Hong Kong, day four

We languished in our hotel room until 1:30 p.m. (Tuesday, August 6), waiting for the downpour to clear up. Then we caught the train (HK$27!) to Disneyland and spent four or five hours there. 

It was surprisingly small and easy to navigate. We only did five rides: Space Mountain, the Fantasyland Carousel, the Jungle River Cruise, Mystic Manor, and Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars, plus some obligatory souvenir shopping. The longest we had to wait in line was 50 minutes. The Chinese were loud, rude, and pushy...pretty typical. Nothing like Tokyo Disneyland, let me tell you! 

The biggest enemy was HK's summer heat: hot, still, and humid. We were drenched with sweat within seconds of arriving, and bottles of water cost a whopping HK$25 (around $3.25 US). We splurged and got a big bag of caramel popcorn for HK$38, and that put our spirits to rights. 

We had dinner at Le Souk, a Moroccan-Lebanese-Egyptian restaurant in SoHo. We barely made it up the escalators before more rain came pounding down. We chewed very slowly on our chicken shish kebabs and lamb stew (with Coke and Kronenbourg to wash it down), but we had to order another plate of Lebanese hummus and savor it before the rain truly stopped. 

No sooner had we clambered aboard a streetcar for North Point when MORE rain hit. We were getting pretty lucky today. I was nursing the back of my right ankle. My old Airwalk flip-flops had no tread left after tramping all over Southeast Asia, and stepping on wet granite tiles was like walking on ice. I slipped coming down the stairs from SoHo and gashed my ankle on the cracked, crumbling concrete stair. Back in Room 2504, I washed the wound in the shower and sprayed it with disinfectant while Miss H went for a late-night massage at the parlor on the hotel's second floor. Then we packed up and turned in. 

Our last day in Hong Kong was done. 

a day in George Town

Not pictured: knee-biting lunacy.

A little historical context first:

George Town is the capital of the state of Penang, one of the smallest provinces in Malaysia, which not only incorporates Penang Island but also a decent wodge of the mainland, including Butterworth. It was named after King George III. That's right, folks—Crazy George, the mad king of Britain and Ireland during the American Revolutionary War. 

The island was originally part of the Sultanate of Kedah, until one day in August 1786 when an enterprising young sea captain named Francis Light of the British East India Trading Company landed there. He wound up marrying the sultan's daughter and Penang Island was ceded to the British Crown as part of her wedding dowry. Captain Light promptly established George Town, Britain's first permanent colony in Southeast Asia. It initially had only four streets and a couple of jetties. A fort was built in the northeast corner of the municipality, commanding a 270-degree view of the sea. The Netherlands Trading Society, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Company (known today as HSBC), the Chartered Bank (now called Standard Chartered), Boustead & Co., and a dozen others all set up shop here, and the town and the swampy island it sits on were the center of British trade and shipping in the area for quite a few years. There was a nasty problem with malaria in the early years of the colony, earning it the unfortunate nickname "White Man's Grave." 

There were geopolitical speed bumps as well. Captain Light had promised the Sultan of Kedah that the East India Company would offer him military protection in exchange for the island. In so promising he had acted without his superiors' approval. When the Siamese attacked the sultanate a few years later, no British help was forthcoming. The enraged sultan tried to take the island back by force in 1790. In this he failed, and was not only forced to give up the island permanently but also to pay the Crown a sum of 6,000 Spanish dollars per annum. This was later upped to 10,000 Spanish dollars when Province Wellesley (now modern-day Pulau Penang) was incorporated in 1800. Even to this day the Malaysian government pays an annual honorarium of 10,000 ringgit (around $3050 American) to the state of Kedah. 

In 1826, Penang (along with Malacca and Singapore) became part of the Straits Settlements under the British administration in India, and came under direct colonial rule in 1867. In 1946, it was absorbed into the Malayan Union and in 1948 was designated a state of the Federation of Malaya. This federation gained independence from Britain in 1957 and became modern-day Malaysia in 1963. The island was a free port until 1969, and even after losing its free port status became one of the world's foremost centers of electronics production in the '70s and '80s. In 2008, George Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and has seen an influx of tourists ever since. 

It was one of the most multicultural places I visited in Southeast Asia, despite having a population of only 720,000 and being rather off to the left compared to more popular tourist destinations like Kuala Lumpur or Langkawi. There were bearded, robed Arabs walking around; chattering Tamils with pearly white teeth; quiet, dignified Chinese; agile, jolly, skinny Thais; bald, pale, T-shirted English expatriates; and grubby foreigners like me from America, Canada, Spain, France, Germany, Brazil, Australia, and everywhere in between. 

I spent most of the morning of Tuesday, July 29 nursing my katzenjammer. (Seven beers at the Hong Kong Bar the night before, remember?) The Red Inn Court had a free breakfast of noodles in black sauce, toast and jam, coffee, and fruit. That helped a lot, as did the warm shower I took. I'd intended to sally forth and tour George Town promptly, but a thundering rain came pouring down between ten and twelve o'clock, the heaviest monsoon cloudburst I'd yet seen on this trip. The Matrix Revolutions has got nothing on Mother Nature. It kept sprinkling well past one o'clock, by which point I couldn't wait any longer, so with a poncho stuffed in my pocket I sauntered out and commenced my walking tour.   

It wasn't just the Muslims who were having a holiday (Hari Raya Puasa, the end of Ramadan). For the Chinese Buddhists, there was some festival related to Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, who has one of the largest and grandest temples in George Town dedicated to her. Crowds of elderly men and women swarmed the temple forecourt, barely visible through the thick, broiling fumes of incense. Prayers flew thick and fast and I couldn't get a show, so I walked on. 

Unfortunately, despite being a UNESCO site, there just wasn't that much to do or see in George Town. I saw the fort; Khoo Kongs, one of the oldest and most famous clanhouses; the jetties; a couple of temples...and, well, that was about it. 

All in all, I was so disappointed by the place (my debauch the previous night notwithstanding) that I ended up taking just six pictures during my whole 48-hour stay, including that one you saw in the previous post. Disappointing, to say the least. 

Lebuh Chulia, where a lot of the bars and noodle joints are.

The fertility cannon at Fort Cornwallis. The largest gun with the widest range, it will also cure barrenness in women, or so the local legend goes. You just need to place some flowers on it. 

After my little walking tour of the town, I got into a cab and tried to send postcards home to the States, only to be gently reminded by the Indian driver that today was a holiday—several, actually—and the post office was shut. I sighed, thanked him, got out of the cab, went back to the hostel, and napped until 6:30. 

Awaking hungrier than a horse, I strode toward what looked like the food-and-drink sector of town, determined to find me a burger and a beer. I was sixteen days into my trip and I had been a very good boy, eating local the whole way. Now I was fed up with rice and noodles and chicken and wanted nothing more than to get a thick, juicy beef patty between my teeth. I stopped off at the SoHo Free House, noting burgers on their menu and cheap beer. Seemed like a winning combo.

Well, it wasn't. That was the worst burger I've ever had in my life. What was supposed to be a rare patty turned out squishy, lumpy, and poorly seasoned; the bun was stale and soggy; the vegetables far from fresh; and the fries limp and cold. The best part about that meal was the mad specials they were having on—you guessed it—Tiger beer. Even so I could only bring myself to drink one. I laid my money down and sped out of there.

Night fell. I wandered, unwilling to give up George Town so easily. I thought vaguely of finding a historic hotel and having a cocktail, but again I felt worried by potential dress code violations, and the proliferation of foreign phonies that were sure to be in the hotel bar, boozing it up. I strode longingly past the Eastern & Oriental Hotel, trying to peer through the big casement windows and catch a glimpse of all the idiots partying inside, but my reconnaissance was for naught; I couldn't make out a thing. 

Not my photo.

I walked home, a bit miffed at the double holiday that prevented me from mailing postcards or exchanging ringgit for Singapore dollars. Testily I went to sleep, ready to rise at 5:45 a.m. on Wednesday morning to catch the long-haul bus at Butterworth Station. 

Bangkok, day one (part II)

The latter half of Thursday, July 24 went swimmingly, and more than made up for the crappy first half. 

I hopped the BTS Skytrain from Ratchathewi Station to Phrom Phong, about five or six stations south. (Only 34 baht compared to the 150 I'd been paying them crooked tuk-tuk drivers.) Upon leaving the station and walking a few hundred yards, I noticed a plywood sign. It was affixed over the threshold of a restaurant named Im Chan, across the four-lane road beneath the elevated railway, and read "THAIFOOD VERY GOOD AND VERY CHEAP."

Well, how could I possibly pass that up?

I waltzed right in and ordered up some shrimp pad thai for 50 baht and fried tofu, also 50 baht. A hulking, delicious meal for only $3.50. I was beginning to succumb to the charms of Southeast Asia, corrupt tuk-tuk drivers and nosy Thai geezers notwithstanding. It was nice, for once, to not be able to decide which items on the menu to select...but to have the sound financial option of selecting both.

I smacked my lips, paid my bill, and walked a few blocks further, to the area of Sukhumvit Road between Soi 26 and Soi 28, to a little foreigner-owned bookstore called Dasa Book Café.

Not my photo.

The smell as I walked through the doors was a wondrous blend of hardwood floors, dusty shelves, yellowing pages, creased bindings, and dog-eared covers. I paused for a moment to savor it—it'd been many a long year since I'd smelled that particular deliciousness. 

I was looking for something to replace The Catcher in the Rye—my copy of which, in fact, is even now sitting on the shelf in Mixed Dormitory C of Boxpackers Hostel off Pretchaburi Road in Bangkok, awaiting the next thirsty reader. Almost immediately as I entered Dasa I spotted a tattered copy of Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim and snatched it up. I'd been meaning to read it for ages. A couple of minutes later I noticed a cardboard sign that had the legend "MORE BOOKS UPSTAIRS!" scribbled on it in black marker, so I ascended a narrow mahogany staircase and located the sci-fi section. There I found Frank Herbert's Dune and The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein. I almost bought both, but I figured I'd limit myself to two books, as heartbreaking as that was. I didn't want to bring a whole library home to Seoul in my backpack. I selected Dune. 

The final item on the day's list was to find some high place and get the lay of the land—preferably a cocktail bar that wasn't too picky about dress codes. So I chose the tallest building in Thailand: the Baiyoke Sky Hotel.

I paid $10 and rode up to the observation deck on the 77th floor, which was something like a museum. It had photogenic artifacts scattered about, tailor-made for the vain Asian obsession with selfies. 

...which many a Westerner has fallen prey to.

I took a leisurely stroll around, looking at everything. It was only four o'clock and I had some time to kill before the sunset (or the bar opened, whichever came first). I took the elevator up to the 83rd floor and walked up two flights of stairs to the rotating open-air observation deck. A fine, cool breeze was blowing, wiping the sweat off my forehead after my steamy trek through south-central Bangkok. The city sure looked pretty in the late afternoon sunlight.

Then I went down to the bar, had a Manhattan, and watched the sun sink lower...

...directly into a welter of storm clouds boiling up from the western horizon. 

Rats. No sunset?

I paid 300 baht for my drinks and went back up to the observation platform. The wind had freshened and I could see that it was raining like hell a few miles to the west, on the outskirts of the city. I dithered around up there until the first drops began to fall, and then I went back to the 77th floor, opened up Dune, and began to read. The thunderstorm rolled across the city and rain pelted the windows. Lightning flashed at three points of the compass and the room darkened to nocturnal depths. 

I was determined to wait the storm out. Sunset wouldn't be until nearly 8, so there was a fine chance that this monsoon squall would blow itself out before then. My instincts were correct. The sun broke through at 7:45. I slammed my book shut and raced back up to the top deck. 

The air had a heavier, wetter, more relaxed feeling, as if some pent-up energy had been released, and sky and ground were but two lovers lying in bed and sharing a cigarette after a tempestuous bout of lovemaking. A few stray droplets still blew through the air and tickled the eyebrows and lashes. Loving couples stood tangled up with each other as they watched the sun peek through a hole in the clouds and illuminate all creation with its soft pinkish-gold light. Then the fiery orb sank out of sight beyond the western horizon and its ruff of grey oblivion, and I capitulated and went home. 

I made two resolutions that evening: to tour western Bangkok by water bus, see two or three temples, and do it all without setting foot in a tuk-tuk. Come back tomorrow to see how it all fell out.

Bangkok, day one (part I)

Not my photo. Obviously.

Travel Truth #5: Take time to take time.

For what? Well, to relax. Or to get stuff done. Either one. Don't be rushing around trying to see everything all the time. You have to slow down and sacrifice some of your precious vacation to housekeeping. Or precious oblivion. Either one. 

The first half of my first full day in Bangkok was devoted to errands. Administrative stuff, such as: 

1. laundry
2. acquiring a tourist map, a pen, a small notebook (for taking notes while I'm walking around), floss, and sunblock
3. get a tuk-tuk to take me to Hua Lamphong Station to buy tickets for Malaysia
4. find a bookstore and pick up some reading material to replace The Catcher in the Rye, which I'd finished on the bus from Cambodia
5. eat Thai food, as much as I can hold
6. buy and send postcards, if possible

The second half would be devoted to...well, whatever the hell I wanted. I have a couple of things I like to do when I first get to a city, like:

• climb some high thing and get the lay o' the land
• take a stroll in the neighborhood immediately surrounding my lodgings and get a feel for it
• find out where the nearest bus, train, and cab stations are
• eat local food and people-watch

I'd picked up floss and sunblock and notepads and pens when I went to 7-11 last night for water, so that was already done. I dropped off my laundry at the front desk for 100 baht, picked up a tourist map, grabbed a tuk-tuk to Hua Lamphong, and bought a second-class sleeper ticket to Butterworth, Malaysia (only 1200 baht, or $40). 

I walked out of the station, ignoring the cries of the ravening tuk-tuk drivers who yelled that it was too hot and too far to walk anywhere, and crossed the canal. I'd intended to trek northwest to find Wat Traimit, the Temple of the Golden Buddha. I found it quickly, but unexpectedly found that I didn't feel like going inside. You have to pick and choose your wats carefully, you know. But here's where the day began to turn frustrating. 

Nobody in Thailand, or all of Southeast Asia for that matter, believed that (a) I knew where I was going, or (b) that I was capable of getting there under my own power. I stopped a street corner to ask a portly man in a dark blue security uniform about the way to the Temple of the Black Buddha, and he pointed me in the direction with no fuss. But after wandering around aimlessly down Charoen Krung Road for 30-45 minutes with no temple in sight, I began to get annoyed. I sat down on the steps of the Robinson Shopping Center and consulted my map. After a few moments, an elderly Thai gent stepped up to me and asked in perfect English "Where are you going?"

I told my balding, liver-spotted interlocutor that I was trying to reach the temples near the Chao Phraya River. 

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "You must hire a tuk-tuk. He'll take you around for the whole day for a very reasonable price. What did you want to see while you are here?"

I said, "I'd like to see the temples."

He told me that it was no good—today was a "Big Buddha Day" and all the temples would be jam-packed with celebrants and gawking foreigners. 

"You really must get out of the city," he admonished. 

"I don't know what's out th—"

"All of the most beautiful things are to be found there: the floating markets, the crocodile farm, the rose garden, and the ruins of the ancient capital."

"I don't think I—"

"You can hire a tuk-tuk to take you around the city for only 30 baht per hour!"

"I believe I'd rather—"

"You should also stop by the fashion district. You want to get new clothes, right? All the best tailors can  be found there."

"I don't need any—"

"Here, come this way. We'll hire a tuk-tuk to take you to a tour company where you can book a tour."

I tried to demur. I tried to protest. I tried to balk. All to no avail: the Thai gent took me by the elbow and steered me toward a waiting line of lime-green tuk-tuks at the curb, and fell to haggling in Thai with the driver, a young man with a shock of black hair and a paunchy stomach. Then, without knowing how, I was inside the vehicle and we were rocketing through traffic. A few minutes later I stood outside a blue-painted shopfront with five jaunty stone steps leading up to the threshold. In the dim interior I could make out other foreigners sitting at desks, and on the other side Thai clerks who were taking notes and making suggestions and gestures. 

Oh well, I thought. I don't really have anything planned for Day 3 anyway. 

I walked in. The kindly old lady behind the counter, her shoulder-length hair dyed ebony and her insectoid eyes magnified by thick spectacles, waited patiently while I pored over the catalog. I booked a tour to Kanchanaburi, the province northeast of Bangkok near the Burmese border: the River Kwai Bridge, the floating markets, and something called the "tiger temple." It looked promising and only cost 2,200 baht (around $70 at the time). The River Kwai Bridge was actually on my Thailand bucket list, but I hadn't figured it was so close to Bangkok. This was going to be exciting. 

Then the tuk-tuk driver took me to MBK, a fashionable men's clothing boutique in the tailor district. I didn't even set foot on the sidewalk. I'd been warned about this kind of thing. The doorman and the proprietor both came out of the glass doors to try to cajole me inside, but I stayed put. I looked my tuk-tuk driver square in the back of the head and said, "No way. I hate shopping. That was the old man's idea, not mine." I ignored every attempt by the driver and the shop owner to entice me from my entrenched position. Instead, I calmly and civilly requested to be taken to the nearest foodie neighborhood. That royally pissed off my driver. At the time, I wasn't sure why, but then I realized that tuk-tuk drivers usually get a commission from shop owners for delivering customers to their doors. I had just cheated my driver of his bonus, and now he was snorting and looking for any excuse to buck me off. Testily he drove me to the seediest, dirtiest, loneliest, most dubious-looking streetside eatery in all Bangkok: a few dingy tables with cigarette-scarred plastic tablecloths, meats fried into blackened oblivion, desiccated-looking vegetables, flies, heaps of refuse, scrawny women and sinister customers lurking in the shadows beneath rain-stained awnings. I was just glad to be out of the damn tuk-tuk, and the feeling was mutual. 

"After you eat, where you go?" the driver asked as I stepped out of his rig.
"Here," I said, pointing to my hostel on the map.
"Too far," he said.
Bullshit, I thought. I knew for a fact that we were in the Riverside district and it wasn't but a hop, skip, and a jump to Pretchaburi Road, my hostel's neighborhood.
"You get taxi," the driver continued. "I'm done with you."

That's fine, I was done with him too. I paid him the 100 baht he demanded was never gladder to see the back of anyone. Fuming, I walked a block and grabbed a (blue) tuk-tuk driven by someone who looked like the Southeast Asian version of Ernest P. Worrell. He was older than God and his rig in bad need of service. We coughed, wheezed, and lurched rheumatically through the streets back to Boxpackers, with me holding on for dear life and striving to hold back my temper and the contents of my stomach. The driver only gave me 40 baht change out of the 200 I'd given him, but I didn't care. I practically sprinted back up to my room and the air-conditioned sanctuary of my cubicle and my journals. My laundry was waiting for me, clean but stuffed unfolded into a plastic bag. 

It wasn't even noon yet. 

to Phnom Penh by bus

Travel Truth #3: Happy accidents do happen. Especially at dinnertime. 

My Vietnam-Cambodia hop went off without a hitch. I awoke, dressed, went downstairs, and paid $20 for my laundry, a bottle of water and a ticket to Cambodia. Now that's my kind of trip, right there. The receptionist arranged for a shuttle ride to get me to the bus terminal and before I knew it I was in a tiny, rollicking minivan with half a dozen other would-be passengers, including a sweet old Thai gentleman whose name I shall never be able to pronounce, let alone spell. We boarded our bus at the station, handed over $25 apiece and our passports to be stamped with Cambodian visas, and took off for the border. 

We were on Cambodian soil by 11:20. We made three stops at the border: one to get our entry forms, one to get our visas, and the third for lunch—a spacious open-ended warehouse of a building with a corrugated tin roof and orange tile floors, so cool that a couple of lazy dogs were sprawled down and napping upon it, flies buzzing about their noses. I had chicken and green beans over rice, which I was somehow able to pay for with Vietnamese money (only $2 American). I sat with the nice Thai gentleman and his bent, wrinkled, sleepy friend, who didn't speak a word of English and was wearing a Saigon souvenir baseball cap with the price tag still on it. 

While we chatted, there came a noise like an oncoming freight train. A mild hiss became a rattle, and the rattle an earth-shaking roar. The monsoon rains were pounding down on the tin roof, each drop as big as a .50-caliber bullet, and you could hardly hear yourself think. The Thai gent and I finished our conversation at a yell and then boarded the bus to continue our journey. 

My impressions of Cambodia weren't that different from Vietnam—the two countries looked pretty similar. But the countryside here was dustier, flatter, trashier, poorer, and the people were decidedly more Indian-looking. I saw hump-backed, cud-chewing Brahman cattle, houses on stilts, wells with tin-roofed cupolas, ponds covered with lily pads and filled with garbage, and locals napping in hammocks—hammocks strung between stanchions, between stilts, between fence posts and walls, even between trees at the side of the road. Hammocks everywhere. 

About a half hour before we made Phnom Penh, the bus nosed its ponderous way onto a car ferry and we crossed the broad, rambunctious, muddy Mekong. 

We reached the city at about 3:30 in the afternoon. The outskirts of the town were dirty and dingy, with more of the hollow, crumbling buildings and skewed thoroughfares as Hanoi had possessed—but the Cambodian roads were mostly unpaved and the rotting buildings even dustier and more decrepit-looking. Even the highway from Saigon had been gravel for miles at a stretch. 

I jumped off the bus and nabbed the first tuk-tuk driver I could find. I forked over $5 for a ride across the north-central part of town to my hotel. Five bucks was a bit steep—I overheard other foreigners getting rides for $3—but I acquiesced, as it was the same price I'd have paid for a cab in HCMC. 

My room at the Amber House near Wat Langka wasn't ready for me when I arrived, so I was bowed into a gigantic room with two double beds across the hall. 

The funniest thing was that they had Korean comedy/variety shows on TV. With English subtitles. And as one of my coworkers from Sejong pointed out, they still weren't funny. 

I showered to get the sweat and travel grime off me, rested up for a couple of hours, and then walked to the Independence Monument and the king's memorial and snapped some shots of each. 

I had dinner at the Herb Cafe, a tourist trap of a restaurant and bar just a couple of doors down from my hotel, right across the T-intersection from Wat Langka. I hated myself for even setting foot in it. There was nobody else there but for a young, bespectacled, alarmingly skinny French hipster (perusing a tiny notebook and sipping a cocktail); a tubby, neck-bearded tourist in a black T-shirt and cargo shorts; and an elderly business traveler with a pressed blue cotton shirt and black slacks. I glanced over the menu and picked the first dish that looked good—Khmer amok—plus a whiskey sour. A full meal and an aperitif all for the low-low price of seven U.S. dollars. Zounds. I began to take a (brief) shine to Cambodia. 

I found out later that, quite by accident, I had ordered the country's national dish. Amok is a curry steam-cooked in banana leaves, with thick coconut cream and galangal being integral ingredients. Khmer amok with fish is one of Cambodia's core culinary traditions, though amok can be made with everything from chicken eggs to bamboo shoots to algae. All I can tell you is that the Khmer amok I had at the Herb Cafe near Wat Langka was spellbinding in its spicy savoriness, though (true to my code), I did not take any pictures of it. You'll just have to imagine it. Or better yet, make it yourself and try it. 

Because I had nothing to do when I'd finished my meal (but not my second whiskey sour), I struck up a conversation with the French hipster. As I'd suspected, the tiny notebook in his hands was a handmade Khmer primer. The fellow was trying to teach himself the alphabet while he sat and waited for his Buddhist friends to stop meditating in the nearby Wat Langka. His name was Erwin and he'd been working in financial administration at a local French school for the past eight months. We chatted for a few minutes until I drove him away with my questions, and he packed up and went in search of his friends. I stepped across the road into Samaky, another trendy open-air saloon with liquor bottles arranged on illuminated glass shelves along the back wall. I had a few glasses of Angkor Draft (75 cents each) and stared at the laughing clump of Cambodian ladies in the corner booth and the brooding old white dude with the natty, gnarled dreadlocks hanging down his sunburned, tank-topped back. Then I felt lonely and bored and went back to my deliciously cool room to plan tomorrow's escapades. 

Next up: the first and only full day in Phnom Penh. Prawn shooters are involved. 

Hanoi's Old Quarter

Before I begin, here are the rules which governed—or initially governed—my trip through Southeast Asia. 

1. No food selfies
2. No foreign food (meaning Western or American)
3. No getting suckered—bargain for everything
4. Wherever possible, travel by train

As a result, I didn't take photos of any of the foods I ate in Hanoi, more's the pity. I'll just have to make do with other people's, I guess. Thank Gawd for the Internet. 

I had a lovely, full sleep the night of July 13th, after catching barely ninety minutes in 36 hours. I awoke at mid-morning, "had a good gap and a stretch," and peered out the window:

Anvil clouds were already piling up in every quarter of the bright blue sky. I made a mental note to buy an umbrella. The Hanoi Asia Star provided a free breakfast, so I sat in the tiny two-table dining room and had an omelet with a buff, broad-shouldered Singaporean fellow named Dylan. He and his sister were visiting Hanoi for a day before haring off to Ha Long Bay. As soon as I budged outside the air-conditioned oasis of my room I'd begun to sweat, but Dylan was dry as a bone. Upon hearing of my own travel plans, he cautioned me that Singapore would likely be even hotter and wetter than Hanoi, to which I reacted with some dismay. 

I went back up to my room, e-mailed my parents to let me know I'd arrived safely, updated my journals, and slathered on sunscreen. For some inexplicable reason, I decided not to pocket my rain poncho—figuring, perhaps, that it would be easy to find and buy a cheap bumbershoot at a convenience store somewhere.

I stopped in at the first store I saw to buy 1.5 liters of water. It cost 12,000 VND—about 75 cents at the time. No umbrellas though.

Next stop was Hoan Kiem Lake:

  

I wasn't hurrying. I was strolling. Even so, I was drenched. Great wet spots appeared on my linen shirt, the bandanna I'd stuck under my hat was already soaked through, and my thighs were as wet and squeaky as trained dolphins. My sweaty fingers smudged the postcards I bought and addressed and sent at the moldy, water-stained French colonial post office.

My luck ran out during the long walk from the post office to the Maison Centrale—better known as the "Hanoi Hilton." The skies broke. The clouds weltered up and burst. There was nothing gradual about this kind of rain: full in the grip of monsoon season, the Vietnamese skies vomited all their contents upon me with wanton abandon. One minute it was dry; the next minute the air was filled with drops of water that would have done that godawful third Matrix movie proud. I thought I'd been sopping with sweat earlier. Now I was truly soaked. Unwilling to appear unprepared or chagrined, I stood defiantly out in the open for a few moments; then I slunk under the eaves of a nearby government building with a few other feckless souls. We stood there for some 20 minutes, trying to wait the damn storm out. It was too wet to light up a smoke. None of us would meet each others' eyes. All of us felt the caustic shame of being caught without an umbrella or poncho during monsoon season. 

Presently, there was the wet slapping sound of flip-flops on rainy pavement. A pack of dripping young English and Irish women, their tank tops and shorts plastered enticingly to their bodies by the fruits of the monsoon, sprinted up to our hiding-place. They inquired of everyone present whether the Hanoi Hilton was nearby. Your humble correspondent, having faithfully memorized the route before leaving his hotel room, pointed these women in the right direction. Together we strode soggily around the corner to the Maison Centrale.

The original door—the one John McCain probably walked through, the putz.

 

This place was yet another letdown. Ninety-five percent of it was devoted to the cruel oppression of the French during the colonial era, and the bitter tortures and deprivations the noble Vietnamese resistance fighters endured at their captors' hands. One small room was devoted to the American fighter pilots who were incarcerated here during the Vietnam War, and even that was decorated with propaganda: staged photographs showing American P.O.W.s raising chickens, decorating Christmas trees, attending church services, and holding chess tournaments. The entire upper level of one building was devoted to giant, tacky brass plaques memorializing the glorious names of the Vietnamese heroes held by the French (second-to-last picture above). I was put off by the whole thing, frankly. I couldn't wait to get back outside into the sunny, drying streets and make my way to the Temple of Literature. 

Now, here's the funny part: remember way back in 2013 when I went to Japan, and I saw the famous Zōjō-ji temple in Tokyo? And I got the prayer etiquette all wrong? And all during my train trip through Japan I kept getting it wrong such that, if any Shinto deities actually heard my prayers, they'd have either laughed them off or put an eternal curse on me?

I kept up my streak at the Temple of Literature, a Confucian school to which the Lý dynasty sent their best and brightest youths. I forgot to take off my hat while donating a few dong and saying a brief prayer. May I be damned to ignorance forevermore.  

Does your washroom look this cool?

These four pillars carried an inscription in Chinese admonishing horsemen to dismount already, gosh dang it to heck. 

I caught a cab back to the hotel, hung up my wet things, and walked back to a likely neighborhood I'd seen north of Hoan Kiem Lake, which was packed with eateries. I found a tiny shop the precise size and shape of a scooter garage that sold bun cha, fried pork slices in broth with vermicelli, with as much minced garlic and sliced pepper as you'd care to add (and the omnipresent complimentary mint salad).

from Wikimedia Commons

I bolted the lot down, walked another block and stopped in at a foreigner's bar for some nem (Vietnamese sausage wrapped in rice paper) and two more 450-ml bottles of Bia Ha Noi. 

from Wikimedia Commons

Okay, I'm stopping there. I'll tell you about the rest of this evening, and boarding the express train to Saigon, in the next entry.