Day 33 - Sunday, Nov. 17 - Hanoi to Siem Reap

National Museum of History

Aside from packing, this morning is for visiting the National Museum of History.  (There are two buildings but the one that interests me is the one that starts with prehistory.)  I have to be out of the room - my home for the past four days and nights - by noon, even though the cab won’t take me to the airport until 3 o’clock.
       Getting to the museum... aye, there’s the rub.  Seek and ye shall not find.  Whether because of the streets blocked for pedestrians only on the week-end or not, the taxi driver drops me off at a busy intersection and points vaguely in a direction where nothing looks museum-ish.  After a bit of foot-fumbling, I ask at a hotel reception desk but they don’t know; then someone points farther down the street.  Still no museum.  So I ask at a McDonald’s (yes, they have them in Hanoi!) and they look it up and point in another direction.
       Then and only then do I find my savior:  the red HoHo Tour Bus from two days ago.  The driver says, “It’s two minutes that way” in yet another direction... and it is!  God love ‘im!  (The whole problem could have been avoided if tourist maps didn’t say it was on Trang Tian Street, which is long, but rather at Number 1 Phan Ngu Lao at the corner, as indicated on the museum’s ticket, when I finally get it.  Much clearer.  Remember if you go.)

For 40,000 dong ($1.75) - including entry to the annex nearby (that second building) - I have more artifacts than I have time.  I had two hours before my Great March; now I have only one left.  This magnificent colonial building used to be the French School of the Far East.  The ground floor is prehistory; upstairs is more recent.  And as it’s Sunday, there are families there with their children, which makes it fun.

       One family is explaining to their children what those strange-looking dummies are:  the ages of evolution - Australopithecus, homo habilis, neanderthal, cro-magnon and homo sapiens sapiens.  But the children seem more curious about the strange pale woman in jeans with a camera:  me.
       Upstairs a group of elementary school age children is supposedly listening to the explanations of a docent.  I say supposedly because one boy, undoubtedly tipped off by my decidedly non-Asian appearance, mouths a silent English “hello” to me and I answer in kind.
       Display case after display case, I get a glimpse of Vietnam’s history.  Prehistoric vestiges are pretty much the same everywhere around the world, on the surface.  The bone and ivory jewelry from 500 BCE has its own unique style though.  Some of the figurines from the Red River Valley have different animals, perhaps; they’re pre-Dong Son, which means pre-Bronze Age.  But there’s a wood-cut stamp that looks a bit like a four-leaf clover that’s interesting because it was used to make a form of decorative “tattoo” on the skin way back in 2,000-1,500 BCE.  The funniest object comes from that same era:  a stone carving from the Dong Noi cave (near Laos) that looks like Mickey Mouse!

        From the 2nd and 3rd century there’s an amalgam of coins “melted” into a clay pot, turning it into a free-flowing object, and an oil lamp shaped like a chicken, plus a model of a fortress taken from a Han-era tomb.  Yes, Han.  Along with France, China also colonized Vietnam, and not for a hundred years but for one thousand (111 BCE-980 A.D.)  Among the other treasures, there’s a 10th century terra cotta mandarin duck, 17th-18th c bronzes and a model boat, phoenix heads and lions from the 12th century, plus a jewel-encrusted gold crown/hat from a Nguyen Dynasty emperor who ruled sometime in the 19th century.  So many, many lovely objects.
       But I have a room to free up.  And time is tight.  When I exit the museum, I’m a bit lost (see above).  A rickshaw-pedaler shouts at me from across the street.  I’m about a half-hour’s walk from the hotel, but why not.  I’ll take my life in my hands crossing the streets anyway, so why not have this experience as well?  This old man is old enough to have known the French as a boy, and he does speak French, calling me Madame when he points and says “The Opera House.  Paris” as we pass.
       Given the week-end’s pedestrian streets, he drops me off at the top of the lake and I walk back to the hotel in time for a quick shower and a slap-dash packing.  (It’s only a two-hour flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia.)  I enjoy a long talk with Rosie, my guardian angel, and give her my card to stay in touch.  Then a final nem/white wine lunch on the rooftop terrace, where by now I'm on very friendly terms with the barman, and the taxi is there.

       Given that my college years date from the Vietnam War era and that some of my friends were sent there but even fewer came back, it's strange that, of all the places I've visited so far, I feel the most free to strike out on my own in Hanoi.

High school class taking graduation photos on Opera House steps

Not much to say about the flight.  Just under two hours but Vietnam Air managed to serve us a light meal.  Customs leaving the country is every bit as icy cold as at arrival but a bit quicker... just stamped my visa “used”, no in-depth inspection of the info page on my passport or feeling of the paper it’s printed on.  Cambodian immigration isn’t much nicer, but more efficient; Americans buy a visa upon arrival and it’s a chain process.  One guy takes your passport and inspects it, passes it to Guy Two who asks for $30 - cash only, in U.S. dollars (no receipt) - passes it to Guy Three (all guys) who stamps the visa (good for one month) and staples it into your passport, then passes it to Guy Four who’s gathered up all the passports from all the lines and passes them to Guy Five who calls out your name.  Then it’s immigration.  By then my suitcase is wondering what happened to me!
       As probably did the greeter from the hotel, whom I am very glad to see.  He escorts me out to his tuk-tuk (motorized rickshaw) and off we go.  The breeze is refreshing because it’s 8 pm and it’s still 28°C (82°F) outside with a humidity of about 248%.  As it’s dark, it’s hard to get an idea of the surroundings, but they’re resolutely green, and I hear crickets for the first time since home in the States.  After 20 minutes on a path running parallel to the car street, a kind of glorified bike lane, we arrive at the hotel.  Bella, my Khmer Rosie, arranges a guided tour for tomorrow, shows me to my room and leaves me to sleep.

Cambodia