Back in Hanoi, it was time to unwind.
New Century is Hanoi’s largest and hippest dance club, and from the sounds of the bass heard even from outside it likely deserved its reputation. Inside, my first reaction was “hey, Communist Vietnam has dance clubs just like everyone else!” Fancy light system, large dance floor with second floor balcony, multiple bars, talented DJ, scantily-clad go-go dancers on raised platforms, abundant alcohol, swarms of young people, etc.
But it didn’t take long for me to feel that something was a little off. Having visited all kinds of clubs and bars all over the globe, there was definitely a different feel to this one. All the elements were there, but there was also this element of restraint to it, this feeling that it was a controlled environment.
For one thing, there were an unusual number of uniformed guards throughout the club. And then there was a second set of enforcers, even more somber looking than the first. Dressed all in black with military crew cuts and earpieces, they looked like the Vietnamese equivalent of a SWAT team.
Plus, there was not a sense of humor among the whole bunch. Their funny bone was surgically removed at birth. When they looked at you, it was with the blank look of experienced situational threat evaluation. Not the kind of guys you want to mess with.
To give you a sense of how under control this place is, I happened to pause and look out over the dance floor from one of the access points to the floor. Apparently this was a big no-no (presumably because I partially blocked potential traffic to and from the dance floor), and one of the guards immediately had me stand somewhere else.
In another instance, I saw this western girl go out on the dance floor with a drink in her hand. Within seconds a guard had come over and ordered her to set her drink back down on one of the bar tables nearby.
At one point, a scuffle broke out on the dance floor. In less than 3 seconds, the music stopped, the lights for the entire club were lit up on full, and the guards rushed the scene like ants storming out of their anthill. The troublemakers were swarmed by the security forces and rushed outside (don’t know what happened to them there, but wasn’t intent on finding out!) And then the music started again.
Later on, another fight broke out, and this time the angry parties started throwing glasses at each other, so there was shattered glass everywhere. They met the same fate and were dragged outside. Waiters took 20 seconds to sweep the glass and the music started once more. Interesting place.
So, yeah, there’s definitely some underlying tension amongst the country’s youth, at least in the North. I remember seeing four girls in their late teens or early twenties sitting at a table, all with their eyes closed and rocking their heads back and forth. At first I thought they were just into the music, but when they kept it up for well over 10 – 15 minutes (perhaps longer, as I don’t know when they started or ended), I realized what they were doing: they were going after that brief high you get from passing out as a result of dizziness.
Anyhow, it was a fun club and a great way to unwind from our motorbiking journey through the elements.
Since we returned to our hotel absurdly late from the club, we didn’t wake up when our alarms rang and had to turbo-pack in 10 minutes to make it out on time the next morning. Destination: Halong Bay.
Halong Bay is God’s gift to Vietnam’s postcard industry, with scores of tall rocky islands jutting out of the calm bay. Instead of doing the regular tourist thing and getting on one of those tourist sightseeing boats, we hired a genuine junk for a couple of days (a junk is a type of Asian boat with two accordion-looking sails).
I’ll have to let the pictures do the talking on this one, as in this case they will tell far more than a thousand words. Needless to say, though, it was great fun to spend time on this boat, with freshly prepared meals and gorgeous scenery. Pascal and I even slept out on the deck that night, under a full moon and surprisingly agreeable weather.
The only real story from this excursion involves, once again, Pascal’s occasional disconnect from his brain.
When we anchored to go swimming in the late morning on Monday, our guide warned us to be very careful with the rocks if we swam out to one of the islands, as they were covered in razor sharp little shells.
Like a goldfish, Pascal deleted this information out of long-term memory within about 30 seconds. Swimming out to one of the islands, Pascal gouged the hell out of his big toe on the rocks, opening up an impressive chunk of skin. In order to avoid this same problem on the way out, Pascal decided to swim away from the island on his back, and promptly clawed open his back in a half dozen places. He was not a happy camper by the time he made it back to the boat.
Miraculously, none of his wounds got infected (we did have antiseptic cream with us, which I applied to his wounds as soon as he got back on board), and everything is healing up quite nicely.
We flew to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) Monday night. Man, what a different place than Hanoi it is. It must use up 10 times more electricity, with flashing lights and lit up neon signs absolutely everywhere. Definitely a much livelier place, and the people are more friendly as well.
So I figured it’d be a phenomenal idea to get a massage. Great way to end our first week of vacation. If I only knew!
In order to ensure a quality experience, we went to a Massage Institute. All of the masseurs at this place are blind, so I figured that between their extra gift for the sense of touch and the reputation of this place we’d get a quality experience. I must be cursed.
First of all, although highly recommended, this place was not very high-class looking. You had to go up a dark stairwell to get to the massage room, which had about eight wooden cubicles with a green curtain for a door.
My assigned masseur, Quasimodo, led me to my cubicle and told me to take off all my clothes. Riiight…
Well, hey, he’s blind anyway and there’s a towel there, plus this isn’t a front for a brothel so it should all turn out okay. I wrap the towel around my waist and lay down on the table.
And then began the most painful back massage I have ever had in my entire life. Quasimodo may be blind but he was prodding, poking and rubbing my back in ways that were ridiculously disagreeable. I mean, I’ve had lame massages before but one really has to work at it to make a massage downright unpleasant.
When he jumped on the massage table, sat himself on my butt and started grabbing random parts of my back between thumb and forefinger and yanking up in giant pinching actions, I wondered if he’d learned his craft in the bottom ofsome dungeon somewhere.
One thing that kind of creeped me out was in the beginning of the session, he leaned right in to my ear and started whispering: “You no talk to reception after massage, OK? OK” What the hell was this about? No clue, but it certainly didn’t inspire confidence.
Now, percussion is a normal feature of most massages, and this one was no exception. Although, I must say, this guy got a little too into it. It sounded like a machine gun on my back (even Pascal, who could hear it from an adjacent cubicle, commented on it later). Some of them felt like downright slaps, and when he got to my lower back he was dangerously close to what a neutral observer would qualify as a spanking. Really not what I was looking for
The final straw was when he started on the legs. His technique was immediately painful, and when he pulled the towel completely up and attempted to start kneading my butt cheeks, I told him the massage was over. I honestly don’t think he was trying to do anything improper, but the combination of creepiness, downright pain and discomfort was beyond my tolerance level. I walked out.
(As a side note, Pascal later told me that he’d gotten an excellent massage during the same time there with another masseur—go figure).
So I walked down the street towards my hotel, feeling quite a little bummed at yet another lame massage experience, when I saw a place that advertised foot massages. Great! I thought. This would be a brilliant way to make up for the previous experience.
Installed in a comfortable recliner fluffed up by pillows, I was given a warm foot bath before moving on to the massage. Well, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m unusually ticklish, and my feet are far from being the exception. I’m big on foot massages, but the tickle factor is something the masseuse has to keep in mind.
For whatever reason, this one did not. She kept accidentally tickling me (unlike the massage in Sapa, she definitely wasn’t doing it on purpose—in fact I think it was aggravating her).
Anyway, my foot and leg would keep jerking when she’d set off a nerve, and at one point she did a percussion move that was particularly intense on my shin and my leg involuntarily shot out. Unfortunately, she’d been kneeling over my legs at this time and my foot caught her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. Oops!
Well, after that she refused to massage my other foot, and suggested a shoulder massage instead. Strike three for Gabriel’s search for a good massage in Vietnam.
That evening, Pascal and I hit the clubs. We started out in the famous Apocalypse Now dance club downtown, which frankly I though was overrated. Nothing special about it except the name and the fact that it’s been there forever. But then we found a real dance club, Rain Forest Disco, and this place was everything a dance club should be. And unlike the place in Hanoi, this one was much more relaxed and fun.
The only downside was the Red Bull I ordered there. It was foul! Unlike normal Red Bulls, the ones they sell in Vietnam have no fizz in them have this horrendous taste. They even come in a yellowish-brown, squatty-looking can, which about sums up my feeling about it.
To our shock and chagrin, the place closed at midnight. Very strange. But some scooter taxi guys told us they knew of other places that were still open, so we hopped on.
I was a little suspicious when the place we pulled up to had no sign of any kind, had the doors shut and only a guy standing outside by the door. I told Pascal to stay with the drivers while I checked it out.
It was like a dimly lit pool hall, with some couches and armchairs to the sides and smoke wafting everywhere. And as soon as I walked in about a dozen women, dressed to kill, came up towards me, touching my arms, shoulders and…you get the point. I went back to our scooter taxi guys and explained to them that when we said we were looking for another disco, it wasn’t a euphemism for underground brothel. It took them two more tries to get it right.
As it turns out, the bar we ended up at was only a block from our hotel and was kind of a hole in the wall type of place, but the music was good and we enjoyed the scene ‘till the wee hours of the morning.
That left only a couple hours of sleep before our next little adventure…
Cheers!
Gabriel
