journal entry - back to Hanoi, 1/5/11

Ken and I do lots of walking around the city of Hanoi; we have visited several of the museums and much of our time apart from this activity is spent observing the street life. It has been very chilly, cold with damp breezy gusts of wind - I would say in the low 50's and today I understand that they closed the schools because of the weather.

Early mornings, I try to get out and walk around Hoan Kiem Lake with the rest of the residents of Hanoi. This settles me for a decent (partial more like it) night's sleep. Our room becomes a shoe box at a certain point if you spend too much time there but it is efficient. The Vietnamese are very stylish; gorgeous shoes, heels, boots and lovely fashions can be seen in the shop windows and the women are usually decked out in contemporary feminine dress. The area where we are staying is called Old Town; with motoring motorbikes, sometimes a clogged nuisance in the streets and to your psyche. Some of the streets get so jammed with these machines, their incessant noise, and they seem to own the city.

Yesterday, I stumbled onto a cool temple with services going on and I caught a lively assortment of the neighborhood religion. At this temple there were five stations of Buddhas, people bringing alms, food, money, many saying their fervent prayers as heavenly and steady smoke plumes of smoldering incenses were sent off; burnt offerings from the huge urn that is usually in front of the temple yard making for a hazy view became almost toxic. These exchanges bring me to patiently sit and observe. I don't connect to their ancestor worship or their Buddha's but I do know, that upon entering this environment, this quad, I do experience a sense of peace and a time to reflect. I acknowledge this spirit world and I find myself feeling indebted to something greater than the surface and to the worldly.