It's 8:00 pm and I'm laying on my bed in my underwear like a pancake, under the fan on high. It's hot, humid, and sticky. But I'm not going to complain because this is the beginning of the hot/wet season and the weather will get worse, in all aspects. I finally get up because my eyes start to get sleepy and I should get something eat. I contemplate every night where to have dinner. I can afford to eat at street vendors but I'm really picky which one. I've eaten at many many pho (noodle soup) stalls and there is only one vendor I like. It's out of my way, I would have to walk through a sea of tourists and mingling locals in the busy part of the Old Quarters. But I decide that I really want to eat pho.
I put on my shorts, tanktop, grab my bag and room key, and I set off. I step 4 flights down the building and walk through a 30ft long dark narrow hallway, and the only thing that lights up the hallway is the outside street lights. I pass by a kitchen of a household and I smell home-made cooking - garlic and cooked pork - I think of my mom. I pass by a tattoo shop and there I see the friends of the owners watching t.v., and smoking cigarettes. I reach outside and there are children playing badminton on the sidewalk. I take a right to get me to the main road. I passed by a fruit seller laying on his hammock that is tied between a street sign pole and a light pole, he is a sleep, I can easily take a pineapple without him noticing, but of course I don't.
I say chao (hello) to my usual xe-om drivers that chill out on that corner, lounging on their motorcycles waiting for customers. They always say hi to me, even when I'm across the street walking a different direction, they shout "Hi May!" I wave back and this probably makes their day. I take a left around the corner and I pass by a bakery that I go to almost every night to get a tiny cup of chilled caramel that costs 30 cents. But tonight I don't feel like having any. The bakery owner is sitting on the steps drinking tra dang (bitter ice tea), she sees that I'm coming and she gets up and walks to the back of the dessert display, I quickly tell her "khong, khong" (no, no) she realizes that I was just walking by and didn't want any caramel. When she sits back down on the steps, she says "Hen Gap Lai." For the longest time I had no idea what that meant, I always smiled and said bye. I've been taking Vietnamese classes and realized that she was saying "See you again." Then tonight, I said it back.
After the bakery I make a right, I have to pass by maybe 3 blocks until I make another turn. This street is full of hand-made decor, wooden furnitures, brass statues of buddha, straw baskets and tables. When I cross an intersection I constantly look left, right, left, right, so I don't get hit by moped. I look left, right, left, and then right, I take 2 steps a time, and still look left, and right. I let one moped go by and take 2 steps, let one go again, and when I thought I was in the clear; a moped sniped me from the left, my left hand hurts from the snipe, but I get over it and continue walking. I get to the end and I take a left, at the left corner there is a well-known bia hoi (cheap beer) stall, sitting in tiny plastic chairs for toddlers and chatting over plastic picnic tables are locals, drinking, smoking, and laughing. In another table are 2 foreigners eating cha gio (spring rolls), and the last table are 4 girls drinking tra dang, gossiping, and playing with their babies on their laps.
After that corner I make a quick right and I know I'm getting closer to the center...tourists in cyclos. Cyclos are kind of like rickshaws, but these aren't for convenient transportation purposes, they go really slow, and can only fit 1 person. The whole point of them are for lazy tourists to look around the old quarters instead of walking, so ridiculous. Anyways, on a Sunday night, there is an open flea market on one long steet. Packed of cheap trinkets like sunglasses, baby clothes, hair accessories, and purses. I'm a fast walker and I can't stand girls (usually 3 or 4) that lock on each others arms and walk slowly on the sides of the stalls. They block my path and I get annoyed. I go to one side and I say xin loi (sorry or excuse me). I go pass and I'm almost to my favorite pho vendor, 3 more blocks I think to myself. More dodging mopeds, more refusals to ride on a cyclo, and I turn into a dark street that is usually a fresh food market in the day. At night it's dark, secluded, wet, with scurring rats. I get to the pho vendor. The workers recognize me, they probably know me as 'the girl that looks Vietnamese but isn't', and that likes pho ga without green onion and mint. I sit down without ordering and my bowl of noodle soup with no green sets in front of me. I pick up wooden chopsticks from a tray and check if it has the same width from one end to the other, pick up a spoon, clean it with my fingers, and I dig in.
I am sweating now, the hot soup and the weather is not a good combination, but I still love it. I wipe my forehead after I am done, give the owner $1 and we both say Goodbye. I take a different route to get back home. More dodging mopeds, refusal for cyclos, and refusal for bootleg dvds, I see a bubble tea stall. It's really hot and I thought that maybe I should treat myself to an iced coconut drink with tapioca. I have my 80 cent drink in a to-go cup and I walk to the main round-about of the Old Quarters. It is packed. A lot of people coming from their walks around the Hoan Kiem lake or coming from the open market. Scattered, are local vendors selling boiled corn cobs, sliced pineapple and watermelon, carved coconuts with straws, sweet breaded buns, baguettes, and tiny plums, all sellers wearing cone-shaped strawed hats. I decide to walk on the street because the sidewalk had too many people. I felt a drop on my neck and I thought it was my sweat, then I realized that it was rain. One by one, a drop, drop, drop. Lightening strucked, the sky was clear today, and seeing the lightening above me was so cool, it was huge. I continue walking and glancing at the black sky hoping to see more lightening. Kaboom, kaboom, kaboom, thunder. I walk slower. More drops are falling and I notice some moped drivers stopping to put on their rain coats, people are running past by me, stores are hauling in their street signs inside, food vendors are covering their breads, and products by plastic tarps.
The rain is falling hard now, but I still stay on the street. The rain felt so good in the heat. I think I was in my own element. Everything felt so good, the rain dropping on my face, neck, shoulders, and chest, the air-con wind as I pass by an open door of a hipster clothing store or cell-phone shop. More and more people are frantically running past me to either get home, or under any overhead from being wet. Vietnamese shirt-less men are sitting on their haunches, or on tiny chairs drinking tra dang, smoking cigarettes, watch me as I walk by. I think they're wondering why I have this dreamy look on my face. Stores are closing; they pull down the metal sheath that crashes down to the bottom, and secure it with a padlock. A moped driver comes out of nowhere from a building with his wife on the back, she is holding her baby, she puts a hat over the baby's head, and she holds it tightly before they ride into the busy street. I wanted to do something drastic and cliche; I wanted to stand still, close my eyes, lift my head up, and exhale. My body felt like I was on drugs. I don't do what I want, but I wish I did. I continue walking and I see people under tarps afraid to walk into the rain. They look at me like I'm crazy, like Who is this person walking in the rain, not caring at all? That is exactly who I am. I pass by the corner that had the xe-om drivers and the sleepy fruit seller. The xe-om drivers are gone and the fruit seller was still sleeping on his hammock. I think he woke up from the rain, put a plastic tarp over his fruit and himself between the 2 poles, and went back to sleep, he looked so peaceful. I went through the long dark narrow hallway, the only thing lit are the doors to my guesthouse at the end, the tattoo shop is closed, I pass by the house-hold kitchen window and the mother and daughter are cleaning the dishes. I open the doors and I see one of the female workers watching t.v., she looks at me up and down...smiles and says "mua!" (rain). She did a hand gesture of falling rain and we were both giggling about my drenched hair and tank top.
I climb 4 flights of stairs to my room, turned on a low light, took a cold shower, and laid on my bed. I listen to the heavy rain hit the roofs of the houses below my window, I can see lightening blinking through my curtains, I finish my coconut drink, and I turn on my laptop. I begin to type. I am in Vietnam.
