A Love that caught me by surprise....

1-5-2011 - Vietnam, Hanoi

A love that caught me by surprise.....

This was supposed to be a few-hour stop on the way to the legendary Halong Bay. However, little did I know that my train shall land here at 4 AM. Not much happening at that hour. So, joining a falang couple in search of their guesthouse, I ended up at a clean and friendly space to continue my sleep. The guesthouse staff was kind enough to let me stay another night, counting it only as one day. So, I figured, why not explore Hanoi for a day, since it's gifted me so unexpectedly with a place to lay my head.

I generally follow the "blink" principle and trust my first impressions. This city, though, has turned out to be a major exception. My first reaction to the uncontrollable flood of incessantly beeping motor-bikes, dirty and randomly food-standed sidewalks and a jungle of people moving through them was something like what a baby does when you offer it something it considers nasty [hands/feet forward, grimace + possibly, a protruded toungue]. However, then I got a decent map and saw a giant lake I immediately felt pulled to - half-way across the City. Since "bridges are for those who can't swim," I opted for walking. 

Pretty soon, the beeping motorbike sea has merged into an accordion-like soundtrack to my exploration, as I gazed at the high-fashion curvacious dresses at low-fashion prices sit daringly on impartial blue and pink maniquens gazing into the streets, where street food was fried and boiled live [in the case of shrimp]. I saw a lady pushing her baby and a small child ahead into the oncoming seemingly unregulated traffic that has merged around them like a school of fish around a rock....it takes a certain trust, I found, to walk like that....I gained it as I went. The seemingly frantic pace of life that struck me at first has begun to show its rhythm, showing little lacunae of peace [though, not so much quiet] in the street coffee shops and cafes with dripping buddha fountains and water bridges....The street dirt was somehow balanced out by the contentment in the eyes of the street chefs working their magic and the timeless elegance of Shehrazade-like bright fashions forever striving to be a part of that world through the infinity of their glass cases....as by the fires that sprung up on the sidewalks as the darkness has descended upon the ground. Some fires were surrounded by the locals seeking warmth in the fog-like drizzle that has come, some - by the street chefs and their customers filling the void in the dark. It felt primal walking through the colloidal wetness of the rain, between the fires to the somehow life-giving accordion of the street beeping.....

It was like that when I saw my lake - and not one, but two - separated by a short "neck" of land. Into the water-expanse of the bigger lake, a little inlet made its claim. On the inlet I saw an ancient pagoda, which drew me to itself. I found the courtyard doors unlocked and seeped through, immediately embraced by the veil of inscents...I wandered slightly mesmerized, through the cypress/bonzai courtyard and the mini-pagodas that made company to the stark beauty of the ancient red masterpiece. It turned out, the pagoda was built in ~660 A.D.....and the spirit here felt ancient indeed. In the back, I found a hearth with hungry flames consuming packs of banknotes of all denominations, to which two angelic-faced vietnamese women were feeding the tips of their incent sticks, which curled up like psychedelic tendrils and fell off to join the money ashes..... 

I got some incents too and had my moment with the hearth....then spreading the fire-bug bearing sticks around the little vases - especially, the ones under the Boddhi tree gifted to Vietnam, according to the story, from the original one that Siddhartha has transcended under. It felt somehow comforting spreading little dots of fire on an island surrounded by wetness from all sides - alive, smoking, bright dots that symbolized my dearest intentions....like for my Papa getting better after his recent operation - please, send your good thoughts in his direction! 

The wet, primally frienzied melancholy of this city has somehow gotten under my skin. That sank in on my way back...as I met the eyes of strangers feeling a moment of true presence pass between us....one consciousness looking at itself through two faces....and the next....and the next...It occured to me that this must be how a water molecule/droplet feels moving through an ocean - elusively Wan-Der-Waals-bonding with one molecule and then the next....the weak ties strong enough to hold the liquid together, giving it all of its magical properties....seeing itself and the whole in every new molecule...It is simply the flow. Words feel like a ludicrously crude approximation here. 

I knew I was on track by the muscular blue man in a polo shirt waving his racket amidst the snow-flakes at an invisible ball from behind the glass of some shop. I shivered looking at him. I've seen him before, but he looked warmer before it rained. The rows of emaciated silk-clad tailored ladies have escorted me back to my street....I love the fine silks. A part of me wants to buy those beautiful queenly garbs and adorn myself in them....and I know that it is not time. Perchance, when I am a lady of society again....or not. For now, I'm just a witness....a ghost drifting through the planet with few desires but to be, to live. It's amusing to watch the ego-craving part rumble in the distance, irrelevant, small...while the witness simply presences that which is, knowing that I can have it all, and choose not to have any of it in matter, but the experience itself. To the witness possessions seem like a burden and nothing more....

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