Ahoy Hanoi!

Too true, "Laos finished." Anytime someone is out of an item, like papaya at a restaurante, they'll simply say, "Papaya finished," in a blunt way that terminates all possibility of compromising on whether or not they happen to be hiding any papaya. The "finished" phenomenon has followed us throughout all of South East Asia.

And it's particularly sad when, as previously alluded to, it's applied to papaya, as there are few delights in this vast and varied world so radiantly pure and good as green papaya salad ("som tam"). The only problem is that they tend to mix it with fish, squid, and/or shrimp sauce (on unripe papaya, mind you), sometimes even despite our protests. This phenomenon has been particular to Laos, where in small cities, much to our dismay, even the mixed vegetables or fried tofu comes with meat of one sort or another.

Fun fact: in Eastern Laos they eat dogs for fun! Fact. And we shuddered to see a dog's leg on a table, even after our friend Edward verily saw a decapitated dog-head, despite being only intellectually aware that pigs can be as smart and trainable and as good of pets as dogs.

Suffice it to say we are happy to be in the sunny state of Vietnam, where the tofu is abundant and even formed into a variety of imitation meat including pork, beef, fish, and shrimp! But unfortunately this state, by which I hope it is understood in the sense of nation-state, is actually in a perpetual state of cold drizzle; during the Spring, capital city, Hanoi, is anyway. But despite, it is a marvelous city and we've made good use of our  mere 2 days here.

Walking out of the most expensive hostel we've stayed at since we left the equally rainy/dreary NYC, at a  whopping US$12/night, we were hassled by a conical-hat wearing woman carrying a big basket to buy her  doughnuts, which we did. In the company of our previously mentioned companions, we then ate instant  noodles w/ veggies and thought it blew half the food we had in Laos out of their shallow waters (being a  riverwise landlocked nation) and hopped on the back of a couple of motorbikes to speed through the alarmingly busy streets of Hanoi en route to the Museum of Ethnology.

These roads bare some elucidation. They were CRAZY! I mean, motorcycles swarming by like admittedly  gargantuan fruit-flies, swerving in and out of intersections with no lights. Major intersections that DO have actual red-lights are generally ignored, as a few of the stopped bikes ease their way through the roar of the
cross-traffic ("Life's too short to wait for a red light," "And getting shorter!").

Bicycle with 800 fish traps on it. Amazing Asia!

The Museum of Ethnology provided us with the great insight that Vietnam is far more ethnically complex than we can ever hope to grasp. There are dozens of Hilltribe groups living traditional lives in the mountains throughout the country and indeed the entire region. We visited several Hilltribe villages in Northern Thailand and also Northern Laos, including the Ka-ren, Lahu, Lisu, and Hmong ( the latter being very important in the U.S. secret war in Laos as guerrilla warriors hired by the CIA). There are 6 major language families throughout S.E.Asia and dozens of dialects throughout Vietnam alone. We're a bit conflicted as to wanting to see their traditional lifestyles---their textiles, instruments, farming practices, distinct architecture, and crazy baskets---while not destroying that culture with our presence and providing them with currency to participate in the mainstream consumer markets. But time makes fools of us all, so I'll figure we'll meet 'em while we can.

We also went to the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum, which provided great perspective into the progression of the  great Vietnamese society over the last 1500 years. Much influenced by India and China, in fact, Vietnam has been regularly trading with lands as far off as the Mediterranean for almost 2000 years. As a result, they had some incredible Hindu/Buddha images from the 17th Century: immaculate meditating figures sitting on ornate dragons or lotus flowers with many faces and innumerable arms splayed out behind them in various "Buddhistic" gestures.

The water puppets show---a modern souped-up version of a Vietnamese folk-tradition---was incredible: puppeteers waist-deep in water stand behind bamboo screens, controlling elaborate, beautifully painted
marionettes with underwater sticks and strings. There were fighting water buffalo, riverwise courtship, tilling suggested fields and sowing same-same seeds, and a dramatic horse race that culminated in an explosive pyrotechnics show of spark-spitting horses jumping through a ring of fire. Also flying dragons! And all the while the band plays on, interesting idiosyncratic instruments particular to Vietnam in an epic flowing soundtrack to the proceedings.

Hope you're livin' large and having fun in the good ol' U.S. of A (or wherever you are :)