Hanoi and Hinterlands- Heat, Humidity, Hangovers and Hilarity

Sunday 27th September 2009 to Saturday 03rd October 2009

My first impression of Vietnam, and more specifically Hanoi, was that of vibrancy. The city was teaming, TEAMING, with motorbikes, which raced down narrow streets lined with crumbling mustard-coloured French-style houses and shops, past tiny street-side food stalls surrounded by Vietnamese sitting on miniature stools (like the ones you get in infant school) and tucking into bowls of pho, old women in conical hats carrying baskets of fruit, and policemen idling in chairs (not yet have I once seen a Vietnamese policeman actually looking like he was doing something, despite the impressive uniforms). It was most definitely Asian, but still very different from India - the streets were clean, the people friendly, and there was very little evidence of poverty (it's been 3 weeks here thus far and I've only been approached by two beggars. Definitely not India.) There were touts here and street hawkers, but for the most part they weren't as persistant, and Hanoi had an air to it of being positive and up-and-coming, more so than the slightly jaded air one found in Bangkok. Tourism is a rapidly growing industry in Vietnam, and Hanoi one of the hottest destinations at the moment, and the air of prosperity and excitement about the future was palapable. Strangely enough, what above all other things it did not appear, was Communist, at least not at first.

My glimpse of Hanoi this first night was to be brief, however. Coop was flying from Australia (where she has been working the last 8 or 9 months) into Hanoi on the 1st of October, 3 days from then, for a 2 week jaunt with me around the north. Not wanting to either make her miss out on Hanoi sightseeing, or to see things twice myself, I had decided to flee Hanoi early the next morning for 3 days out in the countryside, so that we would both appreciate the city with new eyes when she docked in. Thus the first night I settled for buying my train ticket for the following morning, attending mass in the huge gothic St Joseph's Cathedral (beautiful singing and very atmospheric, even if the familiar Catholic mass did sound extremely weird in the tonal sing-song of Vietnamese), and enjoying my first cocktail in 6 weeks in a restaurant in the old quarter.

The following morning I set off by early train to Ninh Binh, about 3 hours south of Hanoi. This was the base point for Tam Coc, an area famous for its limestone karsts which rise incongrously out of the flat landscape. I had gone for the lowest class on the train, namely a hard wooden bench with as many people squeezed onto it as possible, which was great, as I ended up surrounded by wrinkled old Vietnamese women who pressed ginger boiled sweets on me and cackled manically at everything I said. Having arrived at Nimh Binh and obtained my room, I set out for lunch and the local speciality, goat pancakes. You get a plate heaped high with goat meat, another plate covered in banana-like leaves, a plate of lime-like fruits, a bowl of chillis, a dipping sauce, and a plate of thin rice paper that looks and tastes like rizlas. The point is to wrap your meat, fruits and chillis into a big leaf, then wrap the leaf in rice paper, dip it in the sauce and consume. However, I soon realised that the real point is to take the piss out of foreigners. The waiter brought each part of the dish out about 5mins after the preceding one, so that I presumed that I had ordered the wrong thing and started manfully trying to tackle a huge plate of cold meat to an audience of adolescant sniggers. Delighted cheers rang out when the full range of plates finally arrived and one of them took pity and showed me what to do. It ended up being very nice too.

My hotelier had earlier explained that he rented out motorbikes and offered me the opportunity to do so that afternoon. I had been mulling over the option, as although I'm technically qualified to ride bikes (125cc or under) these were a) bigger than that, b) it had been a while and I wasn't sure whether I still remembered how, and c) Vietnamese motorbikers are certifiably insane. However, emboldened by success with mastering the local cuisine, I hopped on after a 30 second crash course, and within about 1 minute of kickstarting the thing already considered myself a motorbike don and possibly the coolest thing in this dimension. Particularly in my aviators.

So, I sped off to Tam Coc, requisite James Dean curl of the lip in place, to partake in the famous boat ride along the karsts. This is a famous hawker hunting ground, where they beseige you halfway up the river in boats trying to sell you souveniers and cold drinks, but I had followed the advice of the LP and not gone until late afternoon. Consequently, and thankfully, this meant that the river was pretty much deserted, and the hawkers far more lacklustre than earlier in the day. I had my little boat to myself, and was rowed up the river by an exceedingly sweet old guy who, after chatting a while, picked me a waterlily and told me that I had "very very beautiful breasts". Obviously I was somewhat taken aback by this, but I think it was meant to be a genuine compliment, so I just sort of blushed and became very interested in the scenery. Which was admittedly beautiful.

The following day my train back to Hanoi didn't leave til lunchtime, so I indulged my new addiction and headed off on the backroads on my trusty motorbike. There wasn't loads of see (I hit a few temples but that's about it), the attraction was in the deserted dirt roads and the tiny villages I passed through, most of which were involved in gathering in their wheat harvest. Had a little crisis at one point where I came very very close to running out of petrol in the middle of nowhere, but otherwise quietly pleasant, and I was free to continue pretending I was in a Marlon Brando movie.

My destination that afternoon was Mai Chau, which turned out to be one of my favourite places in Vietnam thus far. However, it seems to be one of those destinations that aspire to the 'Pilgrim's Path' ideology: namely, that it is bloody hard getting to paradise. To explain what I mean, let me give you a little run down of that afternoon.

12.30pm - Hang around hotel waiting for my train to come in at 1.30pm. Hotelier turns up and announces that there has been some kind of landslide or cow expiration or other misfortune on the train line, and the trains will not be running. At all. Go to train station, wake up very disgruntled ticket man, and get refund for ticket. Sprint to bus station and buy ticket to Hanoi, just managing to get on the bus in time.

3pm - Arrive at Hanoi. Except, not central Hanoi, but a bus station 7km away from the centre, and a further 5km away from the bus station I think I need to be at to get the bus to Mai Chau. Bargain for xe om (motorbike taxi) to take me to appropriate station. When attempting to get on said xe om with massive rucksack, burn my right calf badly on hot exhaust pipe.

3.30pm - Arrive at bus station. The LP helpfully does not say which of Hanoi's many bus stations you need to get the Mai Chau bus from, so I surmise based on logic. Apparently, logic is not an identifiable factor in Hanoi's bus system. No-one at the bus station speaks English. I eventually discover that I cannot get the Mai Chau bus from here, but neither can anybody tell me where I DO need to get it from. Eventually a group of schoolkids take pity on me, and one girl in broken English tells me to follow her friend. This friend, a very sweet kid who can't speak any English at all, takes me to a bus stop and puts me on a bus. He gets on too. I have no idea where we are going, how long it will take, or how much it will cost. I am also carrying a very heavy bag.

4.15pm - Arrive at.... somewhere. Another bus station, apparently. After much discussion with various loiterers, the kid discovers that this isn't the right bus station either. Eventually he hands me over to a xe om driver, and tells me that this guy will sort him out. I try to thank the kid for his help as much as I can, though am still entirely confused as to what the hell is going on.

4.45pm - I get on xe om, and we drive off for a little bit, before the driver gets very excited and starts a high speed chase of a bus he spots, weaving in and out of traffic like a maniac. Eventually he manages to get up close enough to hail it down (I have my eyes tightly closed by this point) and I am transferred off the bike and onto the bus. Apparently this is the bus to Mai Chau. I am now a gibbering wreck.

c. 7pm - The girl beside me throws up for the 18th time. The bus driver and ticket collector are astounded by the sight of me removing my contact lenses and start a detailed enquiry (in Vietnamese) which nearly causes us to plunge off a cliff.

8.30pm - Arrive at what I presume to be Ban Tho junction, where the turnoff for Mai Chau is. It's pitch black. Am met off the bus by a xe om driver who gives me the card of a homestay in Mai Chau and offers to take me there. This is only the second time in my entire life that I am glad to have met a tout. I get on the bike and immediately burn myself in exactly the same part of my leg as before. Two weeks later and this still hasn't faded.

8.45pm - Pitch blackness all around as we ride at what might be termed a reckless speed around deserted corners. I start to worry that xe om driver may be taking me into the middle of nowhere to rape me. Start mentally practicing my street fighting moves.

9.00pm - Arrive at a gorgeous White Thai stilt house. Am fed with amazing home-cooked food. Hope it is going to be worth it. Reflect that even though my day was tiresome, pretty much every Vietnamese person I had met had been ridiculously helpful and lovely, despite the language barrier. Compared this to Indian experiences. Fell asleep.

Thankfully, Mai Chau WAS worth it. I was staying with a family of White Thai people, who hired out one big room of their house to visitors, with all meals included. That night, it was just me and two American chaps, a father and son. The next morning, waking up early to discover that the monsoon had not quite yet finished in the mountains (namely, it was pouring with rain), I fell into conversation with them over breakfast. As a result of this conversation, I have decided to adopt the man, Richard Baker, as my grandfather. A Vietnam veteran, sometime photography teacher and now award-winning writer, he was motorbiking with his son across Vietnam in order to research a book he was writing about the Vietnamese-French war. Genuinely one of the most fascinating men I have ever met, and a consummate story-teller. Aside from his own war experiences, his uncle had been the first Allied soldier inside Hitler's Eagle's Nest, in what sounds like a hilarious experience. Richard also sounded like just the most awesome grandparent - he took his grandsons on hiking and camping trips every year, and had recently bought them both second hand bangers that they were doing up together as sort of a project. Made me realise how much I've maybe missed out on not having really done the whole grandparents thing.

By about 10am we realised that the rain really wasn't going to clear up, so Richard and his son Rick set off on their motorbikes up to Son La, and I bravely put on boots and waterproofs and headed out into the rain. There's not really anything to do in Mai Chau, unless you hire a guide and do some organised trekking, but I had a great day anyhow. Wandering around villages and through overflowing rice paddies doesn't sound like loads of fun I know, but it was the first time in a while I had the chance to really relax and chill out, and wasn't walking in the heat trying to see all the sites etc. Plus, everyone was lovely - friendly greetings called out rather than touts waving tours at you and so on. There was even a litter of six adorable puppies in one of the houses that I made friends with. In the evening the family I was staying with seemed to be having some kind of party, so drifted off to sleep to a background noise of drinks being downed and raucous comments being exchanged, which was comforting.

Coop was arriving in Hanoi at 1pm the following afternoon, so the plan was to get an early bus back to Hanoi, then go meet her at the airport. However, in contrast to what Genesis tells us, it's equally as hard to leave paradise as it is to arrive. First the bus was late, then the drivers decided to make one of those infuriating unscheduled stops in the middle of nowhere which seems to be the norm in all of Asia, stops where said driver and ticket collector pull up at a friend's house and have drinks and food whilst the rest of us sit on the bus like eejits. After 45 mins I got off and yelled at everyone within hearing range, but even so it still wasn't until we had been there an hour that the bus resumed its achingly slow journey. By this time of course, the chances of me being able to meet Coop at the airport were narrowing dangerously. By 12, when I discovered that we were going to be dropped in the furthest bus station possible from central Hanoi, they were non-existent, unless she wanted to hang around in the arrivals department for several hours more. Having reached her voicemail and established that her phone was working, I left a long and involved message that explained the situation, apologised profusely, and gave detailed instructions on how to reach the hostel.

Of course however, Coop's phone malfunctioned as soon as she arrived on Vietnamese soil. Both frantically trying to and unable to contact each other, we finally both arrived at the hostel at about the same time. Luckily she didn't hold it against me, and we headed out to one of a long and various series of bar to catch up on the last 9 months and get pleasantly drunk. This was proceeding very well until about 3.30am when Cooper's bag inevitably, got ripped off her arm by a guy on a motorbike, who made off with her passport, camera, phone and apparently, a lot of very

Mai Chau

expensive and important make-up (I tried my very best to emphathise with the latter). I swear the girl must give off victim pheromones.

I woke up the next morning late, to the hostile glares of our fellow dorm mates (no matter how much one tries, it is impossible to get ready for bed at 4am in silence when you have consumed as much alcohol as we had) and feeling like Snow White's Seven Dwarves were playing bongos with my skull. Coop had gone off to the embassy to get an emergency passport (cost her a tear-inducing amount of money and possibly an entry on UKPA 's black list, but it would be ready by the time she needed to fly home on the 15th), but by the time she was back I had managed to gulp down some coffee and immerse myself in a cleansing shower, so we decided to venture out into the heat.

Despite his stated and repeatedly emphasised wishes, Ho Chi Minh; soldier, politican, resistance leader and national hero during the French and American wars (a Che Guerrava but with a cooler beard) has basically been canonised in Vietnam, and his embalmed and worshipped body is on display at a mausoleum complex in the west of the city. Me and Cooper made our way there, whimpering and with many drink stops, only to find that his body was currently undergoing it's annual 'restoration', and was unavailable to view. Disappointed, we instead amused ourselves with teasing the ridiculously overzealous security guards, who freaked out if you stepped within about 15 metres of the locked gates to the presidential palace or mausoleum, then wandered through the nearby parks and onto the Temple of Literature, where along with some really rather attractive temple buildings, some bonsai (yay!) and some cool musicians, we encountered an incongrous middle-aged businessman being filmed swaying seductively and miming along to what may have been a Vietnamese love song. Pondering the possibility that we had encountered Vietnam's most famous housewife's crumpet, we headed back to the city, where that evening we took in a performance of Hanoi's famous water puppets.

The water puppets are described as Punch and Judy on water, and consist of vignettes of agricultural life acted out by wooden puppets in a water tank, operated by handlers behind a screen. They consist of anything from dragons playing volleyball to a bloke failing comically to catch a fish in a basket. I found them a little creepy (I don't do well with puppets, especially manically grinning ones) but Cooper loved it, as did a 7 year old boy, who impulsively came down to the front of the audience during the final scene to give us a performance of his personal dance-move repertoire in time to the music. Pretty snazzy moves as well, clearly had been studying the dearly departed Mr Jackson in his nursery.

The following morning we did a walking tour of the Old Quarter of Hanoi, which is full of narrow streets each known for producing a certain type of goods (engraved grave-stone street, tin box street, wooden Buddha statue street and so on), as well as crumbling temples, open-air eateries and frankly disturbing markets. Humungous snails, turtles trying desperately to escape their cages, entire plucked chickens (including heads and feet) strung up, eels and barrels of worms.... yummy. Didn't stop us from having lunch at one of the tiny little street stools though, which tasted divine. (We found these little places far tastier, cheaper and probably more hygenic than many of the bigger restaurants). This took most of the day, but I went off to the Army Museum later in the afternoon whilst Coop decided to treat herself to a massage.

The Army Museum was facinating. As well as tons of traditional exhibits, it also has a giant yard where captured US helicopters, tanks and even a French plane constructed at the moment of crashing are smugly displayed. It's supremely one-sided as well, to an extent where I wasn't sure whether to find it amusing or a little bit worrying. The war is unsurprisingly presented entirely as a heroic nation valiantly defending itself against evil conquerors, with the French and Americans as brutal war crime perpetrators, and the museum dismisses entirely the South Vietnamese Army, the national army fighting with the Americans, as 'puppet forces', refusing to admit that there were any people in the country who weren't on the side of the North Vietnamese. You'd have one set of photographs explaining how the French were sadists who tortured prisoners, then in the next case have pictures of the lethal wooden spikes that were used to booby-trap forest trails, and a gleefully presented photograph of an American GI with one of the spikes through his leg. I knew enough about the war to find the misinformation and self-righteousness as facinating as the exhibits themselves, but I wondered about how both American visitors and Western-friendly people in the south reacted and continue to react to these attitudes. The museum didn't lie, but it certainly didn't tell the whole truth either. One of the interesting things that Richard in Mai Chau had told me, for example, was that when he was over her as a GI, how surprised he had been with how much the Vietnamese had welcomed him and told him how grateful they were for what the States was doing. It was certainly a little incongrous to emerge from the museum to sit and have a 7up in a coffee house chain bearing remarkable similarity to Starbucks.

Welcome to the new Vietnam, I guess.

Stayed:
Hanoi - Hanoi Backpackers Hostel, dorm bed $7.50. The premier backpacker crash pad in Hanoi, with two bars, free internet, free breakfast, laundry, and running a range of (good) tours. Perfect if you want to meet a load of other hedonists (which we mostly did), but not if you want to experience authentic Vietnam.
Ninh Binh - The Queen Mini, dorm bed $3. Good value and very close to the station in Ninh Binh, with a friendly hotelier with lots of free advice. Free internet and cheap motorbike rental, plus I had the entire dorm to myself.
Mai Chau - Don't remember who exactly I stayed with, but go for one of the places in Lac Village, they are all pretty, quiet and non-pushy. My bed, in a communal room, was 120,000VND a night, negotiated down from 150,000 and with free dinner and breakfast thrown in.

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Part of trip: Japan and Vietnam

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