On his second day. Billy was cleaning behind a radiator, and he found a spoon. To his back was a vat of syrup that was cooling. The only other person who could see Billy and his spoon was poor old Edgar Derby, who was washing a window outside. The spoon was a tablespoon. Billy thrust it into the vat, turned it around and around, making a gooey lollipop. He thrust it into his mouth.
A moment went by, and then every cell in Billy's body shook him with ravenous gratitude and applause.
-- Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
The morning shift is misery. You wake up at 4 a.m. and enter an office that's much too cold. You're alone, and usually extremely hungry. But there's no food, nobody to prepare it for you at home and no vendors selling their wares so early. At 5 a.m. when your mind only wants to drift into dreams, you have to write about Wall Street. And it's so cold, so cold, you're wearing two layers of clothing but it's still so cold, so punishingly cold. And you're so alone.
By 8 a.m. your whole head has had enough. Your nose has had enough of running. Your eyes have had enough of reading. Your lips are dry. Your eyelids are heavy. You can't fight it. You can't fend off sleep when it returns for its territory.
At 9 a.m. the end is near. Other people begin to appear in the office. They provide heat, and chatter. But for you the only company is your insane colleague, whose utter lack of self-awareness is your undoing. Your friends won't come. They have work to do, outside. You're no longer alone, but you'll wish you were. For the remaining three hours the challenges are no longer physical but mental. How do you stay calm when you really want to yell at your superior? How do you stay put when you're tempted to walk away and never look back?
I don't understand why pasting the embed html here doesn't work. Just click on the link to watch the video of Xai, me and the Russian on the boat.
As you can tell I am too lazy to finish my travelogue but rest assured that nothing significant or exciting happened that I haven't already told you about.
10 AM
Me: Last night I spent half an hour on my exercise bike and I didn't have dinner. I'm so proud of myself. Yup and I've decided that I want to starve myself.
G: Me too. But why do you want to starve yourself? You're so skinny, you'll disappear.
Me: Because I'm depressed. I want to be anorexic and hopefully die within the year.
12 PM
J: Ok so why aren't you eating? Because I don't really understand why you need to diet.
Me: It's not a diet, it's a hunger strike.
J: Right. And why?
Me: Because I want to waste away and die so that everyone will feel sorry about how badly they treated me.
J: Ok. (Turning to G) And what's your excuse?
G: Are you serious? Are you just saying that? Because that is truly how I feel right now.
Me: No I mean it. I'm really upset.
J: Ok but do you really have to starve yourself?
Me: Nah I just don't feel like eating when I'm depressed. I wasn't hungry last night.
J: You know most people eat more when they're depressed. Even when it comes to depression you just have to be different from the mainstream don't you?
5 PM
A: I feel like having nuts...
Me: Yeah they look good. But I can't, I'm on a hunger strike.
A: Why?
Me: Because I'm sad and I want to waste away and die so that everyone will feel sorry about how badly they treated me in this life.
A: Should I get cashews?
7:30 PM
J: MPA has called. They've lifted the embargo.
Me: Ok so put it in the bulletin.
J: Yeah I'm thinking it could be the 2nd or 3rd story...
Me: Put it first.
J: Huh? Are you sure? Lead with it?
Me: Yeah, put it first.
J: Ummm I'm unsure. This is such a bold decision. Can I call SJ first and ask her?
Me: Are you kidding me? I'm a fucking editor, listen to me. (I take over his mouse and do it myself.)
G: Yasmine is so smart. Look at that, she knows everything, she's brilliant.
J: I don't like hungry Yasmine. You're a meanie!
G: She's so smart, look what she's doing!
J: No, she's hungry and light-headed. She's not thinking straight. I'm not sure this is right! I'm calling M.us. (Calls M but he's driving and says he will call back in 5 minutes.)
Me: Why don't you be more like Ge.rrie and just say I'm smart?
(My editor calls J back)
Me: What did he say?
J: He told me to lead with it. And next time, listen to Yasmine because she's the smartest person here.
Me: Yeah right.
J: No, really.
Me: Toldja.
G: Expected!
9:36 PM
Just spent half an hour on my exercise bike and I am not having dinner :)
I never ever feel like a travel connoisseur because given any random number of Singaporeans, I am usually the least travelled one among them. But the first line of this article makes me feel so good about my travel cred:
Vietnam and Cambodia are so 2007.
And then it goes on to mention Wat Phu -- and I've been there!
(Despite the first line, Vietnam is still mentioned as #48 on the list of places to visit in 2008, so don't feel too bad if you haven't been there.)
Also -- Lisbon, anyone?
I got the link from Xai. He's been blogging, y'all. Send him and his liver some love.
The Russian: Do you go up to attractive Hmong girls and ask them, "Do you want to do radio?" And then they say, "Yes," and you bring them to your house and you say, "Ok, time for a mic test."?
Xai: "Can you take off your clothes?" No, no, I don't do that.
Xai arrived today, while we were sleeping. We got a call from the reception to tell us that we had a friend looking for us. Seeing Xai again after one year was really good, what can I say? He looked the same, sounded the same, as quiet as ever.
One of the first things he said to me was, "This place is scary... I don't like it."
"What, do you mean Hanoi?" I asked.
"Yes."
"I know! The traffic is nuts, right?!"
He'd just travelled a day to meet us, with stops in between where all he ate was pho, because that was the only thing he knew how to order in Vietnamese. The very first thing we had to do then, was find some breakfast that was not pho.
After washing up we headed outside and ducked into a nearby café selling some good old American breakfast and had french toast and scrambled eggs and coffee. After that cup I promised myself that it would be the last time I had Vietnamese coffee on the trip. It nearly knocked me out with the trembling and the acid cramps.
We then took a cab to the Ho Chi Minh Museum. It was only when we got there that I realised that Uncle Ho's museum, mausoleum, stilt house and the One Pillar Pagoda were all enclosed within the same compound. But we couldn't visit all of them today. Most of Hanoi's tourist attractions are closed on Monday.
So we took a look at the One Pillar Pagoda first, just a cute little temple on a giant round pillar. Xai asked the Russian to take a photo of me and him. The Russian asked, "Ok what do you want in the shot?"
Xai said, "The focus is two faces." He pointed at his face and my face. I couldn't stop laughing.
Then we walked over to the museum, enjoying the fact that we didn't have to brave traffic.
The museum was really something. A mixture of art and history, what you might perhaps call "propaganda". But this was really charming propaganda. Uncle Ho's life and ideals were laid out in artistic installations filled with symbolism and meaning that we couldn't parse, because we were too skint to get a museum guide. For example, according to the guidebook, the installation of a car crashed into a wall was supposed to signify American military failure in Vietnam. That particular car model had been a commercial failure when it was launched in the US.
By the end of our walk around the museum, it was lunch time, and therefore closing time. We had to leave the compound. We walked a very long way, down the long, wide boulevard past the mausoleum, which was so peaceful and quiet that Xai said, "Hmm Hanoi is not so bad after all." Then we walked down a street past some government buildings, and eventually we stumbled upon the botanic garden.
We went in, walked around, took a lot of photos and rested for a while. It's quite amazing how even in the very depths of the garden, you can still hear the traffic blaring.
Then we went back out and continued onwards. We walked and walked and walked to a temple whose name I've already forgotten. I'm really not a temple person. Then we walked some more, looking for lunch. After a long time we reached the St Joseph Cathedral. It was closed, but nobody was around to stop us from entering. So we did, and took some more photos. The church building itself seemed abandoned and boarded up but there were apartments within the church compound that were inhabited. There was also a very large dog that scared me and Xai.
After the church we decided to stop at a cafe just two doors away for lunch. We were too tired to go further. But it was only after we sat down and got the menus that we realised the cafe didn't serve food, and the waiter and cafe owner didn't speak any English. A lot of hand gesturing took place. We motioned that we wanted to eat. The waiter nodded. We asked for ice tea. This was tricky. We tried out various sounds and gestures but he only seemed to understand what we wanted when the Russian hugged himself and went "Brrr". He nodded enthusiastically in comprehension, but even then we were afraid that he thought we'd meant we were feeling cold, and needed hot tea. But he got it right.
Then he gestured for Xai to follow him somewhere. All three of us stood up but he motioned for me and the Russian to sit back down. Xai warily got up from the table and said, "If I don't come back in ten minutes, please look for me."
He took Xai two doors down to a small restaurant, where Xai had to pick out food for us. We each got a plate of rice, fish, tofu and vegetables. It was unpalatable. The fish was thick with bones and the vegetables were impossible to chew, much less swallow. Xai said, "Ok tonight we'll have a nice dinner."
After lunch we carried on walking, past the citadel and on to the Temple of Literature. As always, the Russian spent the most time scrutinising every detail of the temple. I walked really fast once through and sat down at the end. Xai too, didn't seem like much of a temple guy, or maybe he was just tired. We spent a lot of time taking photos of each other while the Russian lagged behind looking at things.
After the temple we took a break at KOTO Cafe, which trains underprivileged teenagers to become waiters and cooks. We had fries and dessert and all kinds of shakes. Man we were exhausted. It doesn't sound like much with me saying "we walked here and we walked there" but really, we walked a lot. That day, we walked about 7 hours in all.
Then, because we were so tired, we took a cab to Dong Xuan market. It was called a night market, yet when we got there, at 5 pm, it was already closing. So we just walked through it and left. We got into another cab and went back to our guesthouse. I can't really remember why we did this. Or even if we did? Did we walk from Dong Xuan to Hoan Kiem?
All I remember is that after the market, it got dark quickly and we spent a lot of time walking - some more- in the Old Quarter. We did some shopping. At Hang Bac street, I got myself a t-shirt with a Communist propaganda drawing. Xai tried one on too but decided not to get it because the sleeves didn't fit. (The next day he would change his mind and before we went home I bought it for him. I still haven't mailed it to him yet though.)
We also came across lots of DVD shops. A DVD in Hanoi costs 1.50 to 3 Singapore dollars. Xai and I each bought a few.
Then I came across a shop selling embroidered stuff, you know, like tablecloths and quilts and shit. My mother and aunt had given me a long shopping list of embroidered things to buy in Vietnam, and this was the first shop I'd seen selling the stuff, so I thought I might as well get it over with now. But I ended up feeling really resentful. All her things cost 200 US dollars. And my debit card wouldn't work, probably because I was broke, so I had to use the Russian's credit card. And the stuff was really, really heavy, (2 tablecloths, a table runner, 2 placemat sets and a fucking queen sized quilt cover) and Xai insisted on carrying it for me. I was so pissed off at that point at how the stupid shopping list was causing inconveniences for everyone.
What made it worse was that when I told my aunt about how much it all cost (because, as usual, my mother wasn't responding), she said, "Oh no pls don't buy I got mine in Saigon for 8 dollars."
My mum hadn't given me a budget nor any instructions on where to find her tablecloths, nor any indication of how much she was expecting to spend on these items, so I was REALLY pissed off then that I might have spent the Russian's money on nothing.
The Russian pointed out that all that stuff probably wouldn't be able to fit in my one luggage bag together with my clothes, so when we got to Hoan Kiem, I bought another bag. This time, a Roxy gym bag, for 16 Singapore dollars. Not too bad, eh?
After all that shopping, it was time to fulfill Xai's wish for a nice dinner after our accidental streetside lunch. The boys chose La Salsa, a French restaurant at a slightly swanky area. Of course, our Lonely Planet was outdated so all the prices listed in the book were half of what the food actually cost, so we were kind of stunned when we saw the menu.
"We don't live here. We don't ever have to come back to Hanoi again. We can leave now, we don't have to be embarrassed," I said.
But the boys were steadfast in upholding their pride, so we stayed.
The Russian ate a rabbit and Xai had pork, but I can't remember what I had myself. But it was delicious, a really good meal. Considering the price of the meal, we skipped dessert.
We returned to our guesthouse after dinner, and were shown to our new room. I had initially only booked one night at the guesthouse because Xai was supposed to meet us on Day 3, but he was delayed a day so we had to stay an extra night at the guesthouse. But since they had other guests coming in and wanting our original room, they had to move us to a new room.
This new room was cleaner than the first one. That was great. What was not so great was the service. Xai wanted to use one of the internet terminals at the lobby but both were being used by two Vietnamese guys, obviously friends of the staff, who were playing an MMORPG (online role-playing game). When Xai asked if he could use the computer for a while, the guy manning the reception told him to wait 5 minutes. Xai waited half an hour before he got to use the terminal.
Another thing that was not so great was the fact that the room wouldn't allow us to sleep. It was on the fourth floor, just below the power generator, and every 2 minutes (I'm not exaggerating), you would hear a loud BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP go off for about 30 seconds (again, not exaggerating).
Even before we went to sleep, while we were watching TV, the Russian was saying things like, "If that thing goes off all night I will go insane." But I pooh-poohed it, thinking that it wouldn't go off all night and that even if it did, it wasn't that loud.
Wow when I am wrong, I am SO WRONG.
The Russian and I didn't sleep a wink all night. Xai did though, he was just that exhausted. For me, I would be drifting off and starting to enter a dream, and I'd feel light and happy and at peace when suddenly BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
Needless to say we were really looking forward to Halong Bay the next morning.
