I have made it here to Vietnam. This is a real, “where to begin?” moment. Every day that I haven’t written, I have compiled numerous ideas in my head about how to relay the experience. I’ll start off by saying that I used to be an extremely sensitive person. TO EVERYTHING. Hurt feelings came too easily. A slight veering over the line by the driver of my car (or the car headed directly towards me) caused a sudden physical jerking reaction (and if you’ve ever driven me, you know it well.) I can’t stand to touch certain types of material on the palm of my hands; it gives me goosebumps and sends a shudder down my spine. So you get the idea. I think Vietnam is going to be like one huge latex apparatus designed to decrease the sensitivity . . . Because here is what walking down the street to go anywhere in Hanoi is like: there is a haze of gray smog that hangs over the city. The street unfolds before you with an endless stream of throngs of motorbikes headed in each direction. An eight year old boy rides his bicycle perpendicular to traffic across four lanes. Cars intersperse here and there, but are few and far between due to the two hundred percent tax on owning one (30,000 becomes 90,000). A sidewalk is not meant for you to take a stroll; a sidewalk is a place to park your motorcycle in front of a storefront, next to wrinkled faced grandmas squatting and selling eels swimming in buckets and rice laid out on flat thin woven baskets. Petit women looking worn out take small steps at an alarming pace with a bar balanced across their shoulders and their wares hanging in baskets at either ends. A man pushing his bicycle is so laden down with ornate flowers it seems as though he is a moving garden among the chaos. You pass an alley which turns out to be a secret path to a stellar restaurant where you can choose what you want to eat live out of the mini aquariums. You get to the point that the sidewalk is completely blocked before you, and you MUST look behind you before you step out into the street to go around the build-up. As you step out your ears are suddenly accosted at close range by a sharp beep beep beep beep beep as you feel the wind of a van swerve around you. The honking never stops, as it is an ancient communication brought to life in this great new century to alert your fellow that you may be about to run him down. Miraculously, all vehicles and pedestrians have a magical forcefield surrounding them which allows a reprieve from ever actually colliding. So that as you walk into traffic with your mother singing “hail mary full of grace” beside you, you can step through oncoming vehicles like it aint no thang. And so, after two days of walking and riding in taxis, I am starting to be less sensitive, because that is the natural course when you confront your biggest fears over and over again and find out that you are fine.
