To the trained eye Vietnam is a world away from India. Yes traffic is still an 'anything-goes' affair, horns are liberally used, and the touts approach you with the same frequency, but the differences are the most interesting.
For one women are everywhere! In India men outnumbered women in public spaces perhaps 6:1. Restaurants were often like male locker rooms, the movie theater in Agra was filled almost entirely with teenage boys, and you only rarely saw women driving. They were also typically far less sociable with a couple of tourists like Erin and I.
Vietnam has been the exact opposite. Far more women work outside of their homes and often not in jobs you'd expect. Next to our guesthouse is an all-female team of contruction workers, lifting heavy loads, pouring concrete etc. for some new four-storey building. Aside from the construction workers they usually dress to the nines too. Good size heels and skirts are typical for everyday business and the type of outfit that might seem slutty or desperate back home, Erin and I agreed, the Vietnamese seem to give a aura of grace and elegance. Saigon featured our favourite Vietnamese hobby, something you would never see in India, what Erin calls "canoodling". Young Viet couples seemed nightly to flock to inner city parks and sit, one on one, and just talk. No touching, no kissing, just boys and girls innocently talking the night away. Without fail every single park bench would be occupied by a young couple, and just as many more sat together on motorbikes (everyone seems to own one) parked one after the other. It felt like a drive-in movie theater from the 1950s. Things are very family-oriented too. Businesses are often family-run with parents handling the cash register and kids waiting tables (or enticing customers in from the street). The grandparents invariably seem to occupy some corner table, caring for the littlest grandchildren or else serenely watching life go by.
The capital Hanoi was a lot of fun for us. This past Saturday we got to experience water puppet theatre, which essentially is puppets acting out stories and dancing in sync to music...but on water! It's a centuries-old Vietnamese cultural tradition that originated as a form of entertainment on wet rice-farming paddies. It reminded us of Team America World Police. That same day we had tickets to the Hanoi Symphony Orchestra and discovered our MTV-era brains are not well-trained for the concentration and attention-span classical music requires of you. As if to confirm our lack of refined tastes in between these two shows Erin and I enjoyed street-donuts sold on sticks (25 cents) and watched Twilight in our hotel room (I think it was the second one). However we did stroll through the French-quarter of Hanoi. It featured all the elegance one would expect from the French: wide boulevards and sidewalks, roundabouts centred by water fountains, beautiful architecture, bakeries with fresh baguettes and chocolate croissants in their windows and shops selling the latest European fashions. I insisted that we sit down at a French cafe - Erin humoured me. I fittingly ordered a cappucino. Erin ordered a beer. She's always making me look like a fruitcake. Next up Laos!
