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Published: April 6th 2006
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Cynthia's POV:
We boarded onto a Korean airline flight heading to the city of Hanoi. Usually when I go to an Asian country, there's usually a personal video screen to watch movies and play video games on, but as it turns out, the international flights leaving San Francisco does not contain the video screens!! Damn those Koreans!! Although I didn't get to watch my own personal movies, I did get to watch the pre-selected ones, which included Seoul rappers serenading their asian girlfriends, and a funny Korean movie about a woman doctor falling in love with a country bumpkin athlete. Even though I didn't get my movies, I did get to eat some Bimbim Bap on the plane though.
We arrived in Hanoi around 1130pm. Since we didn't have any Vietnamese currency, known as the DONG, Jason decided to take out some money from the Citibank ATM machine inside the airport. We got 3,000,000 Dong, which is the equivalent to $190 US. Not bad... We were so busy admiring how much money we had in our hands that we forgot to take his ATM card out of the machine. Once we were about 200 yards away from the
machine, we heard its siren alerting us of the card that was still stuck. Jason ran as fast as he could to grab the card, but card got sucked back into the ATM machine. FUCK! Not even outside of the airport doors and we've already lost our ATM card. haha There wasn't anything we could do at the moment so we just headed to our hotel and decided to contact Citibank in the morning.
Jason's Point of View:
Losing that ATM card sucked, but its good for budgeting...we now have to go the next three weeks on $190! We actually talked to some people at the Citibank in Hanoi, who said that they would try to get the card back. We'll see.
Anyway, the trip from the airport to the old quarter in Hanoi was pretty interesting. Very desolate, poverty-ridden countryside alongside the highway. Sadly, the old quarter didn't look much better, especially since we arrived around midnight and everything was boarded up. There was a garage door looking thing pulled down over our hotel entrance when we got there that looked like it could have withstood a shelling from a tank. There was a nervous moment there as we looked in dismay at the garage door and glanced up and down the deserted and decidedly scary streets. Then, miraculously, the door started rising and a pleasant hotel facade came into view. Phew. They had given away our room, which was supposed to have a big balcony with a view of the city, and put us in a small room sans balcony down the street in their sister hotel. I was mildly bummed, but was really just glad I had somewhere to stay (the travel agent later gave us $2 off per night on the hotel because of the inferiority of the room...I didn't know whether or not to be offended...actually, no, I am offended...$2? after you're charging double what everyone else pays-we checked with other travelers we met-you've got to be kidding me)
The next morning we got up around 7 am (gotta love that jetlag) and had a nice bowl of pho at the hotel. Really hit the spot. We then headed out to the "attractions" in Hanoi. Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and museum, the temple of literature, the one pillar pagoda, etc. The Mausoleum, which claims to have the embalmed remains of Vietnam's famous/infamous leader, was pretty interesting because "Uncle Ho" looked like he was about to wake up and order a bowl of pho (did I mention it hit the spot?) The museum was also interesting, especially since a nice English-speaking guide took us through the place and described everything. We then met some motorcycle guys to take us around...who then refused to leave us alone - we had to give them money just to get them to stop waiting for us outside of places. We walked around the old quarter a bit, which was pretty cool. We bought an authentic propaganda poster from the American War, which is pretty cool. We also walked into every travel agent shop in Hanoi in our attempt to book our Halong Bay trip. We ended the day with a nice meal (I LOVE the food here) and the water puppet show.
Before I go on about the water puppet show, a little context. According to the blurb in our lonely planet guide, the art of water puppetry has been secretly passed on from father to son for 1000 years. They didn't teach the daughters because they might take the secrets with them when they married into another family. With that in mind, I'd just like to say that this may have been one of the most painful "performances" I have ever experienced. I don't want to knock anyone's traditional folk art..ok, so I do. It was just terrible. I fell asleep 5 or 6 times. The music was terrible and the puppetry just looked silly. There were a few highlights though. One of the band members, the guy banging the drum in the back, put his head in his hand and assumed a very, very bored expression whenever he wasn't playing. Completely hilarious. Cyn and I also started pinching each other so that we would stop falling asleep, which led to us trying to suppress our laughter in the middle of the show. Also at the beginning of the show, a fight almost broke out because, despite how unbelievably boring this stuff is, they overbooked the show. Unbelievable.
Anyway, we're off to Halong Bay tomorrow. Hoping for good things. In one day we bought historical art, experienced the craziest traffic I've ever seen (imagine 300 motorcycles intercepting each other on the narrowest streets possible with no traffic lights...and you have to cross the street...Its crazy), run into some bad luck, met some people (including an incredibly pretentious, but very cool, adventure travel writer) and saw the worst traditional art I've ever seen. I can't say it's been a great trip so far, but the road less traveled is always a little bumpy. Here's hoping things look up in Halong bay.
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