Vietnam: Part Saung (Thai for two)

Be forewarned, this post will be long. Even for me. So maybe make popcorn.

Before finishing my update on Hanoi, I figured I would share a bit about my more recent goings-on. I have moved downtown to stay with a very generous friend-of-a-friend from work, so no more hour and a half commute each way. Amazing. Work is giving me a chance to meet lots of very interesting people. I've taken to asking everyone I meet how they arrived to work in Asia--it's always fascinating. Many came over for short contracts, to visit friends, or on vacation, and just never left. They found a way to stay--often for decades.

Work is also letting me follow some of my nerdier pursuits. Large masses of survey data keep pouring in (three in the last two weeks), and I get to compile the data, run the basic math, and write up summary reports that go out to the different committees or to the Thai government. And as everyone knows executive summaries of survey data from non-profits are usually critical to all public policy decision, I feel quite influential (ha!). Really though, I do like the work. Just to give an idea of one of my days (those of you not related to me might find this boring, but I know my mom cares...):

Tuesday, July 15. Had a 7:30am meeting with the ICT committee (Bringing 3G technology--bascially iPhones) to Thailand. Left immediatley after to tour Klong Toei (the biggest slum in Thailand) schools. We went through three: the foundation is donating new e-learning centers and we had to figure out which schools were the most in need. Raced back to the office to trend survey data that had just come in. At 2:00pm we held a press conference of a new Thai/US art exhibit. Got back to the office at 5 and wrote up a summary of the now-trended data. At 6:30 had a meeting at another hotel, this time Marketing. Back home at 9:30 and crashed, b/c 7:30am the next day was another meeting. To summarize: I feel like I have a real job.

Tomorrow begin Asarnha Bucha--a Thai holiday sort of like Lent. So no work for two days. A four day weekend is great, but of course the whole country is shutting down--even the bars. I think I might go to a rather sketchy beach with some friends from work. Not yet sure.

Anyway, some more information on Hanoi. I'll attempt brevity. The center of Hanoi, at least the historic section, is a big lake with islands and temples in the middle. (Incidentally, it's where John McCain's plane crashed--and they then dragged him out, with something like two broken legs and a broken arm.) At night, the whole city congregates there. So I went out by myself and, dodging the thousands of motor scooters, got myself ice-cream and walked around the lake. I swear the whole city was there, doing the same. So peaceful and still once I got around the other side. And in the night air, actually cool weatherwise--for southeast Asia, anyway. I repeated this walk every night, and would gladly make a tradition out of it if I lived there. The temples are all lit up in the middle of the lake--just very cool. I wish I had pictures, but I purposefully didn't take a camera. Just immersed myself in the whole feel of the city.

As for touristy sites, we visited the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, or Uncle Ho to the Vietnamese. Unfortunately, we got there at 11:30, and it closed at 11 (weird times, honestly). So we did not see his preserved body, which used to be annually shipped to the USSR for fresh embalming. It's now done in-house. To be honest, I was less than dissapointed. From a distance, it looks strikingly like the monument to Ataturk.

We visited Le Maison Centrale, which was a French political prison full of Vietnamese. After the revolution, it was emptied. And then filled with American POWs. John McCain was there for years. The Vietnamese really really love McCain right now. I know it seems ironic, but they have his name and picture everywhere and always mention the campaign. The head of the prison back when McCain was there gave an interview endorsing the leader and calling him a friend--one I don't know that he'll publicize. They have his jumpsuit from when they pulled him out of the lake:

I don't want to give the wrong impression. A very small wing of the prison is dedicated to the American POWs. Most of it is about the French. And the Vietnamese hero/patriots suffering under the French. There are pictures, statues, movies, and even a full-scale reproduction of a guillotine. Another irony: the courtyard had been dedicated as a memorial to those Vietnamese who suffered there. I don't know if this picture does it any justice, but it looks REALLY similar to the Vietnam War Memorial in D.C. Eerily similar. Same rock at an angle with the shine finish and engraved information.

That's all for sites. Vietnamese traditional building are quite recognizeable: ridiculously skinny and tall. It's like they took me, and made a building. All over. I don't know how these things stand. They must have zero seismic activity. Ironically, this building sells Thai silk. "K" and "T" are pretty close.

The street that had my hotel was only a block from the city center (the lake) and was great. Email me if you want the information--a whopping $30 a night--for their nicest room. This is the street looking away from my hotel. It's so cliche Asian/Vietnamese that I had to include this photo. Note how the building do have a slightly European feel.

That's all for now. Really, without the pictures, this post wouldn't be that long... I'll be home rather soon and miss you all, Mike.