We had plenty of tourism time mind you...We had an entire culture to explore and experience. When we hit Hanoi, we went to the Ho Chi Mihn museum which was a crazy weird place. It was like a museum of modern art with some Communist propaganda. Uncle Ho is portrayed as a kind, gentle, slight man wearing sandals and a loving smile trying to love his country back to being whole. It was such a difference to what a Western War Hero is portrayed as. Look at how we few Patton, Churchill, General Lee, or Washington. They are seen as strong and decisive and commanding. In their uniforms ready to shoot or cross the sea or on their charging horses. They aren’t old or bald, even if they were. It is a little crazy. Also at the HCM museum was an area called the Artifacts of American Invaders. In there, there were relics of airplanes, uniforms, decks of cards, mess kits, pictures of American families etc. The way that it was written was super interesting, like these Americans just fell out of the sky and left these things and then left. There wasn’t very much about the war or any finger pointing (here) it was just like a time capsule. It was very odd.
In Hanoi, we also went to the Temple of Literature and as a reader and writer I loved that this exists at all. BUT it was in the first days of living in this humidity and I literally thought my head was going to pop off of my body. It was so hot.
After we taught the 2nd conference, we went to Nihn Dihn and got to have a total tourism day. It was amazing to see a different part of Vietnam. We went on a boat ride where the sweet little Vietnamese lady rowed us with her feet down a huge real life Jungle Cruise. We went by this abandoned house, but it wasn’t abandoned, people live there. We went by cute bungalows and lotus flowers, huge limestone cliffs, and real life cliff climbing mountain goats.
In Nam Dinh, we took an afternoon and went to Hang Phượng Hoàng. Hang Phượng Caves are these amazing natural caves that a company has turned into a little resort and blocked off some swimming holes and made stairs and handrails and benches and planted trees and grass and sold beverages and hot dogs on a stick for less than a dollar each. This was such an amazing place!! It was a beautiful cool water and the weather was just cooler up by the mountain. All of the people were so helpful to us climbing up the caves. There were 2 sets of caves, one was little and down close and the other was a huge hike that nearly killed the group up like Angel’s Landing. I didn’t do that one. Whilst we were here, in our bathing suits, so many of the people there had never seen nor spoken their learned English to a native English speaker so we were like massive celebrities. We were swarmed by people asking for our pictures and to take selfies with us and to ask us in the same format over and over again: “Hello,” Hello “My name is _____, What is yours?” Dina “How are you today?” No matter what I say, “I am fine. I am ___ years old. How old are you?” no matter what I say. “Thank you” and walk away. This was how they learned to have a social interaction and it happened over and over. I played my role and smiled and took selfies and thought it was cute how excited the kids were to see a foreigner, and that it was a little creepy how the men would pretend we were their white girlfriends (knowing they would show their friends or put it up on social media), and started to get annoyed by very pushy women who would try to pose you like a doll into positions they wanted you to be in. I wore a fake diamond ring, so I didn’t worry about if it might be stolen, but it became a big point of interest, women wanted to be seen in a picture where both my diamond ring and my fat could be seen. I also learned that being fat is an odd and treasured thing in a country where food is not plentiful. They would pat my stomach or grab it like they would a buddha statue, totally innocently, but like it would give them good luck and prosperity. Insanity!! So women would be stretching my diamonded hand around their shoulder and touching my fat belly for luck and trying to catch a selfie!! NOT OK!! My American need for a personal bubble began to kick in. I was OK with the kids and teens, but started to say no to men and women. So then we had sneaky selfies where they stood far away and tried to get us in their back cameras. It is just funny to be in the center of something like this when in America I am utterly invisible.