VIETNAM - HANOI

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Friday 25th February

We've touched down in Noi Bai International Airport, Ha Noi and waited at visa control for around twenty minutes before we are instructed to go through to the other side and hand our passports in and come back. Back to the end of the queue we go and its another full hour before we pay our $25 each on top of the $25 express service rate which we felt aggreived at paying as the fast track online should've meant we got our visa's on arrival.
After a good moan and a hissy fit later we finally pass passport control and into the arrival hall where we booked a taxi as the taxi's out in the street were asking way too much money.
Somehow we've persuaded a French guy to share a taxi with us which saved money so we head towards city center. Ha Noi is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam and you have to see it to believe it as the amount of motorcycles on the road beggars belief and to make things worse there's no concept of staying to the right or left side of the road.
Green lights seem to mean red and vice versa.
We've seen four on a bike, three on a bike with a two year old wedged in the middle, a large tree stuck on the back of a seat, a bike loaded up wth 8 crates of beer and another bike had a six foot stepladder propped up inbetween two smiling passengers.
On the opposite side of the road we see a large pink blossom tree coming towards us...surely not....yip, its another guy with a 7 or 8 foot tree strapped to the back seat with the roots all hanging down and trailing on the ground. ' Oh, I dont think we'll be hiring a bike here Jill'.
We arrive at the Rendezvous Hostel in the Old Quarter of Ha Noi and our room is cheap but more importantly its very clean and comfortable. The Old Quarter, near Hoan Kiem lake, has the original street layout and architecture of old Hanoi. At the beginning of the 20th century the city consisted of only about 36 streets, most of which are now part of the old quarter. The area is famous for its small artisans and merchants, including many silk shops. Local cuisine specialties as well as several clubs and bars can be found here also.

Saturday 27th February

The hostel has organised a city tour for us so we catch the minibus out side and begin the tour at around 9am.
The Ho chi Mhin Mausoleum is first on the agenda today as we cross town n the tour bus organised through the hostel.
On arrival at the Mausoleum we realise how popular the shrine is as the queue is at least a quarter mile long but at least is moving moving steadily.
The rules inside the Mausoleum are no bags, no camera's, no talking and we must stay in line, two abreast without making as much as a sound. We entered into the Mausoleum and into a large room which had four guards and each corner with another further four guards guarding the glass casket in the middle of the room that contained the man hmself. Uncle Ho's body is well preserved for someone that died nearly 32 years as we both agreed that he looked like he couldve passed away days ago. The rooms very cold and maintain a steady walk around the room and before we knew it we were back outside wondering what the fuss was all about.
Ho Chi Minh (uncle Ho) was a Vietnamese Marxist revolutionary leader who was prime minister (1945–1955) and president (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He formed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and led the Việt cộng during the Vietnam War until his death in 1969. Vietnamese loved and still love uncle Ho as he unified Vietnam and freed the North but in all honesty he was a communist who ruled with an iron fist. We start to get that mixed up feeling as we are told conflicting stories from the guide to whats written in our guide books so we decided to leave the history alone for now.

Not far from here we visited Ho Chi Mins House which is a very modest small house on stilts surrounded by lakes and nice gardens. Its a stark contrast from the grand Presidential Palace which stands just yards down the road.
This little wooden house on stilts is visited by over by over one million people a year and is more popular with the Vietnamese than it is with tourists. We shuffled forward and around the house sandwiched between hundreds of locals.
Theres not much else to see around the gardens here apart from the One Pillar Pagoda which sits in the middle of a small moat just across the park from the house. The temple is built of wood on a single stone pillar 1.25 m in diameter, and it is designed to resemble a lotus blossom, which is a Buddhist symbol of purity, since a lotus blossoms in a muddy pond.
We carried on walking around to the Ho Chi Min Museum which is dedicated to his life and work and is full of historic documents and photos. The problem we had here that everything is written in Vietnamese or French so we couldnt really digest what it was all about so we settled for a quick ten minute walk through the whole place just looking at photos.
From what I gathered is that Ho Chi Min lived in short spells in Usa, Uk and France before heading for Russia and finally China so its no wonder he was into all that Marxist Communism malarky.
We're now back in the mini bus and wrestling with traffic for a short while until we stop at the Ethanolgy museum which is widely considered to be the finest modern museum in Vietnam. The Vietnam Museum of Ethnology focuses on the 54 officially recognized ethnic groups in Vietnam and its interesting to begin with but gets heavy going after a while so we left and explored the different replica houses built outside in the gardens.
We stopped for a light lunch before heading over to the Hoan Kiem Lake. Hoan Kiem Lake meaning "Lake of the Returned Sword" is in the historical center of Hanoi and is one of the major scenic spots in the city and serves as a focal point for public life. We walked along the pathways alongside the Lake but it was so busy that it was a pain trying to get near the nice temples or Pagodas by the waters edge. After a short while we made it to Tháp Bút (Pen Tower) by the lakes edge and we joined up with the rest of the group who all agreed to move to our next stop sooner rather than later.
Our final stop off see's us take a short visit to Van Mieu (Temple of Literature) which was just as busy as the Lake area.
Van Mieu is one of, if not , the oldest surviving structures of Ha Noi, having been established in the year 1070,orignaly built to honor Confucius, as a place of worship.
Within a few years this revered place took on a different role, that being a place of education for the growing numbers of mandarins involved in civil service, essentially becoming Vietnam's first university. Those who graduated had their names engrave on the stone stele that sit on large stone turtles in the temple. We walked through the courtyards and through to the other side where our much needed bus home was waiting.
We are heading for Halong Bay in the morning so we get organised in the evening while taking a break for a dinner of rice noodle soup called Phở Bò, containing beef, and Phở Gà with chicken for Jill. Its very tasty indeed.

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Comments

[Fred]

Dangerous Place Keep the TShirt
Think we told you we stayed in Hanoi (5 star hotel former CIA building own escape tunnel to airport) have a friend there, celebrated Sam's b'day with another american friend fab restaurant but unlucky Sam picked up food poisoning big time once on Mallorca, passed GO TO JAIL! straight to Doctor passing every thing and straight to hospital to be sorted out. I enjoyed the place some reservations though especially dead bodies. Love you both. F