Hanoi (tourism and masturbation)

A man driving a motorbike with 50 crates of eggs stacked in every inconceivable direction. Another driving an identicle bike with two (live) upsidedown pigs strapped on the back. Blinding numbers of bicycles and taxis. Streets that change names every block. Hotels that appropriate the names of other popular hotels and kick back money to taxi drivers who take unsuspecting tourists their way. Horns. Constant horns. People cooking on the sidewalk. People doing tai-chi on the sidewalk. People screaming on the sidewalk. Women balancing pounds of fruit like Atlas in a produce department. Horns! Absolute, unfettered, constant mayhem.

I love hanoi.

I have spent three nights here and really enjoyed every second. There's a rhythm that this city has and I can dance to it. I can cross the street while 50 motorbikes are driving, all hellbent on plowing through whatever stands in their way. I know this game.

While here, I made a few stops on the tourist trail. First was Hoa Lo Prison Museum, which is a heavy place. There is a dirth of death in these walls and if anyplace is haunted, this is it. Used first by the French to imprison the Vietnamese, it was later used to hold American pilots who were shot down while bombing Hanoi (including John McCain). Walking through the rows of tiny cells gave me the shivers. As did some of the tortue and murder devices, like a guillotine and iron gloves. This building was misery, disease and death for the people who stayed here in the 20's. The thing is, the pictures of American prisoners don't make it seem nearly as rough. Prison is prison, but snaps of GI's playing volleyball and decorating for Christmas pale in comparison to some of the images of decades before. It seemed more like a holding place than anything else...maybe why it was nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton. Of course, the folks of North Vietnam probably had some uglier pictures of the 70's that aren't prominently displayed...

The Temple of Literature should be re-named The Temple of Wasted Time. This seems to be where tourists go to be pushy, talk on their cell phones and let their children scream. Lonely Planet can suck me. This place looks more like a knockoff setting for Kill Bill than it does something historic and jawdropping. It's like getting to Disney World and realizing that there are no other rides besides It's A Small World.

Last night I did a really stupid thing and jerked off in the middle of the night. It had been five nights and I woke up at 2am riding my dorm bunk like I was in The Preakness. The other nine people in my room all appeared to be sleeping and I did my best to use my comforter like Harry Potter's invisibility cloak. The hangup was that I couldn't sprint to the finish, for fear of rocking the bed. That last ten seconds is a bitch in four wheel drive. After ages I finally committed to my endgame fantasy, which revolved around the guy from the Singapore bridge in the missionary position.

One can forget just how much fluid can come from one's body at a moment like this. I immediately wished that I had not done it. In fact, in the middle of spewing I was having to organize a cleanup plan. This was not a daily wank - the Nile
Delta was emptying into the top bunk of room four, with nine other people dreaming about fairies and spiders around me. "Gnwweaaa" was as close to a moan as I could utter. All of this needed to happen under the covers and everything went everywhere, with tributaries draining out of my midsection. I had no socks for mopping and could not get up, so I took the route a tenth grader would take. I just wiped it all over the side of the bed and fell asleep.

Much of my time here alternated between drinking and walking, with some delecious vietnamese meals inbetween. I ate on posh roofdecks but I also ate squatting on street corners, slurping whatever the locals fed me for $.50. It's a great city to wander for hours. I ended up completely lost two times, which was easily solved by jumping on the back of someone's motorbike for 10,000 Dong. You can blend into the madness here if you have the technique, even if you are a foot taller than everyone else.

Not much more to report. I am off to Halong Bay for a cruise + island trip. More soon.