Have You Heard About the Girl From New York City?

March 6, 2010
Hue – Hanoi

After a rather uncomfortable experience during my first overnight bus ride, and at the advice of my tour guide in Hue, I decided that flying to Hanoi was the best course of action. Unfortunately, due to the end of Tet, all flights were either sold out or very expensive. I booked what I was promised was the next best thing: the overnight train, in the exclusive “soft sleeper” cabin (not to be confused with the “hard sleeper” cabins, which are just plastic slabs). While I'm sure the train was safer, I'm going to go out on a limb and argue that the comfort level might not be that much more than the bus. I was in a 4 bunk cabin with a mother and her young son (I'm going to guess 4 or 5). The top 2 bunks were empty, which immediately put me in a good mood. While neither mom nor son could speak any English, the kid was extremely well behaved and really funny. He repeated everything I said with perfect diction and tone; it was as if he had supersonic hearing. We shared some food (spring rolls, oreos stuffed with strawberry crème, rice and omelette) and settled in for the night. The cabin was filled with a perfect almost-too-cold-air con chill as we locked the door and curled up under the blankets, hoping there were no bedbugs. I must have woken up a couple of hours later due to the fact that I was drenched in sweat. The air had gone off somewhere between Hue and the DMZ, and that's where we slowed to a NJ Transit NE Corridor pace, which is to say, pretty damn slow, especially when you are trying to sleep. Stop, start, stop start, stop short is how it went. The stifling heat and lack of circulation didn't help my comfort level. At about 1AM we were the lucky recipients of two men who stood in the doorway as if they were waiting for us women to give up our bottom bunks. I flashed the guys my ticket, pointed to the bunk number, told him there was no way in hell I was about to move, and tried to go back to sleep. I was met with filthy looks and both assholes deciding to sit on the edge of our bunks and smoke out the cabin door until they were good and ready to climb up above. I wanted to give them a piece of my mind, but took a cue from the submissive woman with her child and rolled over, hoping it would end soon. Safe to say, I did not get any more sleep for the rest of the ride, especially when one of the guys started snoring. (except, of course, until we pulled into Hanoi at 5am and nobody woke us or made any announcement that this was actually the last stop.) Gotta love train travel.

Day 1 in Hanoi started with a 4 hour wait to get into my room and shower, then a walk over to the famed Kangaroo Cafe, run by a friend of a friend. I was instructed to go see Max, as he's a great guy to hang out with and also runs the best tours to HaLong Bay. Sure enough, he'd been waiting for me. I spent about 3 hours chatting with him (well, rather, listening to talk and talk and talk), having a good meal and meeting other people in the cafe. A British guy sat down at the table next to me to have some bangers & mash, “the best in the city, mate.” I don't really like a heavy English breakfast, but I'll admit, it did look tasty. He moved to Hanoi 6 months ago to teach English at the university. I was grilling him on the city, things to do, where to eat and meet other expats, etc. He asked me if I wanted to do some sightseeing the following day. It dawned on me that he might be asking me out on a date, but I was not sure if he was just being British and polite. Either way, we agreed to meet at the fine arts museum the next day.

I passed the rest of the afternoon at the prison, deemed the Hanoi Hilton by POWs kept there during the American war (as it's called here). No site that I've been to here has been very crowded, and this was the least of them all. I paid my nominal entrance fee and was probably one of 10 people in the whole prison. Walking through any prison is creepy enough. When you're walking through a dimly lit prison built by the French in the 1800s alone, and you almost knock into the 100% authentic guillotine that killed god knows how many prisoners, it's enough to turn your stomach. Couple that with the distinctly Vietnamese tradition of filling cells and shackles with emaciated yet lifelike dummies in distress, and the knowledge that all of these rooms have 200 year old doors with locks that still very much work, and it was enough to make me sprint out of there. Where to? The only place I could fathom going after such a long day – the Hotel Metropole.

The Hotel Metropole is possibly the most famed hotel in Hanoi, if not in all of Vietnam. It was an important landmark for journalists during the war in the '40s, and has hosted the most elite guests over the years. Graham Greene, Charlie Chaplin, Roger Moore, even Joan Baez have all earned a place in the hotel's history for various reasons and their favorite cocktails and entrees are noted on the menu. (Charlie Chaplin liked apricot brandy mixed with gin and coq au van. Roger Moore is a martini drinker off and on the silver screen. Graham Greene is rumored to have written part of A Quiet American while sipping Bacardi daiquiris at the bar.) It was almost demolished in the mid '90s until the fine folks at Sofitel bought it and restored it to its original splendor (albeit minus the veranda).

After a very long day, weeks of Tiger Beer and Dalat wine, dirty public transport and equally dirty backpackers, I was ready for a properly poured cocktail. I planted myself firmly at the bar and ordered a cosmopolitan. I started chatting with a group of Australians who had obviously had one cocktail too many. One of them started singing a Manhattan Transfer song to me so loudly the bartender had to ask him to keep it down, “Ooh cool cool kitty have you heard about the girl from New York City...” His wife was none too pleased by his behavior, but I thought it was pretty funny. Sensing her disdain, I turned my attention to the two older gentlemen seated next to me who turned out to be from Red Bank, NJ. Talking to them made me a little bit homesick which actually wasn't the worst feeling. In an hour's time, I spent more money on two drinks than I've spent on any accommodation in Vietnam. The ambiance, the conversation, the serenade and every single civilized sip was fully worth it.