Borders Real and Imagined

Entering Laos provokes a strangely peaceful sensation in the core of your being. Don't know if it's in your muscles or your mind. Makes you feel almost lightheaded. I wouldn't normally generalize, but Grey felt it too- and at this point, that makes it popular opinion. Later we read that Laos is 85% undeveloped vegetation, so maybe it's just the overwhelming amount of oxygen you are inhaling. Either way Laos seems to be a country that lives already in your heart.

I woke at dawn sitting in our filthy bus at the border crossing. Everyone was asleep and snoring, including the driver tucked under his blanket. I climbed over legs and arms and out the door (which, by the way, was never closed the entire journey- maybe it didn't close.) The sky had that rich blue color it has when it is just about to give birth to blaring sunshine. I wandered around looking for a place to pee and wondered at the sleeping line of trucks and buses. Ahead of us lay Laos- wildly mountainous and thickly forested- and behind, Vietnam, a country that felt organized and well behaved to an extreme, structured [do I mean communist? I'm undecided about this- although certain things would catch me by surprise like the "Voice of Vietnam" which would blare over loudspeakers for an hour and a half every morning and evening -is that Welcome to the Monkey House where they keep getting their thoughts blasted? RIP Kurt Vonnegut, by the way, he will be greatly missed.] We have met many people by now on our journey that have been traveling through South East Asia and Laos is a universal favorite.

But at this moment, I was still in Vietnam. As I finally spotted the WC there was a man- the only one awake- who stood in front. "One Dollar!" he demanded. Oh- this country has me too well trained for early morning entrepreneurs! I laughed and went inside. When I finished he was still there. Insistent and whiny "ONE Dollar! One Dollar!" I finally fished something out of my pocket- 100 Cambodian Riel's (probably less than a penny) and he happily stuffed it into his pocket. I was definitely ready to leave Vietnam.

We have many theories on why Vietnam has such a reputation for trying to rip travelers off- one is that tourism is like a new business. People come in and want to buy something and you just try to see what you can get away with- will they pay $100?? Maybe. If not, try again. I really was tired of being asked to buy something every 5 minutes in Hanoi. If it wasn't the moto bike drivers who would hoot and wave from the corners "Moto Moto!! OOOO!!"- it was the Pineapple Ladies with their double baskets, one on either end of a long pole sitting on their shoulder blocking your way "MAdame, very good, Madame, very sweet pine-apple!" and if you tried to get away they would swing their heavy pole on your shoulder and try to get you to take a picture.. And the most aggravating- the picture takers. I am used to people wanting to take my picture (ooo a really pale foreigner!) by now- in India a man even filmed me while I ate- but in Hanoi, people started throwing their babies at me without explanation!! I would grab its chubby body in shock and look up as the shutter clicked.. I would be surrounded by the rest of the family in descending height before I could even say yes or no. Once I was having a quiet moment at the lake and looked up to see TWO people surreptitiously photographing my solitude.. I hated it! I was being haunted by Hanoi paparazzi! I became paranoid and unfriendly- I disappointed dozens of posing families as I handed the baby back.. I became almost a robot in the streets-after saying a million "kam on- no thank you"- I finally walked quickly staring straight ahead and not responding to anyone. Like a good New Yorker.

But I travel to be someone different. To be someone who watches people and cultures. Someone who is happy to meet strangers. Hanoi threatened to make the most foreign of cities a maze of avoidance and reluctant exploration.

BUT I did enjoy the city until I became burnt out. We made some friends who are expats living in Hanoi and working at different NGOs as well as other travelers. I loved going to meet my friend Akiko on her lunch break from saving the world at the UN or having dinner with our two Australians friends we met in Halong Bay before they headed off to Thailand.. Staying in one place affords you the time to make lasting friendships, and to explore every small corner of the city.

While Gregg was involved with his invention, I became the walker. When I first moved to NYC I used to walk from Columbia U to the Village and think nothing of it- I was putting the city together in my mind. In Paris, I would walk home to Monmartre from seeing my friends at Centre Pompidou. And I'm sure I did the equivalent in Hanoi. I think I got to see most of the city- even the sections that the people from Hanoi have probably never visited. I loved doing this. The city is made up of several beautiful lakes and I would come across them suddenly- a small oasis in the honking city of motorbikes. I would discover small coffee shops and write and read and think. Hanoi was a halfway point and a strange feeling of temporary permanence.

At the same time I find that traveling for so long made stopping difficult. Although Grey was busy with his enterprise, I started feeling the slightly lost feeling of the unemployed wanderer. Everyone else was living their day to day lives and racing around... I had nowhere important to be and my main concern was not to get run over in my daily walks.. (there are virtually no sidewalks that are entirely walkable and no one stops at red lights, I felt my heart in my throat at least 5 times a day when I thought I was about to be run over.)

Grey and I did skip town for a few days and go to Halong Bay- an unbelievable turquoise paradise with strange limestone hills jutting out of the water and small floating villages. I collected shells (ok, too many) and felt such peace that I realized I had to go into nature for longer.. So at the end of a couple weeks in Hanoi, I left for Sapa on my own.

Ah Sapa. There is a particular energy that I acquire when traveling alone. It's almost like an electric charge of capability, of personality. I define myself and make all decisions alone. I entered the night train with a nervous excitement- I literally haven't been alone for one night in 5 months! The compartment was empty until the last second when 3 middle aged Vietnamese men filed in, huge confused smiles, only a few teeth among them. We signed a few nonsensical things to each other and finally one seemed to understand "New York." He got very agitated and happy and unpacked his entire bag. Underneath all of his neatly folded shirts lay a plastic wrapped copy of Hillary Clinton's new book!? He waved it around the small room and we all had a real bonding moment. And then we all went to sleep. I had a tiny moment of uneasiness when they double locked the door, but I felt safe among the ardent fans of a strong but corruptible woman.

I arrived in the city in the foothills and jumped in a minivan to Sapa. It was raining and misty and the drive was stunning. Up and up and up. There were backpackers in the minivan chatting, but I was in alone mode and stared dreamily out the window. On arrival, the town was tiny and perched on the edge of a terraced mountain. Rice fields and women in bright tribal dress everywhere. It was surreal and chilly. I ran from the other backpackers and found a small room ($5) on the 5th floor of Queen Hotel with windows on two sides overlooking the mountains. My view was vast and exhilarating.

For the first day it rained and I wandered alone through the streets peering into the misty crevices of the far off peaks. I thought that if it stayed like this I wouldn't mind, I would just wander in my raincoat and drink hot chocolate. But the second day I woke to a clear sky. WOW. I couldn't tell what I was missing before- the surrounding mountains were unbelievable. Unfortunately by this time our camera had broken (along with my heart,) so I have 2 disposable cameras full and there will be no photos posted of this time... That day I headed down the mountain to Cat Cat, a 4 km hike. I bounced down, inhaling the mountain air and shouting "SINJOW!!" to the locals like a deranged blond mountain goat.. At one point I tried to get a small boy to walk with me past a large water buffalo standing in the middle of the road-- they seem friendly, but they have huge horns... He looked quite confused but patiently smiled and let me creep behind his small frame before turning, right before we were clear, sweetly saying goodbye and then pushing/slapping the massive buffalo up the hill with a little stick. He was its tiny shepherd. I felt very humbled.

I spent the next 5 days trekking through the villages. I took a guide for most of them, and one night I did a home stay in a Black H'Mong Village. The woman are dressed so incredibly, I wish I could show you pictures- they are cooler and funkier than anyone I know. And so sweet. There is a certain selling insanity that you have to overcome before being able to enjoy these women. They are even more persistent than the pineapple women in Hanoi. But I think because I was traveling alone, it was easier to talk to them. After I told them I wasn't going to buy anything they still wanted to talk (maybe because they hadn't given up, but it didn't really matter..) I made friends in particular with one woman, Su. I actually did buy something from her- the leg wraps that the women wear that look so punk rock they could be wandering the East Village. While she sewed them we sat and she told me about her life. A difficult one. She is 39 and looks like she could be my grandmother- her face is lined and she has no bottom teeth. She had her first child at 15 and her 4th at 22 before her husband left and was never heard from again. She told me that life in the village had been very hard until 1998 when the tourists arrived. Her babies used to cry with hunger. But now, she assured me, life is good. I looked at her small, wrinkled hands sewing my leg wraps and wondered at her idea of a good life... Poverty can make everything we have seem like too much. As we talked, a lot of the other women gathered around and contributed small pieces of the story and showed me their leg wrap designs. I sat on the sidewalk with them for a long time. I saw her almost every day after that and when I left, she gave me a small wet kiss on my collarbone.

My home stay was also an amazing experience. I stayed with a woman and her two children and 4 French speaking travelers (2 Quebec, 2 Swiss) and our guides. For dinner we were joined by 2 French and their guide. Despite the language barriers (I think I was the only one who spoke French and English and the woman whose house it was spoke only Vietnamese and her tribe's language) we drank homemade rice wine and toasted to the demise of the world (Sarkozy had just won).. and laughed hysterically until we fell onto our mattresses hidden inside gauzy mosquito nets. I woke to breakfast cooking on the little fire pit in the floor. The village women were the most persistent saleswomen in the world- they had their wares on display as I stumbled to the bathroom outside at 6am!! The walk back was a little more difficult after the long evening, but we got to visit the Red Zha tribe whose woman wear these bright red pillow like things on their heads and shave their foreheads.. And they are some of the most beautiful women I've ever seen.

The one disturbing part of the villages was the plethora of TVs. Shacks with dirt floors, fire pits, no running water and a satellite dish outside the door. Even at my homestay they had the television blaring through our dinner. I'm not sure why this disturbs me, TV should be a

revealing link to the outside world, entertainment, culture and politics-- but the night I sat at dinner there was a game show on, and although in Vietnamese, it looked as stupid as anything I've ever seen on television in the U.S. It felt like another form of mind(less) control. The little boy couldn't even tear his eyes away to say hello to us.

It was hard to leave my little nest in the clouds, but I missed my gregoire and we needed to get to Laos, so I descended. In the train I realized how many friends I had made in my short time in Sapa- in my car we gathered- Nicole from Hawaii, Nina from South Africa and her husband from Denmark, an Irish couple, we all traded stories and tips and talked most of the night. Even in Hanoi I kept running into people I'd met in Sapa...It felt like what it had been- a small town. And us, its refugees.

Books read.

The Lighthouse by PD James- sitting in the lobby of the hotel room. felt like a nice quick well written treat.. I like a good murder mystery once and a while, even if I have to stay up all night to finish it.
Fortune's Rock by Anita Shreve- not my favorite. I've seen this author around so much in these traveler's bookstores that I decided to give her a try. People in it were kind of moralistic and annoying. I was relieved to finish it so I could sell the book.
The Drowner by Robert Drewe- I enjoyed this book- had no idea what to expect, an Australian writer that I'd never heard of before.. It jumps around a bit but so do I, and it felt like a voyage that I could understand- part magical, part very real..
Pinkerton's Sister by Peter Rushforth- I keep picking this up, getting impatient with all the reference-rich writing and putting it down.. could someone tell me if I should stick it out??

xxxxfz

PS The worst part of being so far away is not being able to be with your family when you should be... sending all of my love and constant thoughts to sweet Kevin, Alex and Pixie.