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Published: March 26th 2011
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Saturday, 21st August After the bus nightmare you can bet we slept like cats (babies don't sleep long enough FACT) until checkout. Last night was a one-night only and we checked into a cheaper ($16) hotel, still with en-suite, air-con and cable tv.
Our target for the day was to book a boat trip to the Thousand Islands of Ha Long Bay. As with every other page in the Asian Book of Lies we were warned of dodgy trips. The shoestring guide recommendation - pay more! We scouted round the travel agents, they were f**king expensive. At one point we picked up two kiwis, Sam and Laura, and we all booked onto the tour at our hotel. Pretty sure the travel agent put out a hit contract on me after I took away four tour fees.
Hanoi, the busiest and most overwhelming place we have ever been to, is defined by its roads. You've all seen it - the stereotype is true again. The mopeds are like an infestation. Scarabs in The Mummy films. The traffic is largely one way in Old Quarter Hanoi but the threat of death is not reduced. Pedestrian crossings are like those shooting galleries
with ducks going across.
There is, and always will be, no good time to cross.
So to the art of forcing the crossing of the road. Running in a gap is a sure fire wat to end up as flatbread. That's because THERE ARE NO GAPS. It's a test of the testicles but the best thing is to literally take one step at a time and try not to sh*t in your pants as the mopeds whizz past and beep their horn. Oh, and then there are the occasional taxis. Just stay out of the way of those.
Hanoi is teeming with lifet at all times of the day. Even late last night the fake market was still in full swing and families were out eating their fish stew on the pavement. There are considerably more tourists than I was expecting and this always means the cheap t-shirts of Ho Chi Minh are sold on every corner. Sales technique is borderline desperate but easily mistaken for aggressive.
With the rest of the day to fill we hit the Old Quarter sights; both of them. The Ngoc Son Temple was small but serene. Or at least would
have been but for my insane paranoia that everyone was looking at me. Which they were, but I don't know why. The temple sits in the middle of Hoan Kiem lake (the focal point of the Old Quarter) and the tortoise tower across the lake can be seen. Legend is that this tortoise gave an Old King a sword to rid Vietnam of the Chinese. It certainly succeeded in driving the Peking Duck (best food ever) and the most interesting script in the World out. Left the taste for labrador though.
Afterwards we spent time people-watching on the lake. I amused myself by making a bride laugh doing her wedding shots. She got b*ll*cked, this is a serious matter.
In the afternoon/evening we dressed up for a date at the award winning Municipal Water Puppet Theatre. Just £1 a ticket would be rude not to. The theatre itself was smaller than the top drawer of the bedside table in our hotel room at just 300 or so seats. And the Vietnamese at an average height of 4ft 2 would still have struggled for leg room. Shame that the room was filled with 6ft Europeans, knees crushed into their
ribs.
The scene is essentially a decorative swimming pool with a traditional building behind out of which the puppets come through a curtain controlled by a stick submerged under the murky water. The show was split into 17 mini-stories all themed around water and Vietnamese life. The importance of village boat races, fishing and rice paddies illustrated by toys made long before even my dad was a sperm.
For all the tortoise mythology the accompanying music was remarkably Chinese sounding. Was a cracking show, definitely recommend it.
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