After my fifth time back in Vietnam, I think the spell’s finally broken.
There have always been two groups of people in my mind – those who love Vietnam, and those who hate it. I’ve friends in the latter camp, who carp about the heavy traffic, the money-grubbing vendors, the rude cyclo drivers, the perpetual honking. And I’ve always seen what they see, having been cheated by cyclo drivers before, driven away from a pho stall by a vendor who didn’t seem to like Chinese tourists very much another time, and spoken to coldly by sharp guesthouse owners more than once. But I’ve also been mesmerised, in some strange way, by the abundance of strong iced coffee, luxurious restaurants, endless fields, still lakes, and human drama enacted in pyjama trousers and with babes in arms on the city pavements. I have returned year after year to cheap streetside meals, the promise of tailored clothes, evocative homegrown artwork and elegant lacquerware.
The jostling crowds at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi this time round started to get under my skin, however, and I was particularly riled when the inexplicably enraged female security personnel tried to snatch my mom’s purse away from her, probably yelling about how we weren’t allowed to carry such sacrilegious objects into the presence of Uncle Ho’s sacred body. And the Ho Chi Minh Museum, such a strange delight the last time, was crowded beyond belief this time. All the air-conditioners in the city seemed broken, and we resorted to taking two showers a day (one a mid-day shower) to obtain relief. The friendly che stall owner had disappeared and the cool dessert was now only served in the evening, when it wasn’t needed quite as much. The price at Cha Ca Va Long had risen again, this time by 30,000VND (S$3), and with no pungent purplish nuoc mam provided, even. (It’s a condiment, people – give it for free!)
I would still go back, with good friends who enjoy good food, good art, and slow sweltering walks through old quarters. Hoan Kiem Lake was as beautiful and entertaining as ever, with its snoozing policemen, active old ladies, colourfully clad middle-aged dames, and creative bridal couples. The food was still pretty amazing – crabmeat soups and shredded chicken porridge being my new discoveries this June. But there is no longer that magnetic pull that was so difficult to explain or qualify to people who know me.
