Recent random observations Part 2: Hanoi edition
1) I got in late at night to my hotel, which I picked because its sister locations were the top-ranked hotels on Tripadviser. It was described as a "botique hotel" which I usually believe to means an uber-designed, modern hotel with all the fixings; the focus is on modern design, with some good service thrown in. And while the hotel was nice - a converted older building - it didn't strike me as super modern, and I was questioning if I was being ripped off.
Then I stepped in the bathroom and saw this:
This, my friends, is why they call the toilet a throne. Only in developing countries with a rapidly-accelerating economy would you find something like this in a hotel. It screams austentatious display of money and faux royalty, an effort to make the guest feel like they're important and only deserve the finest in toilet devices. What other way to describe this than awesomely cheesy?
Almost as good was the shower cubicle. It had your normal, flexible hose shower head; a rainfall shower head; six forward-facing shower heads that did not seem to work; and a remote control device built into the shower to control volume, the telephone and a few other devices, none of which work. Only the finest bathroom devices for the guests of our botique hotel!
Well, that and a computer that took at least five minutes to load a gmail screen. To the hotel's credit, though, they were the happiest, friendliest staff I had ever met, and never said "no" to any request, no matter how strange, such as where to find a dish only served at lunchtime in Vietnam at 7pm at night. In Beijing, they would have said, "Nope, too bad for you" at a similar request. In Hanoi, they hunt down three options for you.
2) The first day there, I wandered down by a lake that dominates the center of the old quarter. I sat down to read on a park bench, and over wanders a one-legged 40-something woman speaking great English, wondering what language I spoke. When I said, "Espanol," she looked at the book and called out my ruse. Then she wanted to know if I wanted to "be charitable" and buy some oranges from her. "They're great oranges!" she kept on insisting, as I turned down her requests, despite her insistent asking of "Why don't you want to be charitable?" After a few minutes, she walked away, and after a few minutes, a younger woman sat down and pulled out a booklet, and asked if I could help her.
OK, I thought, here comes the usual scam of "Help me practice my English," which then usually devolves into some sort of scam to further discussions over tea at some shop that ends up being painfully overpriced, because they're all in on the scam to rip off the tourist.
But lo and behold, after 15 minutes, it was obvious that this 25-year-old only did want to practice her English and pronunciation. There was no effort to sell or go somewhere; she only wanted guidance on how to say certain names. For the first time in Asia, someone saying they only wanted to practice English did just that, and when I got up to leave after about 25 minutes, she thanked me and that was it. After 3 years of attempted trickery, it was oddly refreshing to meet someone who told the truth about practicing English.
3) Vietnam is a country of entrepreneurs, though. But even those touting you bootleg street maps and Lonely planets aren't overly pushy. Unlike other countries, when you give a firm "no" once or twice, they leave. They don't glom on to you like a burdock stuck on your pants. They just move on to the next potential sale. Again, refreshing.
4) Strange scooter moment: Seeing a guy on a scooter, making a right-hand turn on a street, as he checked his email on his hacked Iphone, or more likely his Iphone knockoff. Now that is multitasking.
5) I stopped in at a tavern that a coworker had recommended; said coworker used to hang out there when he worked in Hanoi 5-10 years ago. He described it as "a saloon in the finest sense of the word, filled with lots of strange characters." And when I went in the first time, there were only two people at the bar, both gweilos, with one trying to explain to the other the theory of relativity, and how time, distance, speed and gravity can all bend and warp depending on their relationship to each other. The explainee was having a hard time grasping this, and I was having a hard time grasping that someone could go on and on about this for more than 20 minutes at a bar. But, again, refreshing.
The view from inside a new cafe, La, where I stopped for a late lunch on my first afternoon.
If you look above the spring rolls I had for lunch, you can see someone going by outside in the bicycle taxis that cruise around the Old Quarter in Hanoi.
While I was eating at said cafe, I saw this outside: a pizza delivery cycle. Apparently, one of the mediochre pizza chains, Pepperoni's, in Hong Kong has opened up an outlet in Hanoi.
The view from the stool on my final night in Hanoi, while I was having beers with some people I met in halong bay. Hanoi, while pretty well developed, is still developing, and all of your phone, cable, internet and other wires are just bundled together in a chaotic mess above your head, instead of buried underground, like in Hong Kong.
A glass of bia hoi, the fresh beer, along with some shredded dried cuttlefish the drinking companions were snacking on. (Women will come by with the cuttlefish; if you want one, they will beat it with a wooden stick to tenderize it, then shred it for you and give you some hot sauce to dip it in. Every half hour or so, she will swing by to see if you need more sauce. The fish had to cost no more than 50 cents US, and a number of women just roam along the street, from drinker to drinker, seeing if they want food to go with their drink.) One glass of said beer costs 3000 dong; with the current exchange rate at about 17000 dong to a dollar, said glass of beer costs about 17 or 18 cents US. Ah, who doesn't love a deal?
Then I stepped in the bathroom and saw this:
This, my friends, is why they call the toilet a throne. Only in developing countries with a rapidly-accelerating economy would you find something like this in a hotel. It screams austentatious display of money and faux royalty, an effort to make the guest feel like they're important and only deserve the finest in toilet devices. What other way to describe this than awesomely cheesy?
Almost as good was the shower cubicle. It had your normal, flexible hose shower head; a rainfall shower head; six forward-facing shower heads that did not seem to work; and a remote control device built into the shower to control volume, the telephone and a few other devices, none of which work. Only the finest bathroom devices for the guests of our botique hotel!
Well, that and a computer that took at least five minutes to load a gmail screen. To the hotel's credit, though, they were the happiest, friendliest staff I had ever met, and never said "no" to any request, no matter how strange, such as where to find a dish only served at lunchtime in Vietnam at 7pm at night. In Beijing, they would have said, "Nope, too bad for you" at a similar request. In Hanoi, they hunt down three options for you.
2) The first day there, I wandered down by a lake that dominates the center of the old quarter. I sat down to read on a park bench, and over wanders a one-legged 40-something woman speaking great English, wondering what language I spoke. When I said, "Espanol," she looked at the book and called out my ruse. Then she wanted to know if I wanted to "be charitable" and buy some oranges from her. "They're great oranges!" she kept on insisting, as I turned down her requests, despite her insistent asking of "Why don't you want to be charitable?" After a few minutes, she walked away, and after a few minutes, a younger woman sat down and pulled out a booklet, and asked if I could help her.
OK, I thought, here comes the usual scam of "Help me practice my English," which then usually devolves into some sort of scam to further discussions over tea at some shop that ends up being painfully overpriced, because they're all in on the scam to rip off the tourist.
But lo and behold, after 15 minutes, it was obvious that this 25-year-old only did want to practice her English and pronunciation. There was no effort to sell or go somewhere; she only wanted guidance on how to say certain names. For the first time in Asia, someone saying they only wanted to practice English did just that, and when I got up to leave after about 25 minutes, she thanked me and that was it. After 3 years of attempted trickery, it was oddly refreshing to meet someone who told the truth about practicing English.
3) Vietnam is a country of entrepreneurs, though. But even those touting you bootleg street maps and Lonely planets aren't overly pushy. Unlike other countries, when you give a firm "no" once or twice, they leave. They don't glom on to you like a burdock stuck on your pants. They just move on to the next potential sale. Again, refreshing.
4) Strange scooter moment: Seeing a guy on a scooter, making a right-hand turn on a street, as he checked his email on his hacked Iphone, or more likely his Iphone knockoff. Now that is multitasking.
5) I stopped in at a tavern that a coworker had recommended; said coworker used to hang out there when he worked in Hanoi 5-10 years ago. He described it as "a saloon in the finest sense of the word, filled with lots of strange characters." And when I went in the first time, there were only two people at the bar, both gweilos, with one trying to explain to the other the theory of relativity, and how time, distance, speed and gravity can all bend and warp depending on their relationship to each other. The explainee was having a hard time grasping this, and I was having a hard time grasping that someone could go on and on about this for more than 20 minutes at a bar. But, again, refreshing.
The view from inside a new cafe, La, where I stopped for a late lunch on my first afternoon.
If you look above the spring rolls I had for lunch, you can see someone going by outside in the bicycle taxis that cruise around the Old Quarter in Hanoi.
While I was eating at said cafe, I saw this outside: a pizza delivery cycle. Apparently, one of the mediochre pizza chains, Pepperoni's, in Hong Kong has opened up an outlet in Hanoi.
The view from the stool on my final night in Hanoi, while I was having beers with some people I met in halong bay. Hanoi, while pretty well developed, is still developing, and all of your phone, cable, internet and other wires are just bundled together in a chaotic mess above your head, instead of buried underground, like in Hong Kong.
A glass of bia hoi, the fresh beer, along with some shredded dried cuttlefish the drinking companions were snacking on. (Women will come by with the cuttlefish; if you want one, they will beat it with a wooden stick to tenderize it, then shred it for you and give you some hot sauce to dip it in. Every half hour or so, she will swing by to see if you need more sauce. The fish had to cost no more than 50 cents US, and a number of women just roam along the street, from drinker to drinker, seeing if they want food to go with their drink.) One glass of said beer costs 3000 dong; with the current exchange rate at about 17000 dong to a dollar, said glass of beer costs about 17 or 18 cents US. Ah, who doesn't love a deal?
posted by throm at 11:43 AM
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