A lesson in Vietnamese transportation

As I’m moving into week three of my ISP, I’ve decided that it’s time to finally start doing some work. I promise I really have been making attempts, but the delay in getting an advisor pushed back when I could do my field interviews. Funny thing about doing research in Vietnam, sometimes it is nearly impossible. The nature of the government here requires you to get a permission letter before you can start to do any interviews or often times even meet with organizations. Then there’s the whole issue of not really knowing the language, minor detail.

This past Friday and Saturday I returned to Cuc Phuong National Park and the Muong village that we spent the night in earlier this semester. Unlike last time though, I was traveling by myself and didn’t have the luxury of having a private bus to charter me around. Thus began my lesson in Vietnamese transportation. I figured that since I was already taking a bus to Cuc Phuong I might as well try to take Hanoi’s local bus to the bus station. It was a good attempt, but ended in me taking a motorbike to the bus station. The bus station was unlike any form of transportation I’d ever experienced in the U.S. The minute I stepped in the building I had at least three Vietnamese men trying to tell me where I was going. After I bought my ticket I then had a personal escort to my bus all the while being asked if I wanted to buy some bread, some snacks, some of anything that could possibly be sold at a bus station. When the bus left Hanoi it was only about half full, but the way the system works is that each bus has a “manager” of some kind who is responsible for collecting money and more importantly, hanging out the door yelling the bus’s destination in hopes of picking up more passengers. Within a half hour the bus was full and within the next hour slowly began to empty again--you can request to stop anywhere on the way to the bus’s final destination. When the bus stopped we were still about an hour and half from Cuc Phuong, so I hopped on a motorbike for an hour and a half ride to the Park.

The next day one of the Park’s guides took me to the Muong village and acted as my interpreter. As uncomfortable as the back of a motorbike can be, nothing is better than the view you get. I was surrounded by a patchwork of green and brown fields with a backdrop of mountains all covered in green vegetation. Even though I’d been there before, riding on the back of the motorbike put me so much closer to everything. The weather is a bit cooler now and with the sun out on Saturday, the temperature was pretty ideal. My field work didn’t really go as I planned, which is ok, that’s what can be expected. I was hoping to hear some Muong folklore from the women in the village, however I found out that the tales are almost completely forgotten. The head of the village admitted that the knowledge of their culture primarily sits with the elders of the community and most of them are so old that many thing are completely lost. And, even an area as remote as this village has been unable to keep from feeling the pressures of the economy. Whereas before the villagers had the time to have cultural festivals, the head of the village explained that the people must now work harder and more often in an attempt to compete with their neighbors and make more money. What is interesting though is that the Muong still continue to communicate with each other in their local language, which is only passed through oral tradition--the traditional Viet language is taught in schools. If time and money would’ve permitted, I really would’ve liked to visit more Muong villages, especially those in even more remote areas and not at all connected with the National Park. Maybe in the future I’ll have the opportunity to look further into this topic.

My trip home was fairly eventful. I picked up a bus to Ninh Binh on which an elderly woman spoke to me in Vietnamese for about half the trip. Unfortunately using the little Vietnamese I know can become an issue because then those around you wrongly assume that you’re quite fluent in the language. I did manage some communication though and as much as I complained about those Vietnamese lessons, they were totally worth the time and frustration. I almost didn’t get off the bus in the right place, but again I experienced some more Vietnamese kindness and was practically shoved off the bus at the correct depot (I’m not being sarcastic, I was really appreciative). Another bus back to Hanoi and then (because I was feeling extra adventurous at about 7:30 p.m.) I jumped on a local Hanoi bus. Naturally the bus went in the opposite direction of where I wanted to go and so in a moment of weakness I took a taxi ride to finally get back. All was not lost though because at the end of the night I found possibly the best sandwich in all of Hanoi. It involves some meat from a kebab, lots of vegetables and a bread that is best described as a toasted pita. Ahh, life is still good in Vietnam.