my wand3rlust: theatres

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Day 35 - Perfume Pagoda

Arrived back in rainy Hanoi at around 6am without a hotel. I was actually supposed to take a Halong Bay tour for 2 days and 1 night starting today, but the tour was cancelled due to the incoming storm in the area. This was a major bummer since most people recommended that I go see the caves in the area, and I wouldn't be able to reschedule since I already booked my flights to the Philippines by then..

I ended up booking a one-day tour to see the Perfume Pagoda 100km outside of Hanoi in the Ha Tay Province. It is a major religious site for the Buddhists in the area. It consists of many different Pagodas within the grottoes in the area. Like the annual trek to Mecca for Jews, many Vietnamese Buddhists pay a visit in large numbers to the Perfume Pagoda in the SpringTime. The rivers are flooded with metal boats taking them to the shrines.

Since it was (very) low season, we were able to take these boats to the Perfume Pagoda in peace, without having to fight for space in these low boats, that could easily tip over with the slightest shift in weight from one side to the other.

I met two Californians from Simi Valley on the tour. It was funny because I keep trying to guess where people are from when they speak English, and I couldn't tell if they were from the United States. I think I'm overthinking it now, since I still can't tell an Aussie accent from an English. Maybe I just need to hear it more...

Since it was rainy, we were able to take some pretty cool pictures of the waters overflowing throughout the Thien Tru Pagoda (Pagoda Leading to Heaven). Unfortunately, I was not wearing the proper clothing to enter the temples, so I was only able to take shots outside.

After that, we took a cable car up the mountains to the Huong Tich Cave, which was a huge cave that the Buddhists came to visit. The Pagoda in the area is called the Pagoda of the Perfume Vestige. Since I didn't get to see the caves of Halong Bay, I think this cave somewhat made up for what I missed. It was probably the biggest cave I'd ever been in, and hopefully I can top this sometime and somewhere else on my journey.

On the boat ride back, I talked with one of the tourmates from California who competes in a sport called “Adventure Racing.” You basically are racing to get from one location to the finish line, using only a compass and a topographical map, without the use of a phone or GPS. There aren't many other rules, and you can bring money to trade with the people you meet. Some of these races last for days, and the more professional players compete in some of the most exciting places around the world. Anything can happen, and some people have had to get evacuated because of injury or sickness. In fact, one of his friends ended up contracting a disease of some sort that the doctors don't know the origins of, and a tumor continuously grows on his body, which he has to drain every so often. I asked him how you can call for help in the event of an emergency, and he says that most people purchase some sort of a GPS signal that you can press to call for help.

His brother lives in HCMC and works for Nike, which naturally lead to my curiousity in the labor conditions of the workers there. He explained, at least from his brothers' accounts, that Nike has vastly improved their record on labor conditions for workers, and that currently, Toyota is being more closely criticized (or maybe Apple in China should be, given the number of suicides in the factories). In the past, it was hard to be accountable for the conditions of workers since Nike purchased different products and manufacturing supplies from different companies/factories and was less knowledgable about how these workers were being treated. Now, there is a lot more pressure from Nike to these suppliers to maintain proper working conditions for the workers. I asked what the wages for these workers were, and the tourmate said it was camparable to what the people living in the areas were making, and although it may seem like a “sweatshop” wage to Americans, it was a decent wage for the people living here. You wonder why everything is manufactured in countries all over Asia...

After we arrived back in Hanoi, I took the opportunity to head to Hanoi Cinematheque again to catch the latest movie. This time, it was Biutiful starring Javier Bardem and directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. It was a bleak view of the life of a man living in Spain and finding out he is dying from cancer. Probably the weakest of the 4 films by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu I'd seen (my favorite being 21 Grams)...

Boat Ride to the Grottoes and Pagodas

Thien Tru Pagoda

Cable Cars to Huong Tich Cave

Huong Tich Cave

Huong Tich Cave - It sort of felt like I was in line to ride Indiana Jones at Disneyland

Huong Tich Cave

Ha Tay Province

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Day 29 - Hanoi, South China Sea Protests, Fine Arts, and a Water Puppet Theatre

We arrived in Hanoi at around 8am and were left at a bus station away from the main part of town. My GPS wasn't working on my phone so I couldn't gauge how far away we actually were to the epicenter. Another moment of vulnerability for the foreigners on the bus, and we were, of course, attacked by the mob of motorbike drivers hoping to get business. There was a guy there that sold us some information on an available hotel, and I ended up just booking it because it was cheap and I wanted to get out of there. Turns out, after I checked into the hotel, I noticed that 2 of the other groups of foreigners also ended up booking here. A switch in power between buyer and seller when we are lost in the city...

Hanoi is a big enough city to explore for days, but small enough to make the exploration on foot, if you'd like. It is bursting with life, art, music, and culture. The former capital of Vietnam as well (Before HCMC and Hue), there is so much French influence penetrating throughout the city. All the old governmental buildings and landmarks have elements of French architecture. It's also much cleaner than HCMC.

A random fact that I read in my Lonely Planet guidebook was that many of the homes and shops in the area are not wide, but very very deep, which explains why they call these structures "tube houses." In the past, the government would tax the property based on the size of the front of the building, which is why the facade of each house was very narrow, but very deep - a way to cheat the system. Nowadays, when you wander the streets, there are plenty of narrow, dark alleys you can explore. Some lead to homes while others lead to restaurants and other businesses. Each address could have many different businesses, each with a letter to separate each structure deep in the alleyways (e.g. 42A, 42B, 42C, 42D Hang Buom Street).

I spent the morning reading through my guidebook to plan my trip for the next 4 days. Many of the landmarks had strict visiting hours, and most of them were closed on Monday. I came on a Sunday so I had to plan it all right so that I could see what I wanted to see. I ended up booking a ticket for tonight to see the famous Water Puppet Theatre show. It was a "must-see" in both the guidebooks I was using.

On the way to the theatre, I happened to be right at the frontline of a protest and march against the Chinese regarding the territorial dispute in the South China Sea. A couple hundred people were marching the streets with signs saying "Chinese Government - Peace in Speech, Violence in Action," "Justice for Vietnamese Fisherman," "Vietnam and Philippines Together Fighting for Justice!" and "Paracel Islands and Spratly Islands Belong to Vietnam."

Afterwards, I headed to a couple museums, and there are a ton of museums here, to check out some Fine Arts. I was used to seeing a lot of relics and artifacts uncovered, but it was nice to take a break from that to see some other contemporary arts - mostly propaganda, silk paintings, oil on canvas, and lacquer paintings. The museum was only allowed to showcase government approved art, so everything inside was only things the government wanted you to see. There were plenty of pro-government and pro-military paintings that showed only positive interaction between the soldiers and the villagers.

From one museum to the next, I went to the Museum of Vietnam Resistance, which showcased all the resistance movements that occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries, from resistance from the French to the Vietnam War. There were plenty of original documents, weapons, and pictures, but I didn't really get much of it. It was probably a good time to hire a tour guide..

Walking around the city some more, I saw that at every park I wandered to, people were playing badminton or using their feet to kick those "birdies" over the net. Headed over to see the Water Puppet Show, which was a 50 minute performance with an orchestra on the side. The stage is basically a pool of water, and little puppets are controlled by people from behind the stage. The entire show was narrated and performed in Vietnamese, but it was fun nonetheless to witness this unfamiliar art.

At the end of the night, I walked the night markets trying to find new sandals because the other sandals I bought in Hue were making my feet blister. The street vendors in Hanoi are harder to bargain with! I've purchased sandals twice in Vietnam, once for 40,000 and once for 60,000. The starting price that they offered was 100,000 dong, and I bargained 40,000 but they just said no...not even counteroffering. I did this about three times before I started getting antsy. Some of the shop owners didn't even care to make a sale, just sitting there watching me peruse through the goods. This was something I was not expecting. I ended up settling on 85,000 for my pair of sandals after an hour or so of sweating and walking in pain...