Hanoi Locks

On a recent trip to Vietnam I decided to go get a haircut. When I say haircut, what I mean is the wispy remains of my hair to be reduced from it’s current flyaway centimetre to a more manageable millimetre or two. There were a few barber’s shops knocking around in the old quarter of Hanoi so I ask the guy behind the desk at my hotel where the nearest one is. He says it is back near the big market, which is a bit of a hike. I’m sure there was something more local. OK he says and takes me across the road to a hairdressers and as we enter I realise it is not the place for me but it’s too late to back out without being rude. The place is like a Toni & Guy's. The walls are festooned with pictures of model women and chisel jawed men sporting the slickest and most modern and creative hairstyles. The premises are sleek modern with sharp lines of chrome and mirrors. The stylists are young, dynamic and sporting hairstyles akin to the pictures on the wall. The customers are as young, sleek and good looking as everything else about the place and then in I walk. I am many things, some of them good, but I am not young, good looking, sleek, modern, dynamic and most importantly, I don’t have much in the way of hair. Having my barnet sorted in this place is rather like going to the Ritz for Marmite on toast. I felt so out of place. Lumbering middle aged portly tourist amongst children. Ok, I’m here, lets just get this done. I explain myself, or at least I thought I did. I actually decided to go for the complete shave, back to the wood. Ok, they take me to the back of the shop (so no one can see me probably), sit me in one of those backwards tilting chairs and wash my hair, such as it is. It’s quite pleasant having one’s hair washed , however little there may be of it, it’s like a head massage lite. However, head massage lite became an actual head massage, a very prolonged head massage. In the end I had to check that they actually knew I just wanted a shave and they assured me that they did. Eventually I am transferred to a barbers chair and we are ready for the cut. At this point it their lack of experience shines through. They produce the clippers, good move. Using clippers on a recently washed and massaged balding pate, not so good. Those plastic combs on hair clippers do not glide so much as bounce over still damp skin. The fact that it wasn’t really working and they should have dried my head properly before continuing did not deter the guy and he ploughed on regardless. I thought I was going to end up with a crinkle cut head. All these shenanigans had reduced my hair from about a cm to half that length and remember, I was looking for a shave. However, the guy thinks he is finished. I get my message across and kind of regretted it as the only thing more uncomfortable than having a plastic comb attachment bouncing across the damp skin of ones cranium is to have the bare metal of the clippers do it. After this I decided to cut my losses and what losses they were. The experience cost me 150,000 dong, around seven dollars. Not a lot but in reality but it was the price of a meal in a good restaurant and for what? I went back to the hotel and finished the job myself.