Viet-Luxury

Today, if I had several hundred spare dollars to spend on frivolous things, I think I'd book myself into a luxury hotel for a couple of days. I'd eat room service, get my nails done, take a bubble bath and watch tv. I believe my urge to snuggle up in luxury is influenced by the weather - it's really foggy outside at the moment, and looks like it will start raining at any second. I also have a touch of allergies, so it would be a great day to be pampered.

Seeing as a 5-star vacation isn't in the cards today, I suppose I'll go for second-best: cats, green tea with raspberries, a boiling hot shower, wool socks and some good music on the Sonos. And, of course, jewelry making. And reminiscing...

Check out some of the incredible places Rico and I stayed while in Vietnam for our honeymoon. The last two photos are from a *boat* that we took through Ha Long Bay. Incredible...





Makes me want to paint the walls of my office and finish decorating!

And I Thought Traffic in Maputo Was Crazy...

Obviously Vietnam takes the cake (and, from what I´ve heard, the situation in other SE Asian countries is similar). This video was taken from the 9th floor of the Sofitel Hanoi with our little point-and-shoot camera. Notice the constant honking, the absolutely random way the traffic flows around the circle, and - my personal favorite - the bicycles that slowly make their way through the motorbikes and cars, many times going the wrong way!



Crossing the street as a pedestrian, as you might imagine, was one of the most insane experiences of my life. You basically step out into heavy traffic, slowly follow a straight line, and watch in amazement as everyone swerves around you like the Red Sea of motor vehicles parting. In several of our hotels, they gave little information cards to tourists that included the cardinal rule for crossing the street in Vietnam: DON´T RUN!

Honeymoon in Vietnam: Day 2 Continued

We´re currently in Graz, Austria visiting my sister-in-law and her family, but we have some down time and I figured I might as well get caught up on blogging.

Still on our second day of honeymoon, after the ceramics factory, Rico and I visited a beautiful little village that is a UNESCO world heritage site and renowned for their traditional paper and print-making crafts.

Apparently every family in the village used to participate in the traditional art, but now only 2 artisan families remain because more money can be made in other occupations. To Vietnam´s real credit, there is a significant and visible effort being made to save these dying artforms, including a strong linkage with the tourism sector.

Photo of two early printmakers, dated 1938. The wooden blocks used today are, in their majority, still the same designs.

Wooden printing blocks for sale in the shop (of course there was a shop, there always is a shop!)

The master printmaker´s workspace.

Embellished walls and ceiling of the wooden workshop. It was beautiful, like a converted temple. Framed on the wall are 4 original prints over 200 years old.

Inkpad covered with rice-based black ink which incessantly attracted flies. This pad was about 1 meter long.

The printmaker at work. Each color on the print is done separately, with the black outline being the last addition to complete the picture.

All of the inks used are made from roots, plants and minerals. The ricepaper used in printing is made by hand, then coated with a beautiful sheen using the mother-of-pearl insides of clam shells.

Honeymoon in Vietnam: Bat Trang Ceramics Factory

Day two in Vietnam consisted of touring the rural areas around Hanoi. We had the luxury of an English-speaking guide and a driver to accompany us the entire time, making it possible to see and understand things that perhaps otherwise would have been a bit out-of-reach. Rico and I constantly marveled at the incredible value we were getting for the reasonable price of our honeymoon.

Our first stop was the traditional ceramic-making village of Bat Trang, about 45 minutes outside Hanoi. We drove past vibrant rice fields, lumbering water buffalo, and old colonial structures - such as a beautiful but slightly crumbling Catholic church from the early 1900's - mixed in with modern constructions, all brightly colored and carefully decorated on the front façade, while the lateral walls were all left in unadorned gray concrete. We asked our guide why only the front parts of houses and shops were decorated, and he said it's in anticipation of neighbors moving in at some point, smashed in cheek-by-jowl, thus obscuring the side part of the buildings anyway. The idea seemed to be, what's the point?

At Bat Trang, we were led on a tour of one of the ceramic factories. We walked through what was essentially a big, narrow, tall house that had been converted into a workshop. We saw the giant kilns ready to be loaded with porcelain vases, and room after room of artisans working on various stages of ceramic production. The air hung thick with clay dust, and the lack of circulating air made us sweat until drops ran down our backs, legs and faces. I wondered how all of the Vietnamese managed to look so clean and composed, when Rico and I were obviously suffering in the humid heat. I suppose after enough time, humans are able to adapt to just about anything...

Entrance to the ceramics factory we visited. Our private vehicle is the one sitting in the driveway, a Toyota model that is quite popular in Vietnam but doesn't exist, to my knowledge, in the US or Brazil.

A woman making the base for ceramic tile paintings. She used pre-made concrete molds, then packed in red clay and used a wire cutter to evenly cut the back of the tile. I used a similar technique, albeit on a much smaller scale, to make relief tile murals while in college.

A man paints on a flat porcelain tile using watered-down colored slip.

Using colored glazes, this woman paints the relief surface of the tiles the woman shown in the second photo was making. She was very excited when I said hello in Vietnamese.

There were about 6 of these ladies working at one table, in what used to be the living room of this house. They worked all day sitting on plastic chairs, with a small fan in the corner to keep everyone somewhat cool. I think I would have passed out in these conditions, but they all seemed so composed.

This woman was one of the master painters at the factory. Here she is illustrating a large tile mural that would sell for several hundred dollars.

At the end of the tour we were, of course, taken to a large shop where we could purchase the pieces we'd just seen being made. This was one of the things that most impressed me and Rico about Vietnam - they are exceptionally good at integrating traditional crafts with the tourism market. Every artisan workshop we visited had a store attached ready to receive international tourists. They even had signs displayed with the per-cubic-meter price to ship a container to the principal ports of the world, as well as FedEx points for shipping smaller items. This is a massive contrast to the state of crafts and tourism in Mozambique.

Rico and I ended up practicing restraint (we got some teacups and small bows), though we were certainly tempted to buy a couple of these larger-than-life porcelain vases and have them shipped to the Casa Rosa. Apparently you can get a good-quality set of these large vases for about US$900.

Admittedly, I was happy to be back in the air-conditioned vehicle!

Honeymoon in Vietnam: Jet Lag and Extreme Humidity in Hanoi

Our trip from Rio de Janeiro to Hanoi was long, though not entirely unpleasant. We took South African Airways from Rio to São Paulo, then overnight to Johannesburg. Rico and I spent the night in Joburg and met up with friends Marcia and Dion, who kindly let us dump our giant green suitcase at their house for 16 days so that we wouldn't have to haul it all the way to Vietnam. We ate shwarmas at the Eastgate mall, then went back to the hotel and promptly fell asleep, exhausted from the trip and all of the excitement of the previous weeks.

Despite being super tired, both Rico and I were unfortunately wide awake around midnight. Damn jet-lag. Thankfully there was a good movie on tv, Seven Years in Tibet, and we watched it until the wee hours of the morning. We snacked on cheetos and chocolate from the vending machine, and struggled to get back to sleep.

The following afternoon we headed to the airport to check in for the next stage of our trip. We were flying Malaysia Airlines to Hanoi, via Kuala Lumpur. Rico and I asked for an upgrade at the ticket counter, and the smart manager behind the desk negotiated an extremely reasonable price for both of us to travel business class, as apparently Malaysia Airlines doesn't offer free upgrades, not even to honeymooners.

Rico and I decided to pay the modest fee, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions of our entire trip. Business class was fabulous! Yummy food (I had satay and shrimp curry), endless entertainment (I watched 10 episodes of Ugly Betty), and seats that reclined nearly to a horizontal position.

It was a good thing we traveled in comfort, because Rico was getting a bit of a cold, and I came down with an unfortunate stomach bug. I won't go into too much detail, but I had what my mom and I fondly refer to as 'fart burps'. It's like belching rotten eggs every five minutes for an entire 24-hour period, and is usually accompanied by other, more severe gastro-intestinal symptoms. It is true misery, not only for the person tormented by such noxious gases, but for everyone around them as well.

To illustrate: About an hour before arriving in Kuala Lumpur, Rico woke up and was stretching a bit when I let out one of my silent but rotten burps. Rico turned around and said, with a disgusted look on his face, "Algum filho da puta acaba de peidar muito mal!" Essentially, some asshole just let out a nasty old fart. He looked suspiciously at the slightly overweight gentleman in the row behind us. Unable to hide the truth, I confessed it was my burp that smelled so bad. "Porrrrraaaa!!" Was Rico's response. "Você está podre mesmo!" Good thing we were already married, because I think these burps could have seriously made Rico change his mind!!

Unfortunately, my sick state lasted well through our long layover in Kuala Lumpur and our nearly 3-hour flight to Hanoi. At this point we were both exhausted, I was feeling ill and running to the toilet every 8 minutes or so, and we had massive jet-lag. All we wanted to do was arrive in Vietnam, get some rest, and start to feel like true honeymooners.

When we finally got to Hanoi, we were in for a shock. I used to think Mozambique was the hottest, most miserable and humid place I'd ever experienced. It's much hotter and stickier here than it is on the most scorching summer day in Rio, the previous hot-weather title holder in my experience. Hanoi was on another level. It was like being in an oven, literally. We both gasped for air when we walked out of the airport - not exactly the weather we'd been hoping for, although I can't say we weren't forewarned by fellow travelers who had experienced Vietnam in July.

The air conditioning of the Sofitel was a relief, as was the beautiful marble shower. We were both finally feeling human again, and it was time for our first outing in Hanoi. Our guide, Phong, took us out to dinner at a very beautiful restaurant in the district where all the embassies are. It was in an old French building, and I fell in love with the decor. I believe the name was Studio 51. Even better than the chic decorating scheme was the food. We had a multiple-course meal including banana flower salad, fresh spring rolls with shrimp and pork, stir-friend vegetables, rice with lotus seeds, and soup with cabbage and chicken dumplings. For dessert we had fresh fruit, and a cup of the strongest, sweetest coffee I've had in quite a while.

We went back to the hotel and collapsed into bed, sadly only to wake up at 1am with good old jet-lag. Rico and I were both starving, so we ordered big bowls of pho through room service. We waited patiently until 6am, when the hotel gym opened, and went for an early morning workout. I never would have believed it had someone told me that on my honeymoon I'd be waking up in the pre-dawn hours and working out every morning!

Those first couple of days were difficult, between the jet-lag, the excruciatingly hot weather, and the general exhaustion we had accumulated from the weeks prior to the wedding. We were happy to be in Vietam, though, and had to keep pinching each other to believe that we were actually there, traveling in such luxury, so lucky to be on honeymoon!

Club 51 in Hanoi. I fell in love with the warm color scheme and the black and white photos on the walls.

Dinner was delicious, but I was sooooo tired, and a bit worried about the state of my stomach after being ill on the trip over. Turns out it was all okay, and I was able to enjoy the meal without a problem.

Rico looking tired after a long trip, but definitely satisfied after a good meal.

Our first 4am bowl of pho. I became addicted to that noodle soup! Especially delicious when eaten in the middle of a king-sized bed in a fluffy hotel bathrobe!