July 28

Too tired, too sick
To make a blog entry these last days of my trip.
Enough squatting in markets
And eating questionable foods from dirty bowls.
Nevertheless
There was the layered stewed fruit-bean-salty-sweet-chewy concoction
In Hue
And the fruit salad with sweetened, condensed milk and ice
In Hanoi
And I’ll be looking for something similar in Queens
After I’ve survived this thirty-six hour series of flights
On no sleep
A month of no sleep.
What have I missed recording?
Final days in Hue
Water puppets
An art form unique to Vietnam
A surreal spectacle
A pool of water for a stage
Marionettes gliding through the water
Dragons, fish, foxes, princes moving
In a tripped out rice paddy.
Just the two of us, waiting for the performance to begin
Which it did, late, only with the arrival of a tour bus full of
Corpulent Frenchmen—or were they Belges?
Who talked loudly across rows of seats throughout the spectacle
And looked at trip photos on their cameras.
Americans are no longer the biggest philistines on the tourist trail
Lots of comp from all over the first world.
Next day
Cycled out to a beach outside of Hue
Where we were the only foreigners.
Swam in the South China Sea
Ate pineapples and soup and rice crackers
Sold to us by women
(some were just girls)
wrapped head-to-toe
(To keep their skin ‘protected’ against darkening
Here, sadly, too…)
as they walked up and down the beach
With their heavy loads
In hundred-plus heat
Hoping to make a sale or two that day.
The soup lady had one spoon
Who knows who had already used it
We used it, too
Stifling our concerns.
Final day of our trip in Hanoi
Filed past Uncle Ho in his mausoleum
Guarded by men with bayonets
He looked like a Madam Tousaud special
It was hard to get my head around what I was seeing.
Women’s museum
Excellent exhibit on street vendors
Coming into Hanoi from the villages
To make a few dong
Maybe. On a good day.
Female
You see them doing far more of the work in Vietnam
While the men lounge around and play board games and card games on corners
And nod out on opium in their pedicabs
Calling out listlessly for customers.
Fancy, NY-pricey dinner, ex-pat style
With someone we know from college who lives in Hanoi.
I was burnt, useless
And still have a thousand-and-one questions to ask him
About his adopted country.
And now the long trip home.