ha noi two

Ha Noi:
We got lost twice in Ha Noi; twice, that is, in two days. The first day we proved ourselves silly enough to leave our streetside guesthouse without one of those handy business cards that EVERYONE carries in Vietnam. On our way back from dinner, in a cab, we soon realized that we did not know the street name on which we were lodged. We knew the name of our guesthouse, but as that failed to ring any bells with the Vietnamese-speaking cab driver we were out of luck. That is actually untrue. We were lucky, still, in that our driver patiently engaged in a circuitous ride around our guesthouse, him and I using cavemanlike grunts and gestures until we finally located our abode. It took us so long, and he was so amused, that he took pictures of each of us with his camera phone before we left: We may appear on some Vietnam cab driver blacklist for all we know.

The second time, we lost our way on foot. On foot, and in a very small section of Ha Noi. Vietnam, as by now I know, is famous for copying everything. Hotel names, therefore are repeated by the dozen in a very small area. We had moved to one of six Sunshine guesthouses. One of six within a few blocks. After we went to see water-puppets, an art form thousands of years old and still enchanting (for three dollars), we missed our guesthouse by one street and ended up relying a map on which I had cicled the location of our sunshine guesthouse--however, we were actually staying at one of the other sunshine guesthouses...the one in front of which a cab driver chose drop us the day before. So we were wandering toward the wrong place...and as nora's knees began to hurt, she decided to take a cyclo (bicycle attached to a small bench seat in front). as she pulled away, she handed us the map...and then the cyclo turned in the opposite direction of where William and I thought was correct. W and I found our way home in two steets: Nora, as she pulled away had yelled "if something goes wrong meet me here" as she pointed to the Hanoi elegance hotel. To shorten a long story (since this keyboard barely functions) she failed to come through the doors of the hotel for quite a while. i sent W to the Hanoi Elegance Hotel while I waited at ours...the he came back...then I sent him back again...over an hour went by...i was beginning to really worry. But then Nora called and said she was heading back. she had escaped from the cyclo driver almost immediately and had ended up being driven on the back of a moto to ALL six of the sunshine hotels, none of which were ours...then she went back to where we stayed the night before and found our place online. WIlliam, meanwhile, meandering without female escorts at night, was constantly harrassed by motos filled with Vietnamese prostitutes vying for his attention. OUr marriage has passed yet another test: he decided not to risk (in his words) waking up wihtout kidneys and instead came home to his wife.

oh ha noi.