Drones, downpours and dodgy money

Hello, Wilson.
This e-mail is out of time sequence because I can't always follow a normal schedule when traveling. You can just cope with it.

I'm starting this the morning of September 2. I'm having breakfast on the 8th floor of the May de Ville Legend Hotel. The coconut jelly treat is rubbery, the blueberry drink is barely more than slightly sweet water, and the toast is white bread which was probably sliced by monkeys before it fully set up (accounting for its raggedy appearance).

fortunately, this morning the crinkley noodles, which look like jumbled ringlets of Shirley Temple's  golden tressess, were thoroughly steamed and there are no crunchy parts.

In case you haven't noticed, today I'm being a grumpy old man. I wish I was back in the Mai Chau villages where the food was really good and you couldn't get lost in a maze of streets. Instead, I'm on the 8th floor of my $23 per night hotel watching the dragonflies--which you occasionally see at ground level--flit back and forth like Predator drones  in search of the few rare terrorist mosquitoes which are rumored to show up in Hanoi every now and then. (Hanoi seems to be a sanctuary city for mosquito-phobes.)

I came up here not quite rested from the adventure of getting caught in a sudden deluge last night, and my clothes from yesterday still are drying out in the shower. But, hey, it's going to get better, because today is Vietnam National Day, and pretty soon I'm going to be in the (hopefully) dry streets to see how the locals celebrate their 71st anniversary of nationhood since the end of World War II.

But about last night: After returning to Hanoi from the hinterlands and spending the evening in the ritzy May de Ville Old Quarter where the food is delish and there's even a swimming pool, I returned to the May de Ville Legend, where students and tightwads like me hang out.

If I had just stayed at May de Ville Old Quarter, I would have loved getting soaked.

I processed some photos, napped, and then headed out after 8 pm with my GoPro strapped to my chest to film night life. I didn't attach the waterproofing back plate to the camera. This was to be a candid street movie with the locals not realizing they were being immortalized. It would include sound. Fortunately some of the sounds I recorded you will never hear.

I made my way down a bending street to the Newday Restaurant, where I purchased a pork dish as well as a smoothy (after some reflection on whether it would make me sick--it didn't).

But when I tried to pay, the restaurant wouldn't accept my money! At breakfast this morning I made a photo of the offending lucre: (The salt & pepper shakers were essential to keep it flat,)

The offending 100,000 dong note

The offense, enlarged

See the problem? Somebody nipped off a corner of the bill! Doesn't matter that I purchased it from a money trader in Tukwila. I had to provide a 100,000 note with no corner nips. So that's a loss of about $5. Dang. Be careful at all currency exchanges, folks.

I walked around the street a little bit afterward, checking out the evening bustle, when I felt a few drops of rain. I knew what that means. I and everyone else on the street began hoofing it--but not fast enough. my rain hat was in the room. So was my backpack, which had my rain slicker.

This was not good. Check out the photo above of the couple huddling uselessly beneath an umbrella, hoping they don't get clipped by the vehicles racing by.

Can you imagine walking in a dark labyrinth of uneven curving streets that resemble a hall of mirrors, where the puddles can be ankle deep, and vendors are maintaining drainage by sweeping out the gutters onto pavement that became so slick it's like you are on roller skates as you plod, while  motorcycles and autos splash by and rivulets of water find you as you crouch between the awnings?

Before the deluge, there had been strings of cheerful lights criss-crossing  the streets. I expect leaving them on was not an option. My glasses were steamed and besotted and refracting the headlights and neon glare. I couldn't see anything clearly. I felt like a character in the Jonathan Swift poem, Description of a City Shower, which could have been written about this particular Hanoi cloudburst.

I wanted to post the video online to give you the truly surrealistic experience of the unworldly blurry search in the dark wet world of Hanoi's narrow streets, skirting pools and staring into oncoming headlights, but get this--the dang GoPro movie software is no longer working (and at this writing, neither is the camera!) Dang! (Or something like that.)

I resigned myself to getting soaked and just walking back to the Legend, but I couldn't find it. After sloshing around in circles and backtracking from dead ends, I ended up standing on the steps of a small shop, trying to purchase a rain slicker from the shopkeeper who was using her hair drier while the skies put on a light show better than anything you see in a heavy rain in the Midwest.

Inside her shop a vendor dries her besotted hair before telling me my money is faulty.

Lightning momentarily illuminates the streets, creating a kaleidoscope of glares through my soaked glasses.

10,000 dong, she said. I offered her the 100,000 bill. She wouldn't take it. Remember? Someone had nipped the corner. DANG! fortunately I had a smaller bill. Then I sloshed my way back to the Newday Restaurant, which, fortunately, I could find. My street map was soggy and in tatters, but still usable. Sort of. There was a break in the rain, and a  restaurant employee helped me make my way to the Legend. I offered him my 10,000 dong raincoat--only slightly used--for his walk back. He graciously declined.

Since my editing software isn't working, you are just going to have to settle with those screen captures from my Windows video player. The images you see were taken with my GoPro turned slightly upward to keep water from getting into it. That's why I'm one of the featured character actors in this video--at least my nose is. Glad I trimmed those hairs.

It's probably just as well that you are not getting sound, because there is no way I can cut out my vocalizations, and that is nothing I want to share at this particular time.

The desk clerk laughed as I dripped my way into the lobby and slid into the elevator. I tried not to growl.

I should add that when I watched the unedited footage afterward, I broke out laughing when I listened to my running commentary. (I said that? ! ? ! ? !) But it wasn't funny at the time. Fortunately,  God wasn't listening. With all those lightning bolts at Her disposal . . .

Love,
Robert, and Jean Baptiste