bones, quiet as a tomb, hard as history.
The city, she is not my mother but she holds me anyway to her bosom and sings to me songs I can't understand but can't ever stop listening to.

Ahoy Hanoi: How the Koi Became a Dragon

In Vietnam, there's a popular story that almost every Vietnamese kid had definitely heard about when they were growing up. Told oftentimes by their parents, or sometimes by their grandparents, the story is called "The Story of How the Koi Became a Dragon".

I first heard about the story from a Vietnamese friend when we were spending some time at a mall and came upon a particularly remarkable wall fountain display. You must not miss the inspiration the story carries, so I'm sharing it with you:

Listen up!

The koi, a kind of cold water fish, swim against the current to gain strength. Many a-thousand years ago, long before history has been recorded, thousands of koi swim as though they were flowing jewels up the Yellow River. Upon getting to a waterfall, most of the koi of the thousands got discouraged to go on and dishearteningly decided to swim back, to just go with flow of the river. Three hundred and sixty koi remained however, and were determined to get past the waterfalls and reach its top. Again and again, leaping and then splashing back into waterfall basin, the remaining koi struggled. With all the noise and splash of the water these koi were making, attention of the demons in the place were drawn to them. The demons laughed at the koi and, to add to the koi's struggle, added more height to the waterfalls. But still the koi refused to give up! They refused to give up for one hundred years! Then, at last, one of the koi made its final leap and got to the top of the waterfalls! The gods smiled and approved of this koi's achievement. They transformed the koi to a shining golden dragon as a reward for its heroic feat. Now, the koi-turned-dragon blissfully spends the day chasing pearls of wisdom in the sky and in the heavens. The waterfalls became to be known as The Dragon's Gate, and whenever a new koi gets to leap to the top of the wateralls, the koi transforms into a golden dragon as well.

The koi's perseverance and endurance in the story have become inspiration to many Vietnamese people (and probably to other people who've heard the same story as well) in overcoming adversities in their lives and in fulfilling their destinies. Now, you get a little bit of Vietnamese culture to appreciate and learn a lesson from.

This is the particularly remarkable wall fountain display
found inside the Royal City Vincom Mega Mall in Hanoi.

Ahoy Hanoi: Getting to the City!

Xin chào!

That's how you say "Hello!" in Vietnamese, and particularly here in Hanoi. You pronounce it this way: /s̪in˧˧ ṯɕaːw˨˩/ (/sin-chaw/). Yep, good job. I think you got it right! Just remember to lower your tone a bit at the end; the emphasis is on the word "xin".

So okay, a few first things first:

There's no Hanoi International Airport.
In getting to Hanoi by plane, you land at Nội Bài International Airport. It's located at the north far-end of the city. It will take you around 30-45 minutes of travel to get to the city's center from the airport.

About your Vietnam Visa.
I suggest you avail of the country's Visa Upon-Arrival service online. It is very convenient and is processed really fast upon your arrival at the airport in Hanoi. You can check out Vietnam Visa for more information about this. There are actually lots of agencies online that offer such service, but that's the one I would recommend. They were efficient and on-time in delivering my visa approval letter. Oh, also check for visa exemptions for your country! Maybe you don't need any visa after all.

At the airport.
Upon getting your visa and having gone through the Vietnamese Immigration at the airport, you proceed to getting your luggage near the exit of the terminal. Exchange only a small amount of US dollars ($25-50 USD is enough) to Vietnamese dong (VND) at the airport; have the rest exchanged at the bank in the city because they buy dollars at a little higher rate. If there is no one to fetch you at the airport, be wary of the people that will approach you at the arrival terminal's exit. A taxi driver in Hanoi, for example, is dressed quite impeccably: in dress pants, wears white long sleeves, (sometimes) with necktie, and sports an ID card. At first look, you might mistake him as an airport personnel or a tourist aide (like in my case), approaching you to offer some help, asking you where you're headed to. If, unfortunately, you couldn't get your dollars exchanged because money changing counters in the terminal are already closed, you must settle all the necessary arrangements with your chosen taxi driver first before entering his cab. For example, that you're going to pay him in US dollars instead of Vietnamese dong, that he knows exactly the address you're headed to, etc. The taxi fare from the airport to Hanoi averagely runs from ₫400,000-420,000 VND (or $20-25 USD). Giving tip to the taxi driver after is optional, and is not discouraged. Just make sure he got you to the right address.

Here's a tip: have the complete address of where you're headed to both in its English and Vietnamese translation. Not everyone in Hanoi knows how to speak English, let alone read English. So, it's going to be really handy and helpful to the taxi driver and you to have the address written correctly in Vietnamese.

So, that's it. I hope you get to wherever you're headed to in Hanoi safely and stress-free. If not, then I guess.. welcome to Hanoi!

Katag

     In the University of the Philippines in Diliman, there is this cafeteria, the only one, at the ground floor of the old faculty center building, named Katag Refreshment, more commonly known only as "Katag", where the arrangement of their tables and chairs is as "weird" as nothing I have seen in many cafeterias so far. There are about thirty tables, though, by memory, this is just an estimate. Each table has four plastic chairs with them. Sounds pretty normal, right? The "weird" part, again, comes from their arrangement, the way these tables and chairs are arranged and put together. The tables, they are rotated "quarter-way", or forty-five degrees, so as they appear to be, from the food counter, diamond-shaped tables rather than perfectly oriented squares. The four chairs go to each side of the table's shape, that's four. The dining sets of furniture are, for another weird fact, arranged too closely together, so closely near together that actually the back rest of one chair touches the other back rest of another chair from the table next. What is even more weird: people eating in Katag do not find this very arrangement inconvenient at all. If they did, then the management would have rearrange the place long ago! The people there just get along well with their ordered food and the order of their dining spaces. Isn't that weird?

     This afternoon and in the recent past afternoons of the week, I had delightful times eating my regular order of baked mac and glass of Coke there. That was where I was before I walked my way in the academic oval to the film center today. There is a campus screening of the movie "Ilo-Ilo", and I cannot dare miss it. Also, the grove of Acacia trees at the right side of Quezon Hall has lost almost all their leaves, did anyone notice? Summer's coming.

Campus screening ticket for "Ilo-Ilo".