Armpit Whitening Cream

The past few days we've been taking rest in the middle of the day: lounging around fatly after a big vat of Pho, stretching in hammocks with ice coffee, fiddling on the internet in filthy internet cafes (junk food eating, chain-smoking boys = disgusting mess). The middle of the day is hot: the sort of hot where the thought of motoring one's body around becomes an insurmountable event. Who knew that even one's knees could sweat so much?

So this "siesta" means that we're also riding in the early evenings to finish our day, which means that we join the flocks of Vietnamese school children on their bicycles, leaving school at 5pm. The roads are a river of children and bicycles, girls riding 3 abreast and gossiping tranquilly as trucks honk roaring past. Boys balancing two to a bicycle, one sitting on the rack with legs a-splay. We cruise past them on their ricketing cruiser types, to their giggles and laughter, waves and little peace signs, and unending hellos. We must be hilarious to them, with our oddly shaped bicycles, our bags hooked to them, our funny brown arms.

Americans would comment on our "nice tans!" but the Vietnamese point to our arms and tut-tut. There are no Vietnamese women who would let any part of their skin willingly see the sunlight. Preserving white skin is absolutely paramount here, with "Whitening Shower Cream" and "Armpit Whitening Cream" taking up shelf after shelf at the markets. The women wear at least two layers of sleeves--often a wool or down coat--and a hat, and most often a face mask. In this heat! Coats! Lady Elise and I cannot comprehend how they aren't all combusting. But the other day it was cloudy and rainy (the first day thus far we've had to scurry for an overhang thanks to the rain) and only then did the women have forearms and lower legs. Limbs! Wow.

Not only school children do we pass, but so many things roadside are interesting and compelling. Rice spread out like big golden sand right there on the road shoulder to dry in the heat. We also see drying bundles of colored straw bright purple and green, and then later the intricately woven mats they were for.

Bicycling along, regional themes seem quite prevalent. For instance, recently we've been going through Bonsai District. Gorgeous little miniature trees, displayed beautifully in tremendous pots, some flowering, some with aerial roots stretching like twine to the soil. I hadn't seen any trees like this in Saigon, and now suddenly here they all are. Likewise, recently I think we're beginning to leave the Bonsai district, now heading into Personal Gardens Land, where tidy rows of baby lettuces and beans crouch in people's front yards. All this is very charming and inviting to be bicycling through.

When I'm not admiring people's bonsais or gardens, I'm involuntarily reading the Vietnamese on the road signs. Vietnamese written language is the Roman alphabet, but with letters wearing berets, bowlers, and little shoes. Unlike the Cambodian and Thai scripts which are variations of some sort of Sanskrit thing--and easy to ignore because to me they were hieroglyphics and totally unrecognizable--I end up trying to READ all the Vietnamese writing, because this is what you do whether you want to or not, as a Roman Alphabet comprehending being. But this does me no good. Trung Dung Ngyuen Xue Dong Ding, goes my brain, Phac Phuc Do Nham Da.    Good to know.

Currently we are no longer in the land of $4.30 hotel rooms with used ashtrays, someone's old toothbrush, and dust-heavy cobwebs, the little-red-chairs and dungey restaurants with only pork and rice. We are now in Hue, a coiffed and intellectual city which was once the imperial capitol of Vietnam. The Perfume River runs through the city, with eye-feasting architecture about the streets and perky looking college students striding about.

I ate a cream puff here today.  That should just about encapsulate it. 

But we did not bicycle here. We rode a train from Quang Ngai, because we have little time left for this trip and must choose carefully how we want to enjoy ourselves. The train ride was a refreshing change from bicycling in the heat: it felt almost transcendent to travel so quickly, to move between places effortlessly, leaving a little more energy for contemplation; especially transcendent considering the tracks clung to the side of mountains crawling shouting heaving with greenery hanging over the ocean. On the train we had a sleeper car, stacked tightly with 6 bunks, all to ourselves. Just an afternoon trip, but I still began the nesting process and snuggled into the golden plush blanket and pillow. The train was an old Russian style thing, clacking measuredly along.

In Hue, we stepped off the train into Seattle in May, ie cold and drizzly. But highly refreshing after a clothes-stickingly hot past few weeks bicycling.