Advertisement
Published: September 16th 2005
After an unexpected night in Bangkok..... we negotiated our way out of Hanoi Airport. We decided to stay in the Old Quarter, by Hoan Kiem Lake. An air conditioned room is a must here. Venturing out to explore the city we soon realised that Scottish methods of road crossing weren't going to be effective here - the motorbikes and bikes never stop - ever!! The only way to get to the other side is to take a leap of faith and walk slowly out into traffic..... They do slow down and do avoid you and it seems to work. After being soaked by an afternoon rainstorm we spent the rest of the day drying off and people watching. The following day we went to the recommended Womens Museum and then walked to see Ho Chih Minh (Uncle Ho). After a very hot walk - we discovered that access to see him was closed in preparation for the independence day celebrations later that week.
On returning to the hotel, Juliet had arrived to join us on our travels. We took great delight in watching her first attempt at Vietnamese road crossing - it took a while!! We were collected early the
next morning for a trip to the Perfume Pagoda. After a 2 hour minibus jounrney through Vietnamese villlages and rice fields we boarded a metal canoe that was rowed by a local girl. We were amazed by her strength and the speed at which she rowed us up the river. Heavy rain meant that we had to get in another boat to be rowed through a village to reach the first of these remarkable shrines. It was unsafe to climb to the largest Pagoda however given the hig humidity we weren't too upset. We seemed to have attracted an entourage of fan waving and juice carrying locals - who eventually demanded payment for their unrequested services.
The pagodas were all different and so colourful. We were educated about the Budha and local legends before mastering the art of eating with chopsticks in the flooded village. We refused the offer of Snake wine to wash down our meal!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.111s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0553s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
