Advertisement
Published: June 12th 2006
Edit Blog Post
I was prepared for the very worst in Hanoi. No one I had met along the way in the variety of hostels had anything nice to say about Hanoi and most really disliked it. These people told me to beware of the people because they will constantly try to cheat you; most also didn’t like the food much; and almost all said that there wasn’t much to do or see.
I had a pretty good time myself and didn’t have much to dislike about anything except the constant and unrelenting heat, but hey, I’m in Vietnam in June, so I have only myself to blame for that. Of course the best part of being in Hanoi was the fact that Jackie finally joined me, so I would have been pretty excited had I been in the middle of the Gobi Desert.
I arrived at 5 am on the train from Lao Cai and Sapa. Unfortunately, the guest house I booked into didn’t come to meet me like they were supposed to. I waited around for about 45 minutes and finally got a lift (for 10,000 dong…less than a dollar) on the back of the motorbike of the tout for
another guest house, agreeing to drive by his guest house, before delivering me to mine. You’ll have to get a mental image of this, because I have no picture…there is me, with a giant backpack and another large hip bag riding along behind a tiny Vietnamese guy on a 125 cc motorbike. I guess I should assure my mother that it was the first and last time for that kind of transport, but I have done it several times before in China…sorry Mom.
Anyway, the guest house, despite missing the pick-up, did have a room ready for me, so I was able to get checked in and then sleep a bit more. I spent the rest of the day shopping for some new shoes, something I’d been trying to do, without success, for the past month. My trainers were falling apart and looked really bad, but nowhere in Yunnan province was I able to find a pair of shoes anywhere close to my size. In Hanoi, I was able to find a pair of shoes in about an hour in my size and for $25. They started out wanting $75 for the shoes, but I told a little white
lie and said that I only had $25 and couldn’t afford to pay more. The second part was true…I didn’t want to pay anything more than that and would have liked to pay less, but the sales woman said that these weren’t replicas, so I went into my only having a little money spiel. It worked until she looked into my wallet and noticed that there was more money in there. She actually got a little angry, but I told her that I needed to eat the rest of the day and that I hadn’t found an ATM that worked with my card yet, both of which was the truth. In the end, I think I really did get a pretty good deal, which makes me feel good, because I’ve over paid for lots of other things.
I spent the rest of the day walking around looking for an ATM and finally found one on my sixth or seventh attempt and after walking for hours in the heat. That may be my lasting memory of Hanoi, the heat and humidity. It was constant and even standing still in the shade, I would sweat through clothes in minutes.
Jackie
arrived on Monday, the fifth, and I arranged a car to the airport to pick her up. She arrived in the afternoon and just took in a few of the sights. We turned in early that night, she was falling asleep by 9:30 (11:30 in Korea) and we planned to do a lot the next day.
On the sixth, we caught a cab in the morning to Ho Chi Mihn’s mausoleum. Now this was my first time to any kind of mausoleum. I could have gone to Mao’s in Beijing but I had passed on that. I would have missed Ho’s as well, but Jackie really wanted to go. All I can really say is that Ho has the best air-con in Vietnam to keep him cool. He also has really good security. Guards with bayoneted-AK47’s surrounded his glass-encased coffin and all guests had to leave their bags, cameras and most everything else outside. The unfortunate thing is that Ho Chi Mihn’s will stated that he wanted to be cremated, but the communist leaders got to his family and he was turned into a wax figurine instead. Not really a fitting end for one of the more interesting leaders
of the 20th century.
We spent the rest of the day walking from the mausoleum to the Temple of Literature and then to Hao Loa prison (the Hanoi Hilton). The temple was a nice break and was interesting since it was the first university in Vietnam. The prison was interesting from a Vietnam resistance point of view. Everything was about how the French repressed the Vietnamese independence movement from the late 1800’s through the middle 1900’s. Nothing was said on its use as a POW camp for Americans during the “American War.” But they were the victors and as everyone knows, the victors write the history.
So that was Hanoi…except for one thing. Jackie and I found both a nice guest house, the Hanoi Guest House, which is located in the old quarter. Second, we found an incredible Pho Bo (Vietnamese noodle soup with beef) just up the road from our hostel. We ate there several times in a couple of days. The cost…28,000 dong for two bowls of soup and two beers from the bia hoi (draft beer) place next door. That’s less than US$2 for the best meal we’ve had in Vietnam.
Well, that’s it
for now. We’re in Hue now, but I still have to fill you in on our Halong Bay trip, which was fun and even a bit romantic.
Love,
Joel
Advertisement
Tot: 0.046s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0274s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Littlest Hobo
Natalie Gabrielle Limet
Fellow traveller
Hi Joel, I am a fellow blogger and traveller, currently in Hue but going up to Hanoi later today. Was reading your recent blog as my finace is just writing something up for our website. I liked reading your entry; I can sympathise with the heat and had to laugh when you mentioned Ho having the best air con. Yesterday we were on the DMZ tour and I have to say that the best bit was getting into the Vinh Moc tunnels just to get into the bloody shade!! I came to Vietnam basically just to eat the pho which I fell in love with some years ago when I was in Hawaii no less!! When I saw that you love it too I just had to send you a 'comment'!! Have fun and good luck with the rest of your travels. NAtalie Limet (Littlest Hobo)