Postmark Hong Kong: The Last Stop was Vietnam

Waiting in line is never fun. Space Mountain during Spring Break. Mid-Vail Quad during MLK’s Birthday weekend. The White House tour with two impatient cousins under the age of 10. Tough lines all, but none of these compare to the Sunday wait to visit the Communist Crypt of “Uncle Ho”, the Father of Vietnamese freedom himself, Ho Chi Minh.

How long was this line you ask? The easiest way to answer this question would be to say it took us an hour and half, and we were moving the entire time. Two miles is my honest belief, though Heather claims without our mental faculties fully available, on account of the 97 degree heat, we’ll truly never know. No cameras were allowed near the grounds so we can’t even resort to photographic evidence. What is clear is that the line started in one part of the city, and then proceeded at the direction of sporadically placed military officials through parking lots, backyards, marching grounds, and metal detectors. At one point our section was almost taken out by a tour bus backing up, but no one seemed to notice. After that much time in the sun, your mind convinces you that what you’re doing is an important use of the precious hours left in Hanoi, and nothing can deny your forward progress. The group ahead of us spoke French, and by the end of our wait I was fluent. I grew a beard, and Heather went through 3 pairs of flip flops. It was long I tell you. The worst part is, and the greatest irony of all, the Vietnamese have zero understanding of the concept of a line. It’s like some carry over affect of Communism where everyone is viewed as one equal mass, and to order things would be too capitalistic. I can’t emphasize enough how infuriated I started to become as local after local would leave their place, walk 50 feet ahead, and then drift back into line grinning the entire time. Hey it’s their country, and we inflicted massive damage to them over a 10 year conflict, so I could rationalize it as penance. But payback really is a bitch.

The bigger question was why were we actually doing this, and to this I have no acceptable answer. After an hour and a half of miserable queu, we had 10 seconds to walk by the crypt. Apparently for some, it is a very powerful experience, whereby they are overcome with spiritual awakening upon viewing the great father. Ho Chi Minh did rally the Vietnamese people to evict the colonial occupiers, so he is worthy of reverence on the one hand. But we were operating on a much lower plane, and really were just curious how they kept his hair from falling out after 38 years. Truthfully, seeing the preserved body of a dead man made me sort of sick to my stomach. I still can’t eat soft fruit without thinking of Ho's waxy exterior.

Did I mention that we were in Hanoi before we got sidetracked on the million man march? Hanoi was the second leg of our Vietnam excursion which was done over two weekends in July with Saigon being the first stop two weekends prior. As there so often is amongst the traveling set, of which I now humbly consider myself a member, fierce debate surrounds the “best” places to visit in particular countries. One such debate commonly thrown around is whether Saigon or Hanoi is the preferable stop in Vietnam. Obviously the best answer is to see them both, but if pressed we came away with Hanoi as our clear favorite. Saigon is the commercial hub, and birthplace of the new emerging Vietnam much in the way Mumbai is for India. These are exciting places to visit, but my feeling is that the city is often times racing to keep up with the people. More sprawl, construction, and general growing pains. Where a place like Hanoi is more secure in its history, and therefore provides a clearer sense of place; its evolving, but at a much more orderly pace. We really enjoyed the French Colonial vibe with its teeming café culture, art galleries, and open green spaces. The food we found to be inferior to Saigon overall, and there was not as much “war history”, but this was a nice break after Saigon where we got a lot of that (tunnels of Cu Chi, American War Museum). The Sofitel Metropole (not to be confused with the other Sofitel in town), where unfortunately we could not book a room, is one of the more charming hotels I have ever set foot in. It’s a real colonial hold over, and has that classic feel where one half expects to see Humphrey Bogart in the corner hanging over the piano asking Sam to "play it again". Little bit nicer than our Hotel where Heather had to ask Ho Jr. to take the morning buffet eggs and "heat it again," but we had a great location in the quainter part of town so we made it work. The people in Vietnam also bear mention as they were exceptionally warm and friendly especially given what they have been through in the past 75 years. It is an interesting demographic where women occupy an almost equal role in business as men, and 60% of the population is under the age of 30.

Saigon