Bia Ahoy in Hanoi

---

Part One

We arrived in Hanoi late in the afternoon and after a wild goose chase of a first taxi ride (the possibly drunk driver took us to the opposite side of town) we made it to Especen Guesthouse on the second attempt.We learnt an important lesson: only trust the 'Mailinh' taxi's, they charge the correct fare and most helpfully actually know where they are going!

We didn't do much that evening except eat a delicious bowl of Pho, rice noodle soup, sat on minature plastic stools on a street corner. It may sound strange but it's what all the Hanoians are doing.

Our main objective of today was to apply for our Chinese Visas which we hoped wouldn't take too long as there were plenty of other things we wanted to do in Hanoi. As soon as the embassy opened Lewi and I were there searching for application forms, only to be greeted by the stone faced security guard barring our way. We looked enquiringly at him..."No", he said. He kept repeating "No, no visa" much to mine and lewi's confusion and growing concern. We eventually figured out, with help from a kind Vietnamese lady, that the embassy in Hanoi is no longer issuing visas to foriegn nationals, the only place we can get them is in Ho Chi Minh city! This was bad news. We checked at the British Embassy but there was nothing they could do to help and finally we asked in a travel agents who said that it would take 5days and cost $50. Now we were really confused. The travel agent can do it no problem? We spent the rest of the day trawling travel agents checking prices, and how long the visa would last, how long to process etc etc. All the agents have to do is send the passports to Saigon, but it was amazing to see just how much commision the differing offices charged. Some quoted around $40 others went up to $75! Finally at 4pm we handed over our passports and $42 to the Viet Anh Hotel travel desk and crossed our fingers they would be back in a week. Interestingly visas for British applicants are one of the cheapest (official price $30) but for Americans it can be up to $150! Thank goodness we're English.

We felt we deserved a treat after our day of stress so we went for a proper restaurant meal at the not for profit organisation 'Hoa Sua'. The food was great and tasted especially good with some Vietnamese red wine. The young people who served us this delicious meal were being trained in the business and were very attentive and funny. The organisation has already changed many disadvantaged childrens lives since it began in the early 90's and it was nice to enjoy our meal feeling that we were contributing to this.

After this fancy dinner in an old mansion house we got back to our traveller ways with plenty of beers down at the Bia Hoi Junction in the Old Quarter. As it sounds the venue is on a crossroads and the crowds of cheap beer lovers sitting on plastic stools spill out into the road making the motorbikes weave all the more. It's a lively, loud place and we drank many glasses of chilled beer straight from the keg, working out whilst we did that for the price of the bottle of wine we just drank we could have had 41 bia hoi's. And the wine only cost the equivalent of £5, the beer really is ridiculously cheap.

Before we set sail for Cat Ba Island we had another day in Hanoi which we filled by visiting the Temple of Literature, taking a cyclo journey in midday sun, and chilling beside the Hoan Kiem lake.

Part Two: Back from Cat Ba

Back in the capital a week later we went straight to check on visas, not back yet. Feeling a little anxious we hung about, popping to get lunch and strolling around the St Josephs Cathedral area which has a cool laidback vibe. The staff at Viet Anh kept saying, "It'll be back at 4pm", "Ok at 5pm", "Hmm at 9pm now, sorry". We wandered about, not knowing quite what to do, but finally at 9.15pm very relieved we collected our passports, visas approved. We dashed to the train station hoping to catch a sleeper train to Lao Cai that evening but the Friday night departure was, of course, fully booked.

So we had an extra day in Hanoi. Having misread the opening times for Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum last time and therefore turned up when it was closed we thought we'd missed our chance to see the man himself, but now we had another day. We got up very early and this time instead of a deserted padlocked gateway we saw a queue of hundreds and hundreds of people. We joined the back and thankfully the queue moved fairly quickly. All these people coming to pay their respects to Uncle Ho; school parties, grandparents, mothers with tiny babies, and of course the odd tourist like us, there out of morbid curiosity. It truely was the most strange experience, his embalmed corpse lay in a glass-sided coffin his beard perfect and face serene. A yellow light shining down on him made him look waxy, and I can see why some people think it is a fake body. We were ushered through so quickly we barely got a chance to really look at him, but left feeling weirded out and amazed at what a spectale visiting the site is. Hours of queuing to spend 30 seconds inside a chilled chamber staring at a dead body. Isn't society strange.

We re-entered the real (living) world again and in hot sunshine walked about the lanes and markets of the Old Quarter, a bustling and frantic place where we ate a great meal of many dishes for just a couple of pounds. And of course we freqented the Bia Hoi Junction again, would've been rude not too! We got conned into having Lewi's flipflops mended by a friendly guy. After chatting about all the regular topics he suddenly showed great interest in Lewi's shoe, which Lewi took off as the guy motioned thinking that he just wanted to look at them (silly move). He then started glueing and sewing them before we could stop him and demanded 20,000 dong. We gave him 10,000 dong in the end just for being clever enough to trick us!

As our train to the north didn't leave until 8pm we spent our early evening with the locals sitting outside a small cafe drinking lemon tea and cracking sunflower seeds. We took some Banh Mi (these are baguettes!) for the train and off we went. We weren't quite sure of Hanoi when we came the first time, prefering the friendly Saigon, but with a second showing our liking grew and by eating and drinking with the locals down side alleys we really got a feel for this 1000 year old city.

---

Comments

[mouty]

Bai Hanoi
WE felt anxious too about your passports ans ours!More great stories and times, it is so good to hear and see them.Makes life in this country seem plain. love M