Hanoi High Life

My parents showed up and just like that, everything changed. We had our own bathroom with hot water and clean towels. We had free internet access in the lobby of the hotel. The hotel had a lobby. There was complimentary breakfast and smiling advice on local attractions. We ate at restaurants without plastic tables where there was wine served both by the glass and by the bottle. Moreover, none of this cost us a penny, which was amazing. We quickly realized that it takes moments to get used to this kind of life, but the transition back to scrimping and squalor will probably be slightly more difficult. Who cares? They have real milk in the coffee here, and you don't have to steal the napkins for use as toilet paper.

We headed out into the city armed with a fancy guidebook that had all sorts of pictures and no tips on how to eat for under a dollar. My parents were adorably wide-eyed as they pointed to the pedicabs and people eating soup on the street and dangerous actions of the zillions of motos streaming by. We saw the requisite sights: Temple of Literature (Lesson: the Vietnamese loved learnin' and commemoratin' the learnin' of their people); Museum of Ethnology (Lesson: there are many different groups of people in Vietnam and their houses differ widely. Some have really tall ceilings! Also, teenagers of all cultures are annoying); Ho Chi Minh Mosoleum (Lesson: preserving a dead communist leader for 40 years takes serious work by the military, both green-clad and white-clad. It is disrespectful to talk, put your hands behind your back, or wear sunglasses when gawking at a dead communist leader under glass); Hoa Lo Prison aka the Hanoi Hilton (Lesson: the French were barbaric to their prisoners, while U.S. soldiers enjoyed a pleasant if rustic tenure at the hands of the enlightened and generous Vietnamese. John McCain was here); and the Old Quarter (Lesson: tourists heart The North Face. Vietnamese people heart stretching and badminton by the sides of the lake). All this traipsing around included a fair amount of eating and drinking. And a more than fair amount of picture snapping.

One evening, we had the pleasure of dining with a group of Vietnamese parents whose offspring are attending Bucknell University, where my father works. While a lovely school, there really isn't much to say about it if you never went there or, in Kate's case, have never even visited. Moreover, a large proportion of the attendees did not speak English, and since our Vietnamese is limited to Hello, Thank you, and Delicious, we weren't much help. The awkwardness was palpable but mitigated by my mother's inability to understand her dining companion, mistaking the occupational description "Press Photographer" for "Breast Photographer." After some puzzled clarifying questions, she shrugged and retorted, "In America, we call that a Mamographer." Conversation continued until it was made clear that two of our hosts work for the AP, one as a writer, one as a Press photographer. Ah, cultural exchange. I'm still laughing.

Our final night in Hanoi will be spent at the superfancy Metripole Hotel. We have already experienced the snooty grandeur which is the Metripole when we went to the chocolate buffet they serve for tea. Yes, as indicated, it is a buffet of chocolate and therefore well worth the price and the stairs at our ragamuffin appearances. This hotel is where fancy people go to eat fancy food and talk about the fancy things they have done. Many a traveler will stop by the storied hotel to partake, if only for the length of a cup of tea, of its splendor. When we alight this afternoon, however, we will actually be in residence at the Metripole. I can't wait to hand the bellhop my excruciatingly dirty 13 year old backpack that now has something on the order of 12 books in the bottom of it. We will be stealing everything we can get our hands on, like the grubby little backpackers we are.

So a hearty and pampered Thank You to Pat/Mom and Mick/Dad for a wonderful week of travels. Sorry we couldn't provide better weather but at least we saw the historic Vietnamese water puppetry and did our share for the Vietnamese street-hawker economy.