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Published: August 7th 2007
We arrived in Hanoi and found a place to stay just before the rains came down. It was a lot cooler here than the rest of Vietnam, which was a relief - but I would rather have avoided the rain! That's what happens when you are travelling in the rainy season, I suppose...
We were staying in the middle of the Old Quarter at a place called Hanoi Guesthouse. Hanoi is a real hub-bub of lovely old buildings with French-looking upper parts whilst underneath is a mixture of homes and shops. Different streets specialise in particular things - there's a street where you can get glasses made, another sells bamboo, another sells coffins, whilst another sells sweet potatoes! Other streets you can take your pick from, sell clothes, shoes, books, toys, fresh food, hardware, herbal remedies, plus many more - all you need to do is know what you want, then find the street! Workshops fixing bikes abound, people working to keep the fleets of motorbikes running. Nearby you'll find a lone person sitting on a stool with a bike pump and a bowl of water, ready to fix any bike punctures. People sit out on the street on
small plastic chairs eating and cooking - their doors open showing inside their front room, with TV and beds towards the back. Large groups of people congregate, eating street food and drinking the local brew called bia hoi. This is a fresh beer - so no preservatives, is ice cold and costs about VND2000 a glass (or 15 cents) We didn't actually end up sitting down for any - had planned to, but just didn't happen!
You can never escape the sound of the street - cars and bikes honking their horns. There never seems to be any aggression - people hoot to say they're coming through and that's it. People accept it and move out of the way - and everyone gets where they're going to. If someone's bigger or faster than you, you give way. (Imagine that at home - there'd be fights breaking out all over the place with stressed-out drivers not wanting to give an inch, but still arriving at their destination, just more wound up than when they left). We have only seen one minor accident - a guy who fell of his motorbike after being bumped by a car, but he just got
up, swore, brushed himself off and drove away. The only other accident stuff we saw were westerners with bandages on their calves, usually female, from riding at the back of the motorbike and letting their leg touch the exhaust pipe - I had been very careful myself as to not let this happen - and surprisingly, I came away unscathed!
Crossing the road is a little exhilarating - you have to step out into the middle of a road teeming with motorbikes whizzing towards you and keep walking. Everyone then judges your speed and drives around you, but only if you walk slowly. If you run, you're done for - although it does feel like the best thing to do sometimes!
The first night we went to the Water Puppet Theatre. It was a lot of fun and very skillfully done. There are 11 puppeteers that stand in waist deep water behind a screen (so that you don't see them) and the puppets are either attached to long poles or a floating base, in turn attached to a pole. The performance consists of different scenes depicting pastoral scenes and legends. We all enjoyed it, but Mia had her
Ha Long Bay
At the 'Surprising Cave'fingers in her ears the whole hour of the show, as in the 1st scene, little rockets went off and she was terrified of the noise!
For dinner, we decided to try and find the restaurant that I had read about back home that serves great 'bun cha' or grilled pork on vermicelli rice noodles. I had read about it in a book written by a New Zealand cook who had travelled around Vietnam for the food. The only details I had on finding the place was ' the 3 story restaurant on Hang Manh St selling bun cha'. Luckily it was pretty easy to find but it wasn't quite what I had expected. It was a very local place that looked quite dingy and decrepid. They had little bbqs set up on the footpath at the front where they were grilling all the pork and only a couple of plastic tables visible on the ground floor. We walked in and they directed us upstairs to eat. We were the first people up there and just as we were about to ask for a menu, one of the staff cam and just started heaping the food on our table
Hanoi
'Bun Cha' We just sat down and without ordering had all this food spread in front of us for the equivalent of $5aud - very delicious! - no menus here! We were given two bowls filled with grilled pork pieces and grilled pork balls (like flat little hamburgers) sitting in a brothy substance with some pickles, two bowls of more pickles in more brothy stuff, two large plates of noodles, a massive plate of herbs and greens and an even bigger plate of large cut up spring rolls. Also on the table was a bowl of chopped garlic and chillies to add to it. You plop some noodles into a bowl, add some pork and pickles, dunk a spring roll into the meaty broth, add that, then mix in some potent chilli-garlic mix and voila! Absolutely delicious and all for a total of 60,000 dong, or AUD $5!
After a couple of days in Hanoi we took a trip to Halong Bay to spend some time on a junk and two nights at a resort called Ocean Beach Resort. Most tour packages to Halong Bay include either 1 night on the junk (boat) and 1 night at Cat Ba Island, or just one night on the junk. We opted for a trip that you did not stay overnight on the junk, but spent 2 nights
at this very small resort on a small island near Cat Ba. The trip was dearer than some, but we liked the idea of the island stay. We had read that many people get scammed on their Ha Long Bay trips and I had had two reports of great feedback on the trip we chose to do, hence us picking that one. The junk was lovely, it was very misty when we set off - not quite drizzling, but threatening to. Pretty much straight after we set off from the harbour, the junk stopped for about 45 minutes so we could have lunch, then finally we set off through the bay. We were with around 10 or so others, 3 of whom would be staying on that junk for a night, whilst us, another italian/austrian couple and a Vietnamese family would be changing junks later to be taken to the island. On the way we stopped off and visited what they call the 'Surprising Cave'. You had to walk up a heap of steps before walking into one of the best caves we have been in. It was so deep and interesting, that only photos could probably show what it
was like. Unfortunately, the photos did not turn out that well!! We changed boats not long after and then spent 2 hours cruising through the bay to the island. By this time the sky had cleared and we actually got to see the beauty of Ha Long Bay.
The resort was lovely - only 12 cottages, which made it nice and cosy. We had dinner with Alessandra and Walter, the couple we met on our junk and enjoyed sitting back and sipping on Margaritas into the night!
The next day the weather was perfect and we took a kayak out and paddled around the island. On the other side we came across a family living on some small boats/rafts who called out to us as we passed to join them for a cup of tea. This was all done in Vietnamese and sign language! We thought, 'why not?' so paddled over and hopped on board. Communication was a little difficult as you may imagine, but we made do! Was one of those things that comes along unexpectedly and that you will remember for a long time.
We headed back on the junk the next day - back
through more rain and drizzle! By the time we arrived back at the port to catch on bus it was pouring rain. Not only that, but it was a public holiday in Vietnam (Independence Day) so all the locals were out doing what we were causing long delays and traffic jams. Our group were all stuck out in the rain for an hour or so until our bus finally arrived. At least it was still warm!
When we got back to Hanoi, we looked into booking a night train to Sapa in the highlands for the follwoing night, but found out they were all full (again, due to the long weekend). Our only option would be to catch a lower class train that only travelled during the day. This meant we would have had to spend the first whole day on the train (12 hours), only have time for one full day in Sapa and then have another whole day on the train. And it would cost us about $100 for all of us for the train. Due to this, we decided to give it a miss. We would have liked to spend 3 whole days there, but had
also been worried that it would have proved to difficult to trek with Mia. Rather than stay in Vietnam for another weekl, we made the decision to fly out to Laos as soon as possible. We had enjoyed Vietnam (Shell more than Gav) but had had enough and wanted to move on. We arranged to fly to Vientiane (Capital of Laos) on the 1st of May, as all the flights were full to Luang Prabang for the next 5 days. We hadn't planned originally to go to Vientiane, but were now looking forward to seeing another part of Laos.
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Scott
non-member comment
Gotta Love Vietnam
How is the contrast from Saigon to Hanoi, huge wide boulevards down south and old colonial charm up north. Looks like they have tamed the lighting down on the "suprising cave", looks like they have removed half the coloured flouros, good thing to. Did you go and say hello to Uncle Ho? Best air con in Vietnam, where uncle Ho lives.