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Published: June 30th 2011
After our amazing stay at Halong Bay we went back to Hanoi which meant a 3.5 hour bus ride. We’ve done such immense journeys lately that 3.5 hours actually counts as a quick trip!
Me and Terry headed out in Hanoi to find lunch and ended up with beef noodles for £1. I’ve forgotten to mention what an absolute chopstick master I’ve become recently. I’m going to be “that showoff person” who eats their Chinese takeaway with chopsticks when I get home. Avatar was on star movies, the best Asian movie chanel on the planet, so we watched some of that then met our group for dinner.
Our hotel is quite a walk away from the main part of Hanoi, called the Old Quarter so it took a while to get to our restaurant. We got to see the madness which is Hanoi. The roads are the same, if not worse than Saigon and we were careful to cross the road weaving in between motorbikes etc. The other problem with walking in Hanoi is that the pavements, although very nice and paved, are full of parked motorbikes and street vendors so you have to walk in the road all
the time.
On the way to the restaurant, we cut through a public park where loads of people were playing badminton. These two ladies had got their shuttlecock stuck up in a tree so one of the guys in our group decided to be heroic, took the ladies flip flop and chucked it up in the tree to dislodge the shuttlecock. Unfortunately, the flip flop also got stuck! He had to climb up the tree and try and retrieve both, much to the amusement of the local people. When he managed to get them down, everyone cheered, it was so random! I had this lovely deep fried squid which butter, lemon and garlic for my dinner, all eaten with my chopsticks of course. I think we will probably go back to the same place for food soon because it was so yummy and quite cheap.
Everyone was feeling in the mood to party a bit, so we went to a bar called Bucket Bar, in the old quarter. It was about £3.20 for a bucket and £2 for 2 gin and tonics, so yes, very cheap. They had a great games floor upstairs with basketball, foozball and pool
but we spent most of the evening on the pavement outside. By the time we headed inside to dance, the place was packed out and they’d shut the doors so they could put the air con on. It literally did nothing to help, the whole bar was a total sauna and everyone inside was sweating buckets! Me and Terry headed home pretty late and got a taxi.
In the morning, we got up bright and early for breakfast and then both fell asleep again and slept till 3pm! It was a proper marathon sleep, probably catching up on weeks of sleep deprivation. Me and Terry decided to go to KFC, as we’d spotted it in the Old Quarter and were craving it pretty badly. On our way out, we saw loads of our group in reception who were also planning on curing their hangovers with KFC. It feels a bit bad eating KFC in Vietnam but it’s incredibly cheap and sometimes you just don’t fancy rice or noodle soup. It’s always kind of interesting too as they do little things different like use real plates, cutlery and give you a drink in a proper glass like in a pub!
Most of the group went to see a Water Puppet Show but seeing as Me and Terry have so long in Hanoi, we decided to go another time and walked around the Old Quarter and Hoam Kiem Lake instead.
We saw a Vietnamese guy with a tattoo of the statue of liberty on his chest (strange), a man pretending to swim in thin air, a bush pruned into the shape of a dragon and many other weird and wonderful things! We met our friends and waited in a cafe for the rest of our group. It started raining for the first time since we’ve been in Vietnam, which means that they’re experiencing a huge dry patch and were happy to see the rain. To be honest, we were happy too as we were (as per usual) sweating buckets. When we left our restaurant, the staff gave us these huge blue ponchos which look ridiculous but keep you sort of dry. The problem is, the rain really is torrential and the roads flood quite easily, meaning that it’s near impossible to stay dry in Vietnam. The restaurant was lovely, a bit pricey but worth it. I had this divine Duck
in orange sauce and Terry had another fruity sauce with his. The power went out half way through dinner which is easily fixed by candles etc but without electricity, the air con wasn’t working and it soon turned into a sauna. We were desperate to just pay and get out. I would recommend the dinner place though as a mid-range place to go. It’s called 69 Cafe (jokes galore as you can imagine) and it’s in the Old Quarter.
The next morning, we got up at 6:15am and no I’m actually not joking! Half our group were leaving to go to Laos and continue the tour while the other half were sticking around in Hanoi for a couple of days. We got up early to wave the Laos people off and it was really sad saying goodbye to people we’ve spent nearly 3 weeks with and shared so many experiences with. As we were up, we ate lots of breakfast, packed up and checked out early. We went to the Ho Chi Minh complex, which is only open till 11am, hence the early start. It has a few attractions within the complex, but the main attraction is the Ho
Sexy Ponchos!
Or Elephant Condoms!Chi Minh (called Uncle Ho for short lol) Mausoleum which contains Uncle Ho, embalmed for over 40 years. We walked there, which would’ve been simple but there is only one entrance to the huge site and you’re not allowed to cut across any grass (the police blew a whistle at us) so the walk is so long. The whole procedure for visiting the Mausoleum is completely bizarre. You’re not allowed to show shoulders and knees, you have to keep your hands by your side, you can’t wear sunglasses on your head, you can’t talk, laugh, snigger, smile or look remotely happy and your camera is confiscated on entry. You can’t even carry a bottle of water! A few ladies are scattered around the queues with megaphones and microphones so they can pick you out and bark orders at you. The female toilets are a line of completely open squat toilets! I walked in and there were these two women just squatting in full view of everyone, so SO wrong!
After the mausoleum experience, we walked to the museum which is full of photos and artefact about Uncle Ho. The Vietnamese people absolutely worship the guy because he lead Vietnam
to independence from France in 1945 and lead the communist party in the Vietnam war. He actually had a really interesting life because he lived abroad for 30 years in France, America, England and many other places so he could draw upon experiences from around the world to free his country. The museum was quite cool, very modern and cheap to enter. However, it was a bit rubbish for foreigners because not everything is translated into English. Despite being a top tourist attraction, the Ho Chi Minh complex was still 95% Vietnamese when we went, which I think goes to show the importance of the complex to the locals.
We grabbed our bags and took a taxi (not fixed this time yay) to our hostel in the Old Quarter. It’s kind of half hostel, half hotel. Our room is a 6 bed dorm, but you get a single bed each instead of bunks and it’s lovely and spacious and has everything you need. It’s divided into 2 sections with 3 beds in each so it feels very private. It’s called Hanoi rendezvous hotel by the way and only costs us £4.50 each a night! Me and Terry played Monopoly
in the cafe downstairs as they have free games and Terry of course won because he spends half his life playing Monopoly for iPhone! He built hotels and completely cleaned me out! We also tried to play Chess but I thought it was really boring. The final perks of the hostel are free breakfast (pretty decent too) and free beer and spring rolls on Thursday. Today just happens to be Thursday so I’ll be off soon for my freebies!
We are now in Hanoi for another 5 full days and nights. This was a bit last minute because instead of spending this time travelling overland to Hong Kong, we’re flying to Hong Kong, meaning that what would’ve been a 3 day journey is now a 2 hour journey! We will probably both be very lazy and watch lots of movies, enjoy free games and wonder around Hanoi for 5 days. Not sure if I will blog again for a while because we will probably be doing very boring things! Enjoy the pics!
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