It’s almost midnight and Kuniko and I are sitting in the back of a car heading into Hanoi from the airport. I’m undergoing intense short-term culture shock as our driver honks the horn repeatedly, flashes his brights, and swerves into oncoming traffic in order to get past slower cars and scooters. I’ve never seen driving quite like it – kind of like you see in movies when the characters are driving through a war zone.
I had arranged the driver ahead of time with the hotel, and he cheerfully put our luggage in the back of the car before we sped off into the darkness. Now I’m wondering if it was worth a free ride from the airport. We’ve got travel insurance and right now I’m thinking about where the booklet is and if there is a section written in Vietnamese.
Kuniko and I chat in Japanese to make sure he can’t overhear our comments on the safety of our trip, and eventually the car makes its way into a more urban setting. In the cramped streets we move a lot faster than I would have thought was safe, and from the car I watch out the windows as people drinking in small shops and on the street push each other around and stroll across the street, ignoring the constant blaring of our car’s horn. I see trash strewn all over, and people huddle over steaming pots of food and try to sell goods to passersby on the street.
We turn a corner and I’m still watching out the back window as a young woman is drunkenly slapping a young man when the car stops and the driver jumps out and starts unloading our luggage. Kuniko and I look at each other and then get out. People are watching us from the little shops all around us, the car is blocking most of the road, and scooters funnel through the narrow gap while I try to get around to the back and get our luggage. It is total sensory overload, and I manage to remember to look around for our hotel and confirm that it is the right one before the driver can take off. After a wave to the driver we drag our suitcases inside the hotel. It’s nearly one a.m. in the morning.
I had made reservations over the internet months ago, confirmed a week ago, and the hotel guy is telling us now that he doesn’t have a room for tonight but the hotel next door has a room for us. He assures us that the rest of the nights we reserved are still fine, and his buddy from the hotel takes our luggage and leads us next door. We walk past somebody sleeping on blankets on the floor and I try not to stare and then we start climbing stairs in an older building that I would otherwise not recognize as a hotel. The guy takes us to the top of the building, opens a door, gives us the key and leaves. The room is not a nice one. The bathroom has no shower, the light fixtures are falling off the wall and only being supported by the electrical wire. The floor is dirty. The bed is the good news – it seems reasonably clean and we waste little time in huddling up under the blanket and talking over the first night. We’re on the seventh floor and we can still clearly hear the traffic and partying downstairs. Welcome to Vietnam.
