Better Call Jane and John
While on this trip it is impressive that we have big flatscreen TVs in every room, but the evening movie selection is not always so broad. Good thing I loaded up my iPad with the 5-seasonal series that represents a prequel to Breaking Bad, called Better Call Saul. It is a finely crafted story about a lawyer’s (actually two lawyers’) slippery ethical path and the unrequited love that accompanies it all. Those themes alone make it a unique and compelling set of stories. In many ways the conflicted nature of conservative mainstream rule of law life versus the fun-loving, free-wheeling scam artistry that Saul represents are a metaphor for the conflicted nature of my feelings about where I am in this SE Asia trip.
Yesterday, while describing something I had done in the past, I used the expression “back in the day”. It seemed to trouble Melisa since she didn’t understand its contextual reference. Well, on this trip, my “back in the day” is meaning when the Vietnam War was raging. If there was one thing I remember about the War (other than countless common knowledge Vietnamese locations like the Mekong Delta or Bay of Tonkin), it was that Hanoi = Jane Fonda. In some ways, her PR visit to the belly of the beast was like Tucker Carlson going to Moscow amidst the Ukraine War. Given how much I like Jane and despise Tucker, I am even conflicted with that analogy. Nevertheless, they both seemed wildly unpatriotic in their time. Once again, I am struck by the conflicted nature of my feelings about that long-ago war in this distant and exotic land. I can’t call Saul about this one, but maybe I can call on Jane to help me.
Tomorrow, we too go into what used to be the Vietcong belly of the beast. We will fly into Hanoi for a four-day visit. Laos touched on that still-raw Vietnam nerve of mine, but Hanoi will grab it by its throat and hopefully wrestle it to the slippery mat. Think of it like me going into a Vietcong tunnel, with the rice and fish heads still cooking in the abandoned village cooking pot. No room for my M-1, all I have to protect me is a knife clenched in my teeth. Again, I can’t call Saul, but maybe I can invoke the strength of character by calling on the memory of John McCain and his trials as a POW.
I have heard lots of good things about modern-day Vietnam as a rule, but now is the moment of truth, time to buy the t-shirt, so to speak. I really don’t know what to expect, but I do suspect I will see a few flattering portraits of a youthful Jane Fonda, and perhaps even a handsome John McCain. They were both conflicting images of ethical righteousness and bravery of one sort or another. One represented the radical left of the anti-war demonstrators of the 1960’s and the other represented the “love it or leave it” attitude of the patriotic right of America that did what was perceived as its duty to country and went off to fight an undeclared war in SE Asia. While I was never as far left in my thinking as Jane Fonda, I was clearly not standing strong with our efforts to fight the people of North Vietnam in a war we seemed unable to win at any cost. I loved Jane Fonda as an actress and actually loved her whole family since Henry Fonda as Tom Joad in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath was a hero of mine in a liberal sense and Peter Fonda was my motorcycle spirit guru from Easy Rider in all his libertarian and drug-addled glory. But I also loved John McCain for his valor and bravery under the harsh circumstances of his confinement while a POW at the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison (a place we hope to see while in Hanoi). The stories of his valorous comportment on behalf of his fellow prisoners seemed noble. I straddled that line of liberalism and American patriotism that only a young man who longed to be an American but didn’t want to be a war-monger, could be.
In many ways, I have been very late to visit SE Asia, compared to my other worldly traveling friends and it is because of this conflicted view of what went on in the late 1960’s both in America and in my youthful head. So, today I will face that moment of truth and finally set foot on the soil of not just Vietnam, but the home capital of the Vietnam that we fought so hard against and that Jane Fonda tried to aggrandize with her visit all those 55 years ago and in which John McCain was imprisoned for so long. I was not a soldier, but in my mind I was doing battle with all the forces that were trying to make me one. Today, my personal physician is a Vietnamese woman who’s heritage I do not specifically know, but into who’s hands I am placing my health and well-being. I guess it is better to face the beast than continue to try to avoid it, but I will be taking Jane and John on my shoulder as I do so. I will stop this historical reminiscence at this point to allow this story to complete itself once I land in Hanoi and have gathered my initial first impressions. Jane and John, please help me reconcile what I am about to do.
My Vietnam saga started early. The Luang Prabang airport is akin to a one-horse operation. When we checked in at the Lao Airlines desk they asked for our Vietnamese visas. Upon careful inspection, they noted that there was a one digit discrepancy in my passport number on the visa, which was, indeed, the case. I hadn’t noticed it because it was a 6 instead of a 5 and it had been transposed during the online visa process by their scan of my passport. They said that it would cost $25 for their Hanoi agency to fix it. No problem. Then they realized it was Saturday and no one was home at the agency except for the people that charge $135 (in cash) to make the fix on a weekend. Still no problem. In the meantime I was beginning to think that Vietnam really didn’t want me and that I would be flying direct to Siem Reap in Cambodia (my Cambodian visa seemed to be in order) and hanging out until the rest of the crew caught up with me. When I handed the representative the $135 in cash, he checked each bill like I was a forger and asked me to replace the $100 bill twice and the $20 bill once….oh, and the $5 bill once as well. It seems counterfeiting is quite a thing in these parts. Problem solved and so now we are all off together heading to Hanoi.
The Oriental Jade Hotel where Mike booked us apparently has a mechanical problem that will not be solved until tomorrow, so we will be spending tonight in the nearby O’Gallery Premier Hotel and then transferring over to the Oriental Jade tomorrow. For our trouble they are gifting us a host of extra services and discounts, so at least they realize this is an inconvenience. I’m hoping that’s the end of our Vietnamese FUBARS.
We landed in Hanoi in a rainstorm with the temperature 40 degrees lower than in Laos. If Vietnam was looking for shock and awe, they found it. Kim and I sailed through immigration on the Fast Track that my $135 paid for. The airport was just as big and modern as any 5 million person Western city can boast. The drive into town was more or less normal and then we got into the thick of the city. What Bangkok was twenty-five years ago, Hanoi seems to be today. The sheer number of two-wheeled vehicles in the city tell us that Hanoi is still playing development catch-up. Fifty years ago, that’s what Rome looked like. Mexico City and Rio were like that 35 years ago. And, like I said, other Asian Tigers went through that transition in the 90s, and I suspect much of India won’t even get there for another decade or two. Sooner or later, maybe Africa will follow suit.
So, first impressions of Hanoi are more of what I expected than anywhere else on this SE Asia trip so far.Jane and John will need to standby for now until we see more in the coming days.