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Published: November 2nd 2008
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It's absolutely pouring with rain, relentlessly, and when you think, this is it, it's getting even heavier. The famous Water Puppet Theatre of Hanoi? Yes, here, directly in the street, and I am having a part in it. So, roll up your trouser legs, put on your plastic shoes, shove on your 5 Euro plastic mac (which you could have gotten for two here - they are all made in China, aren't they?) - and off you go.My feet already look as if I have spent the last four hours in the bath tub.
These were my first notes on my first morning in Vietnam. But let's begin at the beginning.
Still very disturbed and sad about the news of the very sudden death of one of my favourite colleagues (I am thinking of you, Ruediger), I arrived in Hanoi on the late evening of Halloween. How appropriate. It was already raining heavily and must have been for quite a while. The hotel I was supposed to stay in is being renovated, the alternative had given away my room as I was so late, one of the reasons being that my very young driver didn't really know where it was,
or maybe how to get to it as many of the roads were flooded. In the end I had to walk the last bit and then balance sideways carefully over steps and drain pipes to get into the foyer as the water had already reached the entrance. It was by then 2 o'clock in the morning Australian time, so you can imagine how tired I was. But that was, of course, not the end of it, as I had to then move on to yet a different place, fortunately just around the corner. It was still raining. And it was raining the next morning when I woke up.
My first moring in Vietnam. I must say I found myself terribly brave. Just leaving the house was, I believe, possibly the most courageous thing I have done on this trip so far. There definitely was the tendency to just stay in the room, watch the American movie channel HBO, read, and possibly look out of the window every now and then. But then everything was, as usual, rather exciting than terrifying.
However, instead of the noodle soup the Vietnamese traditionally have for breakfast, I opted to be on the
safe side and ordered jam and bread. That came with the jam already spread on the bread which was then toasted, yes, in that order. With it I got fresh fruit and delicious coffee. The people here at the Hanoi Street Hotel - it seems to be run by a mother and her daughters - are very friendly and helpful. I am quite glad I ended up here.
And then off I went in the way described above, sloshing through the labyrinth of streets in the Old Quarter, staring here and there and everywhere, trying to take everything in and not getting run over by one of the gazillions of motorbikes. The famous crossing of a street? It works exactly as described in all the guidebooks: you just walk, steadily, unafraid, aware of your surroundings but without stopping. Tremendous fun!
My next adventure was bargaining for an umbrella - for the times when the rain isn't quite so bad (hardly ever, but it also helps to protect my camera) - with one of the shopkeepers, who can't have been more than 10 years old! He opened a note book, I opened mine, and then he wrote down a
price, I wrote down mine, he wrote down his, I wrote ... and so on till we had reached a satisfactory compromise. Well, satisfactory for me, as I had brought down the price to half the original demand (he probably laughing behind my back as it was still a tourist price). But it's a really nice and sturdy umbrella which cost me 110.000 Dong, that being about 5 Euro.
It's hard getting this money business straight. 1 Euro is 22.000 Vietnamese Dong. In the afternoon I probably offended a stallkeeper in the market quite badly as I was trying to get three small bananas for 2000 Dong. Or not? She gave them to me eventually but didn't seem too happy about it. All an act? Or was I wrong? I guess it'll take me some time to find my feet here but the guide book suggests to enjoy the experience and that's what I am determined to do. (The first time I used an ATM (= Geldautomat) I took out 500.000 Dong, which is, of course, nothing, so yesterday I went for a million (!) which was the highest amount possible and that is still only about 40 Euro.)
Then, this morning, I woke up to the sun shining and the sounds of hammering and sawing and knocking metal pieces against each other from a closeby building site which had been obscured by the rain so far. Well, the sunshine lasted about two hours and then it was back to that rain business. I did more walking and looking around as I will be seeing the sights once my sister will have arrived tomorrow. There was one more brave thing to do, though: trying the famous noodle soup, daringly, at one of the foodstalls in an openair food market. I probably wouldn't even have done it today - I had already thought about going to that really nice cafe I had been to yesterday- but then I happened to stroll through a little lane with all the outdoor kitchens lined up next to each other, and it all smelled good and looked good, so I thought, what the heck, we are still going to be in Hanoi for three days, so I can recover in a nice hotel room in case I got sick (the verdict is still out, of course).
I stopped at one place which was rather busy so the food had to be good (???) and while I was still standing there undecided, two girls who were waiting to be served, moved closer together and indicated I should take a seat next to them. So I did. I paid the same price as everyone else, 20.000 Dong (90 cents?) for a big bowl of glass noodles and sprouts (+ Sprossen) in a hot broth, topped with slices of some kind of meat (it looked like duck), herbs, crushed nuts of some sort, and at least two other ingredients. One of the girls helped me to two wooden chop sticks from a bowl on the table (oh my god, I am disregarding all rules of hygiene here), showed me how to mix up the soup - actually she did it for me as I didn't know you had to do that, and would have been too clumsy to do it anyway - and then I gave it a go. A bit messy my table manners, I suppose, but I finished it all and it was really delicious. I thanked my lady cook with one of the two words of Vietnamese I have learned so far: cam 'on.
As it had begun to rain a little harder (if possible) by then, I decided to make my way back to the hotel where I have been staying this afternoon. It hasn't stopped raining yet. Unfortunately the weather forecast isn't so good, either, but that can't be helped, so there.
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jenny
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Hi there, I was laughing when I read to the part that you paid $110 000 dong for the umbrella after the bargaining=P. I would say that umbrella would cost about $20 000. Very entertaining blog, BTW. Have fun in Vietnam=PPP