vietnam 2
Vietnam is not around the corner as you all know. Right now I’m inside the gigantic Dubai airport, halfway through the journey, waiting for the four hours of the connection to Hanoi. I am lying on a deckchair as one of the gentlemen you see in the photo. I walked km to reach gate A8. On the plane, I saw three films, The First Man, The Martian and Welcome back President. Then I poured a glass of red wine on Barbara’s thigh who pretended not to be upset but asked to change place on the way. That’s not very nice.
vietnam 3
We read everything there was to read. We do not travel for fun but to know. Ours is a journey for intellectuals.
vietnam 4
Little one, with a funny and cheerful face, Luna is waiting for us outside the Hanoi airport. Our guide speaks Italian fortunately and will lead us around North Vietnam on a Transit. But first, it takes us to the hotel where we will descend into the absolute sleep that makes us exceed a ton of jet lag. When we get up and go to the restaurant we will be immersed in the nightlife of Hanoi on Saturday night.
Everything unfolds around the lake of the sword found. Lights, noise, screaming children, young people playing the strange game called dacau, dribbling with a feather, other kids building with square sticks high towers destined to collapse, electric machines that go crazy for the joy of infants, people singing a cappella, concerts. I also find a large pavilion Piazza Italia where they play live Juventus Atalanta between a mini fountain of Trevi and a mini Tower of Pisa, cinema open air where they give “quo vado” Zalone, a stall sponsored by the local Milan Club (but the guy in the red shirt confesses to me that he is rooting for Lazio). And then street food, painters who paint you (could I draw?), bright games. We also come across boys with a cat in their arms that lead them to take some air (polluted). We end up in a bar. Barbara beats every record of crazy risk by ordering a coffee with the egg. Every Saturday night the Old Town of Hanoi has this crazy. Cutting through the crowd, surrounded and overwhelmed by thousands of noisy scooters, untangling ourselves among the microscopic tables where Vietnamese eat food cooked in the street sitting on microscopic car seats, back to the hotel putting an end to our first day hanoiese (hanoica? hanoina? hanoista?). I searched in vain for portraits of Ho Chi Minh. I go to bed wondering if it has always been so the capital of Vietnamese communism.
(I can’t upload the photos, we’ll talk again)
vietnam 5
Let us leave the hustle and bustle of the hustle and bustle of Hanoi towards the deep north, pointing towards the border with China. We will arrive a few kilometers from China and visit Vietnamese ethnic minorities. This is a challenging tour through the beautiful mountains of northern Vietnam (I recommend the tiny one) along with a Transit in a fantastic road without the slightest straight, wide enough to pass a car, sometimes a truck, rarely both.
We’ll eat in unlikely restaurants but fine. We will sleep, tonight, in something like an agriturismo, where the managers, nice, kind, elegant, will dine with us having cooked us a delicious dinner, laughing and joking without understanding a word of what we say to each other and drinking grappa. He, Hang, looks like my editor, Carlo Verdelli. She is a beautiful 45-year-old grandmother. Today I was struck by something beyond the beauty of the mountains rich in hills in the form of steep cones: you don’t see a billboard, you don’t see political propaganda on the walls, you don’t see pictures of Ho Chi Minh, You don’t see priests or monks, you don’t see misery. No child rushes after you asking for alms. And they are all dressed well and clean. You don’t see pagodas, mosques or churches. You can see beautiful valleys full of small paddy fields, also on the slopes, of manicured gardens, of corn fields. We also see many women working. We sleep on what the Japanese call futon, practically on the ground. After teaching Barbara to play burraco. And of course she wins.
Vietnam is not around the corner as you all know. Right now I’m inside the gigantic Dubai airport, halfway through the journey, waiting for the four hours of the connection to Hanoi. I am lying on a deckchair as one of the gentlemen you see in the photo. I walked km to reach gate A8. On the plane, I saw three films, The First Man, The Martian and Welcome back President. Then I poured a glass of red wine on Barbara’s thigh who pretended not to be upset but asked to change place on the way. That’s not very nice.
vietnam 3
We read everything there was to read. We do not travel for fun but to know. Ours is a journey for intellectuals.
vietnam 4
Little one, with a funny and cheerful face, Luna is waiting for us outside the Hanoi airport. Our guide speaks Italian fortunately and will lead us around North Vietnam on a Transit. But first, it takes us to the hotel where we will descend into the absolute sleep that makes us exceed a ton of jet lag. When we get up and go to the restaurant we will be immersed in the nightlife of Hanoi on Saturday night.
Everything unfolds around the lake of the sword found. Lights, noise, screaming children, young people playing the strange game called dacau, dribbling with a feather, other kids building with square sticks high towers destined to collapse, electric machines that go crazy for the joy of infants, people singing a cappella, concerts. I also find a large pavilion Piazza Italia where they play live Juventus Atalanta between a mini fountain of Trevi and a mini Tower of Pisa, cinema open air where they give “quo vado” Zalone, a stall sponsored by the local Milan Club (but the guy in the red shirt confesses to me that he is rooting for Lazio). And then street food, painters who paint you (could I draw?), bright games. We also come across boys with a cat in their arms that lead them to take some air (polluted). We end up in a bar. Barbara beats every record of crazy risk by ordering a coffee with the egg. Every Saturday night the Old Town of Hanoi has this crazy. Cutting through the crowd, surrounded and overwhelmed by thousands of noisy scooters, untangling ourselves among the microscopic tables where Vietnamese eat food cooked in the street sitting on microscopic car seats, back to the hotel putting an end to our first day hanoiese (hanoica? hanoina? hanoista?). I searched in vain for portraits of Ho Chi Minh. I go to bed wondering if it has always been so the capital of Vietnamese communism.
(I can’t upload the photos, we’ll talk again)
vietnam 5
Let us leave the hustle and bustle of the hustle and bustle of Hanoi towards the deep north, pointing towards the border with China. We will arrive a few kilometers from China and visit Vietnamese ethnic minorities. This is a challenging tour through the beautiful mountains of northern Vietnam (I recommend the tiny one) along with a Transit in a fantastic road without the slightest straight, wide enough to pass a car, sometimes a truck, rarely both.
We’ll eat in unlikely restaurants but fine. We will sleep, tonight, in something like an agriturismo, where the managers, nice, kind, elegant, will dine with us having cooked us a delicious dinner, laughing and joking without understanding a word of what we say to each other and drinking grappa. He, Hang, looks like my editor, Carlo Verdelli. She is a beautiful 45-year-old grandmother. Today I was struck by something beyond the beauty of the mountains rich in hills in the form of steep cones: you don’t see a billboard, you don’t see political propaganda on the walls, you don’t see pictures of Ho Chi Minh, You don’t see priests or monks, you don’t see misery. No child rushes after you asking for alms. And they are all dressed well and clean. You don’t see pagodas, mosques or churches. You can see beautiful valleys full of small paddy fields, also on the slopes, of manicured gardens, of corn fields. We also see many women working. We sleep on what the Japanese call futon, practically on the ground. After teaching Barbara to play burraco. And of course she wins.
