Good Morning Vietnam!

I had a reconnect flight in Taipei. While on the shuttle bus to the airplane,I met two Americans from Missouri. Although my only experience with Missouri was not the most pleasant, I decided to go ahead and share some stories of my Army basic training days conducted in the humid mosquito infested forests of south west Missouri. While we chatted I noticed a young Vietnamese woman glancing my way every so often. Perhaps she knew English and perhaps not. Maybe she had been to Missouri? Maybe she went to Missouri for boot camp like me!? Who knows. What I do know is that I had my first taste of what would soon be my day to day life in Vietnam.

I landed in Hanoi and made through immigration at a decent pace. Once in the lobby I was thrown into the taxi shuffle. Everyone wanted to give me a ride to the old quarter. I had a reservation (one of very few reservations during this trip) and was told by the hotel that someone would be there to pick me up. The problem was that he was no where to be seen. An industrious fellow approached me and when I explained my situation he informed me that there would be no driver waiting for me. He explained that since I had already made reservations, the hotel knew I would be locked in and therefore I would be forced to find my own tranportation. It was a creative story and I might have actually believed it if he wasn't in such a hurry. "I think I'll wait around for a few minutes and if he doesn't show up I'll go with you." Well, before I even finished the sentence a taller fellow showed up beside me and flashed a sign at me that read, 'Mr. Shawn, Win Hotel'. I immediately turned toward my deceitful aquaintance, slapped him on the shoulder, and gave him the biggest smile I could muster. "To the Old Quarter!", I said. And my driver and I were off.

The first thing that hit me was the heat. It was hot for me. Maybe 27 C. The second was the complete chaos found on my drive into Hanoi. The airport is about 15 miles from the Old Quarter. There were motorbikes, bicycles, hand carts, a few cars and even a flock of ducks competing for lane space. I started to laugh uncontrollably. My driver was amazed at first but soon came around and started to laugh with me. He plowed down the narrow road as if he were in a race against everyone around us. We were making good progress although every imaginable object with wheels, and webbed feet, often got in our way. When this happened the driver would lay on the horn. HONK! HONK! HOOOOOOOOOONK! As we neared the city it got a lot more congested. We bumped into motorbikes and they ran into us too. Sometimes the driver would venture into oncoming traffic. Actually, he did this a lot. And when I thought we were certainly going to decapitate 20 motorbike riders coming at us they would magically spilt into two groups and drift around us just like a school of fish.

At the hotel I met Thanh. It wasn't an unplanned event. A coworker of mine introduced us and we communicated by email prior to our meeting. She had offered to show me around her country and I accepted whole heartedly. I've always heard that if you want to travel to Vietnam then it should be with a local. This turned out to be very true...