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Published: March 14th 2006
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Anybody seen my drum...?
This massive drum is on display at the literature temple. 12 hours after leaving Hué I arrived save and sound in Hanoi-
only to be greeted by some more rain at six o’clock in the morning…
After some hassle with the local’s which desperately wanted me to book some hotel for which they would earn commission I managed to get to the guesthouse I had a booking at- well at least that’s what I thought. I wasn’t really happy when I found out that they did not have a room for me.
Well, I got a hotel room somewhere else and at around noon mom and I managed to find one another in the hustling streets of Hanoi!
It was great to see her again after approx one month since I’ve left Germany.
We dropped all our gear and went for a coffee and a bite to eat and a chat at the cyclo bar.
Here they have old cyclo’s (3 wheeled bicycles with the driver in the back and the passenger sitting in front) as seats and good food- quite expensive though.
When we realized its only 2 p.m. we decided to take the city walk tour which was suggested by the LonelyPlanet.
What you’ll hear
next may remind you a little of what you read in the Saigon Blog- and again I will not really recommend staying longer in the city then you have to!!!
Compared to Saigon the city is a bit smaller and since its almost 1000 years old you would have a nice old quarter- would because of the fact that of the 3,5 million inhabitants about 5 million live in the old quarter.
So what you get is a very noisy, very dirty, very crowded part of town. Did I mention the noise? I don’t know why I didn’t complain about that earlier already- but since Saigon this is slowly but surely turning into a big bummer.
On our walking tour, we saw most of the attractions in the city centre- and since mom wasn’t used to all the smell and the stuff you can see on the local market she was pretty close to retching when we toured the market. Apart from that I couldn’t make out anything in the city that really impressed me so much that I would say- DO IT! Go to Hanoi!! Maybe vice versa…
But since we were both pretty tired
MotorbikeMadness2
Same- Same no diffrent!!! we decided to get some sleep and give it another chance in the morning.
Next day we first of all booked the next tours we would do and you’ll read about soon
(I hope). We decided for a 3 day tour to Halong Bay, a 2 day tour to Sapa and a 1 day tour to the perfume pagoda.
After getting that out of our way we started our way towards the literature temple. This ancient temple used to be the first university in Vietnam and was established in 1010. So it’s pretty old. And I must say that this is the only place worth a visit- as far as I am concerned.
From the temple we made our way towards the one pillar pagoda which is also ancient- well not really. When the French had to leave Vietnam in 1954 (remember- they lost a war- as usual) they tore the original pagoda down. But it was soon rebuilt by the Vietnamese people. The one pillar pagoda sits on, guess what, only one pillar and this pillar itself stands right in the middle of a little pond. It’s unique and nice to look at- but not for all
day.
Nearby is the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. A huge monumental building houses the remains of the nation’s leader who gave Vietnam its independence.
We were not really keen on going inside and luckily it was closed anyway. So we just sat in front of it and relaxed a little and watched the people in the park practicing their shadow boxing. If anyone ever feels like paying Uncle Ho a visit- expect to wait a long time if you don’t show up early in the morning.
After we felt like moving on we basically just went to see two more pagodas. One of which was the oldest in all of Hanoi- orsm! Since we had walked so much we thought we deserved a little coffee brake- and since it was my birthday we didn’t take long to also order some beer.
Later in the evening we went to see the water puppet theatre. This is an old traditional “art” which was first performed in the rice paddies in North Vietnam during the rainy season. Basically they perform old stories/ myth and everyday life situations with wooden puppets which are being moved by bamboo sticks and strings. A very colourful and interesting thing to see- not for everyday though.
Next morning we got up at around seven o’clock because we went on our trip to the perfume pagoda. Its approx 70km south of Hanoi and the roads, as everywhere in Vietnam, are the best…
When we finally arrived we boarded a little boat and where rowed to the pagoda. This took about an hour and is probably really nice if the weather is fine. I would not note the last fact in the last sentence if the weather would have been fine. All cloudy and fogged up- so we couldn’t really enjoy the scenery.
Arriving at the final destination we slowly but surely had to learn that in fact it wasn’t the best decision to come here at all! Why you may ask- well- because in the third lunar month many Vietnamese people have the urge to go to the pagoda and pray. And since every Buddhist should have been to this site once in his/ her lifetime you may be able to imagine how many people had the same idea like us that day. Thousands!!! If not 100 times as many. Unbelievable!
And thanks to the weather we had to walk thru lots of mud and other stuff (which was basically unidentifiable- but maybe it was better this way…). Not to talk about the dead cats which hung skinned in some of the restaurants ready to be prepared at your order… for some reason I wasn’t very hungry…
All in all take this advice from me: do not- I repeat- do not visit the perfume pagoda in the third lunar month, not on weekends and not on even dates!!! You have been warned.
It may actually be a pleasant site to see but only when it’s not crowded and the weather is a bit sunshinier.
Got home, some food and into bed early- coz we have to get up early again since the tour to Halong bay starts at dawn.
It’s time to move on- have a good one!
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Solle
non-member comment
Seems like you have a good time!