More on Ha Noi and Kino!

Editors’ note: Great to hear positive feedback about our comments and reactions to our travels. “Blogging” bridges worlds between correspondence and journal writing as such leads us in to a middle ground that no doubt makes for tedious reading at times. In general it helps open our eyes along this road of discovery and it’s all the more rewarding to be sharing the experience with all of you. Steve

Ha Noi

Flying into Ha Noi is a bit like flying to Kansas – you know you are in the same country as everyone speaks a similar dialect, but it sure feels, looks, smells and tastes quite different. Coffee for example is harder to find and when you do it is served hot. Pho is also much more difficult to locate even though Ha Noi is supposed to produce pho that is better than Saigon’s. Hmm – could be our hood, which is more focused on commerce than eating. Each small shop has living space behind it so preparing food occurs in the same space as taking care of the baby (middle of shop) and making a living, watching TV – life. (In Saigon life as I have said was lived IN the street including retail to some level.) This design is known as nha ong or tube houses – narrow – sometimes only 3 meters wide but up to 50 meters long- looking down from our hotel which is one of the tallest structures in the area you can clearly see where the name derives – Americans may relate to the visual of row after row of single wide trailers each sharing a common wall with the house next door. Many of the nha ong have intriguing hallways leading from the street back to the living quarters – we walk slowly by and I love the glimpses we catch. This is from our tour book “ The houses tend to be interspersed by courtyards or ‘wells’ to permit light into the house and allow some space for outside activities like washing or gardening.” (Footprint Vietnam, p. 81)
Post our breakfast of canapés, fried rice, stir fried veggies, fresh warm mango juice, fried eggs, fresh fruit, congee, stir fried beef with pineapple, coffee, several hours of downpour, and some rigorous room play we taxied over to the Hang Be Market which for Seattle folks is sort of the Vietnamese version of Pike Place Market when it first started 100 years ago plus scooters riding up on your back end and nudging you with their tires in case you missed the horn in your ear. (Honest!)
You need a live carp? No problem there they are swimming in metal washtubs with an aerating system or some sort to provide O2 I guess. Kino watched as a woman arrived and pointed out a nice round one. The fishmonger picked up the selected one, it in a bag while Mr. Fishy gasped against the plastic like a victim in a bad horror film. He didn’t suffer the suffocation long as she took her cleaver and snacked it firmly on the head near the neck if it had one. Then came the gutting, descaling, and filleting process. Seemed a bit brutal for a 2 year old, but Kino watched with great interest. Talk about fresh eh?
He also saw chickens on the hoof, a tub filled with writhing live eels, tiny crabs in similar tubs as well as the large variety trussed with strong red cord that made them appear more like a festive party gifts then a live beasties, tables filled with parts of mammals, red with blood, most of them unknown to us, knives flashing through the thick moist tropical air readying dinner cuts. Then there were the vegetables, grains, rice, noodles, sauces, herbs, dried spices and of course the fruit! Sensory overload in Vietnam.
We tried to find our way to 87 Ma May street to see an original nha ong, but got lost of course – hard to navigate streets when the language prevents basic comprehension and directional abilities – especially when the micrographic copy of our map only has a few of actual real roadways. Anyway by design I managed to get us back to the hotel and we avoided 87 Ma May Street. :) For now.
I did wish for a kitchen as everything veggies wise at least looked photo worthy. One woman, an artist in her own right carved carrots the size of Kino’s calf into butterflies and crabs with such detail as to inspire poetry.

Kino updates – smiling more!
Has a real sense of style. For example this am Steve put his blue shorts on with a yellow shirt. He came back and pointed out that he preferred the yellow to match and wanted to change! He can match colors now when playing as well, but not yet able to speak the words in English.

Loves the phone – picks it up and listens to the beep beep beep and smiles Think he’s going to love talking on it. Had a video chat with Uncle Per in Denmark yesterday and he watched intently the interaction, but I’m sure he thought it was TV, which he is familiar with from the orphanage.

Enormously coordinated with his feet and toes. I watched him while he was to be falling asleep for his nap – find his shoes with his feet and lift them to his hands to be played with. (Shoes between feet lift and down. Repeat. Do you suppose the nannies taught him this?) It’s not only his feet that are skilled - he’s got great abdominals as well. He also used his toes to hold onto things – like crayons in each set of toes while skating across the floor.

Doesn’t believe bookmarkers have a place in books – goes along with his neat nature. Loves to clean up.

Learned to spit! Toothpaste and excess water associated with this enterprise!

Speaking of knowing you aren’t in Kansas – we awoke the first morning to the soft music via loud speakers set up in the streets. This went on for about an hour followed by what we can only guess to be rise and shine communist messages in loud Vietnamese for about a half hour. Saturday morning! There is much more of a police presence here than in Saigon with the local gendarmes station about 15 seconds away. The green clad police hang in the street and glancing into the station brings to mind the Hollywood image of that American dude who got caught with drugs in the airport of I think Turkey and ended up in prison. The shirttail hanging half way out, cigarette dangling, one eye partly closed against the smoke while ogling the activity.
Leslie