Vietnam as Nammers Know It

If you travel between distanced towns like 95% of Vietnamese (who can’t afford to own or rent cars), you’ll most likely catch a bus like this one. Even if you got a decent and pricey seat way back at the station, along the way the driver will pick up more passengers at discounted price and magically find space to squeeze them in. Here’s a sampler of your typical bus mates.

It’s like the “Greyhound Bus” in the US, except in Vietnam you’d likely have an actual dog riding with you:

There’s your honking-happy driver, next to him is the unlucky passenger whose balls are being purpled by the stick shift, and there’s almost always an accompanied hustler (lơ xe) – this one is on the lookout for more passengers to pack on to the aisle (he will literally grab the potential passenger by the wrist to help him/her get on without stopping the bus):

There are almost always babies of various ages:

Who, because of the limited space, sometimes crawl on your lap when the mother’s sleeping:

When the bus’ really packed, the aisle is complelely full of people sitting on tiny plastic seats…and when they fall asleep, they can use your shoulders or legs as pillow. In this case, I used my leg to keep this little girl’s head from bumping into the bench as the bus turns:

There are also short-termed passengers, like this girl here – she got on for only 5 km after we passed Hai Van Summit, my guess was that she was going home after helping out at the restaurant. Either that, or that hustler grabbed her by mistake.

There are almost always a couple of grandmas from the countryside. Long-distance buses remain the most economic way to get around Vietnam. You can choose to yield your seat for her, but when she gets off, getting your seat back might require the use of that ol’ blade.  

There’re usually a couple of inconsiderate smokers, like that dude pictured left (he’s acting all cool, like no one’s noticing he’ll blow smoke in the bus tightly packed with old women and babies). The cigarette of choice in this area (central highland Vietnam) smells only slightly better than that moist brown tobaco smoked in water-filled bamboo pipes (pictured right) - 5 more cents will also get you a shot of the potent black tea from the potently-aromatic cup shared by thousands before you.

And when you are tired of checking out your bus mates, look outside your bus’ window – Vietnam’s passing by you, one frame at a time…

It’s really not that bad, really. By the time you manage to get on a cross-town bus in Vietnam, I am sure you are already well in adventure-ready mode. Embrace your bus mates (sometimes literally:) in all of their diversity, have a sense of humor about things, and you will find yourself amazed, enriched, sometimes well-fed, and smiling big all the way.

You’d be too busy chewing your meal to say anything, that’s why.

(L) That dark matter is grilled mountain ram, fatty pork, chewy peas shoot, and refried river fish. (Middle): Could be pig’s claws…it’d be a while before someone finish chewing on these (R) would you like to purchase some dried penises? Tiger’s? Perhaps a pair of mountain goat’s balls? Oh, yah, we also sell silver rings.

Every type of meat in this town seems to have come from deep within the mountain:  mountain goat, various kinds of deer (from miniature ones to huge bucks), jungle cats and foxes, porcupines, tree monitor lizzards, armadillos, to name a few. Only the first 3 or 4 items on the menu are translated into English (deer, mountain goat, river fish)…the rest is alarmingly only in Vietnamese (do bring the Red Book of Endangered Spieces to help with ordering). Except for the “Heo Cap Nach” (literal translation: armpit pig, little piglets hand-carried by tribal Dao and Hmong people into town to sell to restaurants), everything else we ordered required a good set of teeth and a better sense of humor!

(L) Sapa’s main town, elevated view (R) Nguoi Dao Do (”Red” Dao Woman), distinguishable by their red head scarf.

Tired and hungry from the eventful trip up the mountain, we ordered lunch while fantasizing of a hot shower and the first non-moving bed in 3 days. We wanted to eat quickly, then find a place to drop off the luggage and take a much-needed nap before climbing to Ham Rong Mountain (Dragon Mouth). The mountain goat meat came out all sizzling on the plates, smelling great of garlic and butter. With great anticipation, I put down my beer and took a piece.

5 minutes later…

I chewed and chewed, but it refused to budge. I tried to pass time by looking out to the town square…but that only worked for so long. When that heaping plate of chewy peas shoots came out, that was it. My brother called the waiter over and complained (this is the first I have heard from him, because he is extremely tolerant of all wrongness so far), and was immediately assured by the grinning waiter that “oh don’t worry, thats just how people like it.” My brother gave me a look that basically says “I am gonna take this chair and smash his face in…” The waiter scoffed and walked away.  

I stood up and grabbed the waiter, and gnarled through the mouth full: “You don’t understand, we’ve had mummified roadkill of a 50-year-old water buffalo that is far more edible than this.”

Waiter: “This is our most popular dish here, and I’ve never heard such complaint before” 

I spat out the chunk of half-gnawled matter that had kept my mouth occupied, picked up a sizable piece of steamy mountain goat with my chopsticks, and said “Look, I really want to try this mountain goat stuff. I am gonna make you a bet, if you could chew and swallow this piece of meat in less than 1 minute, we’ll pay for it. If not, you gotta go make another plate that we can swallow before nightfall”.

With a mockery smile on his face, instead of chewing, he took the meat and casually tried to pull it apart with his fingers, as if to prove that it’s indeed tender. This calm facial expression changed when he realized that it was not tearable…he exerted more force, but the piece of meat simply bounced right back. So he put it in his mouth and tried to tear it with his teeth…horified to realize that our complaint had merit.

Waiter: “damn, maybe the new souz chef forgot to cut against the grain?”

…

By dinner time, I learned to stay away from all mountain animals (even though they all sound exotic and adventure-promising). But by the time we finished browsing the tribal night market (pictured above), all the eateries were closed…the last family restaurant was closing and about to have dinner when we walked through the door. We pointed at the left-overs and asked to join them for dinner. What did we end up having? Mountain chicken - more chewy meat. Come on now, what/whom does a man have to kill around here to get some domesticated animals!

I want those!

You will need two things: (1) be a visitor in Hà Nội and (2) have feelings.

“Anh cho em thêm 5 nghìn, tiền phục vụ người không xuống xe”, the bike-pumper clapped his hands together and said to me, straight faced and matter-of-factly.

In big, bold lettering that piece of carboard in front of his roadside shop says “Bom xe 2 nghin dong”…it didn’t say anything about the extra charge for not stepping off the bike. What difference did it make whether I’d stayed on my moped?! All he had to do was putting some compressed air in my tire, the process that took a whole 5 seconds. As if to reinforce this newly established rule, his fellow shop keepers started to gather around. Here we go again, I thought. <-Dream-> I slowly got off  my bike, flipped open the seat, and took out my machette… <-/Dream->| <-Realty-> I grudgingly took out a 10 ngin bill, and handed it over to the authority that was <-/Realty->

…

I’ve heard about the subtle discrepancies between Southern and Northern cultures and social correctness, how “they do it differently in HaNoi”. My friend gave me a long list of things to be aware of when I trekked towards Hà Thành on foot, bikes, and train. But all the helpful friends, and all the books I have read about Ha Noi, could not have prepared me for it.

Mr. Thạch Lam, the infamous Ha Noi native and writer, would have been proud to learn that I read his book about old Ha Nội, Ha Noi 36 Phố Phường, three times (the last time on the train). And he would be just as proud to know that I went through Ha Noi without getting into a major fight or shedding much blood.

There are two kind of people in Ha Noi: there are the locals, then there’s everyone else.  Unless you have the Ha Noi accent, you belong to the latter: the potential underdogs, the suckers, and the defensive.

How do you counter this culture of kill-or-be-killed? You become the killer. You need to be just as cunning, rude, and out to get the next đồng.  

When you hitch a xe ôm to get around town (it’s call “xe thồ” in HaNoi), pick the older dudes – they are more risk-averse, knowledgeable, less competitive, and when it comes down to a fight over prices, you can probably take them. The younger guys are too aggressive, full of surprises and tricks, and at the end when they ask for extra money they are more ready to yank your wallet out of your hand and grab what they need/want. Be on the offensive, be sarcastic: “How much does it cost from A to B? What? 20,000 đồng? Did the Middle-East just blow up? Is gas prices at 1 million/gallon now? If not, why the fuck does a 5000 đồng ride suddenly cost 4 times as much?!”. Get the agreed amount ready in hand, when you get to your destination, pull out the exact bill – and only that bill – and hand it to him, and not say 1 word more. Walk away.

When you order food at your average roadside eatery, have patience. Don’t say life-shortening stuff like “how come it’s taking so long?”, or “did you forget my order?”. You’ll get an earful lecture of life’s philosophy on the virtue of patience, the blessing of being hungry to enjoy food more. If you do choose to protest the hour-long wait, do say it like the locals do: “Are you still slaughtering the fucking cow? This motherfucking beef-stew better be good.” When your food arrives, if you bread is stale, don’t make the mistake I made of asking “can you please toast it?” – you’d hear another lecture on bread-making, how toasting the bread would ruin its “natural flavor”, insulting the bread maker, and jeopardize world peace as we know it.

Waiting in line at a popular Phở restaurant in HaNoi reminds you of the DMV in Los Angeles – it is your privilege to be there, to smell the food (and people), and to finally and grateful be handed a bowl of piping-hot Pho. You’d look around for your friends, hot broth spilling all over your hands. Seeing that your friend’s still in line, you’d look for a place to sit, slurping away. If you find something missing or extra in your Phở, tough. Don’t you dare asking for that extra herb or complain about the conditions of your table – another earful, or a simple “không ăn thì xéo” (“get out if you don’t want to eat here”).

There was a tense moment when our bus was being tailgated by another on the one-laned road to Sapa. They tried to pass each other, but neither bus had the power to do so for long. So they competed for the narrow mountain road, cursing and honking, all the way to the next water hole. The other bus’ driver and his hustler arrived 1 minute after ours, and immediately disembarked. Our bus driver, as if foretold of the coming trouble, put down his cigarette and ran to his bus, opening its side panel, and taking out a long metal pipe. His right-hand-man, coming from the bathroom, ran to grab another menace looking skull-crusher. And the four of them, mee-lee weapons in hand, stood in defensive positions in the dirt patch in front of the street vendor, pointing at each other and exchanged insults about each other’s parents and ancestors. I sipped my iced tea, smiling, waiting for a fight that never came. WTF?!

There was a kind of delicate balance at work. The difference between a brain-spattered brawl and just harmless insults is small yet very crucial. If any of the party had appeared to be weaker, or hesitant to react, or even appeared panic…I would had very graphic picture to show you here. Instead, after a little ego-massaging, the drivers and their helpers all stood down their weapons and went about the business as usual.

After a day of being yelled at by people who were supposed to serve me and witnessing all kind of social disturbances in our Northern part of Vietnam, I became an animal. I barked at people who were about to give me the next lecture, I used profanity in every other sentence, I grabbed a glass bottle and stood up at the very first sight of trouble. I was the pre-emptive striker at any sign of trouble, annoyance, ripping off, stealing, robbing, or cheating me out of my dignity and possessions. My Northern accent came back fully by the 2^nd day, and that completed my arsenal.

The reward of my newly learned bargaining and trouble-averting skills: a delicious lunch at Bún Chả Hàng Mành – all very reasonably priced, reasonably served, and I only got yelled at once for calling the following item by the wrong name.  It’s called “Chả Giò” in Saigon and everywhere else in the world. In Ha Noi, it’s called Nem.