It is two weeks and two days since I walked through my own door, the door to my home, after being away also for two weeks. Four weeks, then, a month since my last trip to Vietnam, where everywhere around me there are doors.
Bellhops dressed in long satin traditional robes and hats who open the glass doors to my hotel lobby the night I arrive from the airport. I come sweeping in, even dog-tired after more than 24 hours in transit, and the moment I enter that grand foyer with a big marble table in the center and on the center of that table an oversized floral arrangement, I feel exhilarated. It’s usually 11:00 pm, and all I can think of is laying my body flat on a bed, but still, I have that Mary-Tyler-Moore-in-the-big-city moment, a feeling of being in the center of the action, in a global hot spot, where people come and go at all hours of the day and night, people from every country to this epicenter of the world.
The doors to my own home are parochial by comparison, set in the past, of a certain era, a place, a quiet time. They are large, two entry-way doors across from one another in the foyer of my home. Made of plain wood, birch perhaps, double Dutch doors, one set facing the front of the house, the other set the back courtyard. These doors also stand out. When I walk through them I notice the way they require an extra nudge to open them. They are heavy and sticky, substantial doors reminding me that this is the place where I, too, am destined to pass long years of my life.
Have I always been this comfortable in two places? I close my eyes and see myself striding, yes, not merely walking but striding in and out of those glass doors in District One, the first and oldest and most vibrant district of Saigon. It’s not that I don’t feel alone there, but rather in my solitude I feel strong and independent, like I know the place, and I almost wrote, like I own the place.
The hotel lobby is like any other hotel lobby, imposing and luxurious, with a certain lighting and an aura of hospitality that makes the traveler feel cushioned. Cushioned from the inconveniences of being away from the familiar, a toaster and a green tea kettle, butter pecan in the freezer. Cushioned from the thousands of miles of space and time from those we love.
There is a Gucci shop where young Vietnamese men and women dressed in black stand talking, store employees so elegant and hip they intimidate. I pass by their doors without staring and out I walk into the humid street where cafes and restaurants sit next to shops selling men’s suits and silk scarves and children’s dresses.
I walk through the door of the French bakery and buy an almond tart on my last night of this trip, and I tuck it into my purse as I consider whether to venture into a Spanish bodega where young expats eat tapas and drink red wine from goblets or get my last fix of Vietnamese food from Lemongrass, one of my favorite local spots. Either way I will sit alone, eat alone, consider solely how this trip has been and how it has revealed a few more mysteries.
And just in the moment when I am at the point where the people around me seem too jolly, where they only seem to appear in pairs and threes and fours, parents with children in contrast to me alone, I get to walk out of the glass doors held open by the man in robes and into a waiting taxi. Through the sliding doors of the airport and the gates and the portals and the passageways I go, flying through the day and night, back in time, back to the place where heavy doors wait, welcoming me to the other familiar.
-Related to Topic post: WRITING TOPIC — DOOR
yb, every darn time you write or post a pic on Vietnam, I want to go go go…even when you do petrify me with the air time…GULP. I really think you should have ventured into the Gucci shop. The visual is not perfect without an actual hat tossing 😉
Green tea and toast…high fiver!
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Thank you for sharing this – the subject of door led you into quite a beautiful reflection.
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Thanks, C and H.
Every time I see the luxury shops, like Coach and Gucci, in Saigon, and there are a couple of those in my hotel plus several in the District One area, I always wonder who goes into those shops. I mean, who can afford them, first of all? And then, why would you go all that way to a foreign city just to see the kinds of luxury goods shops you could see in any big U.S. city? But now, if I had a Mary Tyler Moore hat to throw in the air…maybe I’d venture in. 8)
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The Saigon hotel sounds wonderful. I especially like the welcome-home touches in your hotel room, the ice cream, green tea kettle, toaster. I have so few images of what Vietnam is like (you can’t count the ones I filed in my brain when I was a young war protester in the 60’s and early 70’s) – the ones I do have come mostly from your posts. I hope to see lots more through your eyes.
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I used to believe that people who stay in hotels such as you describe are insulated from “real life.” It has finally sunk in that luxury is no less real than deprivation. It’s not the surroundings — it’s the attitude that makes the difference. What fun to be pampered by bellhops dressed in long satin traditional robes and hats who open the glass doors to your hotel lobby, by green tea, toast and butter pecan.
Your picture is one of almost Zen-like balance between exotic fantasy and enduring earthiness. A treat to read.
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In some respects we are insulated in these luxury hotels, ritergal. I think that’s how I’d feel if I only went there one time and never really got around. Definitely, that could be an outcome.
But you’re right, there is after this many trips a balance. I can retreat to my room, which strangely I only do when I’m feeling homesick. Other than that I’m paying a lot for a nice place to sleep while the rest of the time I’m out in the world. And of course, in the smaller cities the hotels are much more down to earth.
I just watched the opening of the Winter Olympics. I told Jim that I wanted to see two countries–U.S. and Vietnam. He warned that there probably wouldn’t be any winter athletes from Vietnam. I waited it out to make sure. He was right. 😦 I feel like it’s my adopted country. I’d root for them as my own compatriots.
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