Advertisement
Day 76
Arriving at 4:30am as the sun was coming up - we got a taxi to the hotel where we were planning to meet up with Anja again. We found that it was too early and the shutters were still down - damn. Not deterred we waited on the steps, rattling the door from time to time and had breakfast on the street corner. After negotiating a good price for a room for the three of us we were told that we couldn't get into it until about 11 - oh dear, having spent a sweaty night on a train we really needed a shower, but hey, we're married now so we have to put up with the other's stink for better or worse!
Ditching our bags we went down to the lakeside to relax. When we got there it was around 6:20am and there were hundreds of people in big groups doing various forms of exercise. Proabably the only time in this very hot city that it's cool enough to exercise at all. There were some people practicing fan dancing, some doing Tai Chi and others running or playing badminton on makeshift courts - it was
an amazing sight which seemed to give us both more energy and one we would have missed if we had been able to get into our room for a kip. Every cloud...
We chose a bench between a game of badminton and a big Tai Chi lesson until one of the badminton players came over and asked if we wanted to play. Mark, forgetting the lack of sleep completley - joined in a doubles game which he had to figure out as he went along having not played much badminton before. It was great fun even though it resulted in a twisted ankle and losing the game.
We decided to use the rest of the morning to do the walking tour around town. It started at the lake and took us around some amazing streets of the old town. The most interesting areas were where local shop keepers or trades people had gathered on the same street to sell or make their wares. This is not uncommon anywhere in the world , you may think, however in Hanoi the unique thing is how niche some of these stores were, we passed rows of shops simply selling cellotape, another
just selling rope and string, another simply sold heating elements - it was weird and wonderful and if we now needed any cellotape, string or heating elements we now know where to go! We had a great time wandering the streets and completely forgot that we had arrived so early and been on the move ever since.
Finding a recommended area for coffee shops and people watching, we found ourselves in a shady part of the street and enjoyed watching the world go by for another hour whilst enjoying an amazing iced lemon drink.
Satisfied that we had waited long enough and that we would be able to get into our room we went back. Anja had apparently been and gone leaving a message that she would be back later. We unpacked and had a shower (making ourselves feel a whole lot more human) before venturing out to book some tickets for the water puppet show (a famous thing in Hanoi) and see the French quarter of the city. On our way back we bumped into Anja and went to sample Hanoi's version of Bia Hoi near our hotel in a bid to cool down (good excuse huh?)
- it was a nice little spot so we stayed for three before we got a kebab for tea - what an evening. Back to our room we crashed out exhausted for the evening.
Day 78
After a great night's sleep which was only interrupted briefly by one of the biggest thunder storms Mark had ever heard (Chrissie and Anja were able to somehow sleep through it), Mark got up to get a baguette for breakfast (as Vietnam used to be ruled by France there are still a lot of French influences).
The three of us then jumped on some Motos heading for Uncle Hoi's Mausoleum - a famous sight in Hanoi. Unfortunately the girls had to cover their sholders with a wrap we would have had to buy and the queue was enormous which meant that we may not even get in (as it shuts early) so we ditched that idea and walked over the the Temple of Literature and the Art Gallery which are next to each other. Anja being an artist went over to the Gallery and we went over to the Temple. It was really nice having had a break from visiting temples,
and with a live music show being played with some strange looking traditional instruments, it was well worth the visit.
Meeting back up with Anja we went for our usual cheap noodle lunch before Mark went back to the room (trying to rest his ankle for the coming days on the boat to Halong Bay) with Chrissie and Anja carrying on to the Prison Museum.
The remains of the Hoa Lo prison, which was used by the French to lock up Vietnamese revolutionaries and later by the Vietnamese for American POWs, has been opened as a museum and was actually very well done.
Back at the room we cooled off before going out for some more bia hoi some dinner and a trip to the Water Puppet show. This was a surreal experience, but pretty funny. It took us though some of Vietnam's myths using puppets that came out of the water on the water filled stage below us.
We then booked our seats on the open bus tour which costs around 20 US dollars and gets us from Hanoi to Saigon (with stops in between).
We had been told by a few people we'd
Badminton ...
I was rubbish! met that thay hadn't liked Hanoi and that we should probably get in and out as quick as we could but we actually enjoyed our stay here and found Hanoi to have plenty of charm. Yes, it's hot and busy and there is an almost constant stream of people asking you if you need a moto or a cyclo or some lychees or a raincoat or...etc. but they do it with a smile and once they understand that you don't want the service they offer they still smile and wish you a good day. We liked that. The fact that everyone drives a moto in Hanoi makes crossing the road a little daunting at first as there apear to be very few traffic rules and there never seems to be a gap in the traffic. We regularly used a piece of advice we'd been given by Paul. Step out into the traiffc, look in the direction it's coming from and walk at a constant speed across the road - don't stop or you might get stuck in the middle! It seemed to work very well for us anyway!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.056s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 9; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0334s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Carly
non-member comment
Hey guys sounds like your enjoying nam! Sounds like Marks needs a good physio!! Shame I don't know one. Where to next? Have you tried the red saigon beer yet?