Gooooood Morning Vietnam!

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Hello from a very hot and humid Hanoi.

Traveling from the airport to the hotel quickly confirmed that Vietnam was exactly like in the movies. Endless paddy fields tended by bent backed people in reed hats, yes they really do still wear them and their not just for tourists! Run down French colonial era buildings and tight narrow streets overrun with bikes. The only nod to the modern world is that the pedal bikes of the movies have been replaced by mopeds.

When I say the streets are overrun with bikes this statement should not be taken lightly. I have even seen the bikes soooo densely packed that they have been in gridlock at crossroads! Bikes caught in gridlock, can you believe it!!!
To top it all there is little to no traffic lights in Hanoi and those that are here are ignored as a matter of course. This results in streams of bikes weaving in and out of each other like motorbike display teams do!

As you can guess all this traffic and no traffic lights presents a bit of a dilemma for anyone wanting to cross a road, even in the narrow streeted old quarter of Hanoi where I was based. The dilemma being do you want to cross the road or do you want to live....

Fortunately the Vietnamese people are a friendly lot and on my first day there one of them saw me timidly trying to get across the road, took pity on me and come over to teach me the trick of getting to the other side without getting splattered on the screen of a moped. His name was Ling, a university student and he said to get across the road was very simple:

'You just step out into the road and walk across at a constant pace. The bike will weave around you as they are used to it'

And having said that he promptly demonstrated this by looking in the opposite direct to the traffic then strode out into the street. Bikes races by on either side of him and I closed my eyes waiting for the squeal of brakes followed by a dull thump. But no he just kept walking and the bikes really missed him! When he got to the other side Ling then beckoned me to join him.... Ya right like I was going to walk out into traffic racing along 6 bikes abreast! But good manners demanded that I do so, so I took a deep breath.... and then took another deep breath.... and stepped out into the road, bracing myself the inevitable impact with a speeding moped. One step, cringe, two steps, cringe, three steps four.... my heart going at a hundred miles an hour. But I kept going and somehow I survived!

Since then my road crossing endeavors have reached heroic proportions. I’m now confident I could safely stroll across the M25 during rush hour without a scratch!

Once Ling had finished teaching me to cross the road he took the opportunity to try to sell me some photo-copied travel books. The Vietnamese are dedicated sales people. As a westerner you even get old ladies trying to sell you their reed hats as souvenirs as they now they can replace them for a fraction of the price a westerner would pay for one.

While in Hanoi I have come to the following conclusion about what the Vietnamese Highway Code says about the use of horns. They should be used in the following circumstances:

* To warn other users if you are about to hit them.
* To indicate to other drivers that you want more room, so you can go faster.
* If someone honks their horn at you.
* If you are bored and need something to occupy your mind while driving.
* If you have not pressed your horn in the last 10 seconds as you will thus need to check that it still works.


This makes Hanoi a very intense city to visit with both heat humidity and sound assaulting you round the clock. The heat and humidity is made even worse by the fact that there are no air-conditioned shops or shopping centers in Hanoi to take shelter in. Everywhere is just small shops with fans. To be honest this makes Hanoi a little too much for me and I have had to repeatedly flee back to the shelter of my hotel room for some down time, just to catch my breath.

The hotel I'm staying at is the 'Hayen Trang' on 'Hang Trong' street. It is a nice little hotel with only about 20 rooms and the staff are very friendly and attentive. I did get in trouble with the chief though. I kept oversleeping and getting up too late for breakfast and the chief wanted to know why I was coming down for her lovely food. I made sure I did not miss anymore of her breakfasts after that ;-)

Much of the rest of the food I ate in Hanoi was in a little cafe round the corner from my hotel called the 'Stop Cafe'. It serves a mixture of western and Vietnamese food along with very nice pizzas, so caters for all. The staff are very friendly too and always remembered me. I found the 'Stop Cafe' in the lonely planet guide book and it is about 25 yards down the road from the 'Funkey Monkey', a great little bar with mood music and a chilled out atmosphere.
I met a couple of locals in the 'Funkey Monkey' the first night in Hanoi and we were chilling out under one of the huge fans in there when there was a power cut. So the three of us were huddled under this big fan watching it get slower and slower, praying the power would come back on before this fan ran out of momentum and left us to the mercy of Vietnam’s heat. Slower and slower it got. The fan did not quite make it to the restoration of power but thankfully we did not have to go too long without it. Just a few minutes. Apparently power cuts are relatively common in Vietnam, so there was suitable backup lighting and the bar when on, all be it without music. The staff took the opportunity to try to sell more drinks with lots of ice in them.

The Language

I was expecting Vietnamese to be fairly easy to pick up in comparison to Thai, after all, unlike the Thais, they use the same alphabet as us thanks to their time as a French colony. Unfortunately while the French have taught the Vietnamese how to write in our alphabet they seemed to have overlooked teaching them to pronounce the consonants. 'T' is pronounced 'D', 'TH' as 'T' several other letters have their sounds swapped over and half the other consonants as pronounced as 'G'. This really adds to the fun of first contact with locals! I found the only way to learn was to get a local to say a word and then write down my own spelling of it to read back latter. My spelling NEVER had the slightest resemblance to the Vietnamese spelling. However I have picked up the key polite words of Vietnamese faster that I did the Thai equivalents. I think this is as in Vietnam they do not have the 'Wai' for anything other than temple worship. The 'Wai' is where you place your hands together like in prayer and touch the top of your nose with you index fingers. The Thai 'Wai' can be used in virtually any situation to show respect and thanks. This has allowed me to be polite in Thailand while still being too lazy to learn many words. I will have to remedy this on my return there.

Shopping in Hanoi

Hanoi is full of very small shops with narrow fronts but are very deep. Apparently this is a result of old tax laws based on the size of shop fronts. Sometimes you have to walk down alleys no wider than the width of your shoulders to reach a shop. Everywhere in Hanoi accepts both Vietnamese Dong and US Dollars in parallel.

The Vietnamese are determined sales people, unfortunately they do not have the easy going charm and finesse of their Thai cousins and so, when they get into their sale mindset, often just come across as pushy and annoying, which is a great pity as when they are not trying to sell you something they are great people to just chat with.

There are a number of primary commodities that Hanoi sells to tourist.

* Laquour ware. There are shelves and shelves of the stuff here. Mostly made out of sandalwood; but some from coconut shells and bamboo. This is the best laquour ware I have seen on my travels and is insanely cheap. We are talking a matching set of 3 table dishes for 7 US dollars and that is before you even try haggling!
* Works of art. Like Pattaya painters are out in force here painting works from grand masters for next to nothing. The quality of the pictures are very good; but I have to say Pattaya's artists are better. So if you are looking for cheap high quality works of art Hanoi should not be your first choice.
* Silk. While not as world renowned as Thai silk Vietnamese silk is just as good to an untrained eye like mine.
* Clothes. The usual type here. Tourist T-shirts with 'Good Morning Vietnam' and the likes splashed across them. Also plenty of shorts and the likes. All very cheap and not of the highest quality.
* Furniture. Asia seems to be full of beautiful furniture everywhere I go. Hanoi is no exception. I want to buy it all!


So what did I buy I hear you all ask? Well I have purchased some silk place mats and table runner for my dining room. A very nice Chinese chess set made out of buffalo bone (just 35 pounds!), a few other nic nacs and then there is my prize bargain. My pride and joy. Yes you have guessed it.... my read hat. Or should I say hats as they were sooo cheap I brought 2 of them. They are just like in the movies with a thin piece of silk for a chin strap. So how much do you think I paid for each hat? 10 US dollars? 5 US dollars? 2 US dollars? Nope! Each hat was a jaw dropping 1 US dollar. That is about 65 pence each!

With all this shopping I'm now burdened down with a lot more luggage and as soon as I get to Thailand I think I will have to send a parcel home to lighten the load a little.

My trip to Vietnam is for 5 nights and I had planned to spend the whole time in Hanoi, mostly shopping. However on speaking with locals even they said to me:

'Why are you spending the whole time in Hanoi? There is nothing here.'

Statements like this have convinced me to break away from Hanoi for at least one day to see more of Vietnam. Where to go though? That was my question. The wonderful hotel staff had the solution to that one. For just 21 US dollars they offered to arrange a day trip to 'Ha Long bay' 3 hours east of Hanoi. I was initially uncertain if I wanted to go as they said it was a place of beautiful scenery and I am not usually one to spend a day looking at landscapes. Then they mentioned 3 little words that I have, in the past, learned to pay attention to:

'World heritage site'

Ever since I saw the 'Fisherman’s Bastion' in Budapest I have know to visit world heritage sites whenever the opportunity presents itself. So for my last full day in Vietnam it is off to 'Ha Long bay' with me!

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Photos

Rock Water Feature
Found this in a small shop in Hanoi

Rock Water Feature part 2
Found this in a small shop in Hanoi

Vietnamese Monument
Imposing Heroes of old....

Art by the Lake
Lots of small works of art dot the lakeside in Hanoi

Art by the Lake 2
Lots of small works of art dot the lakeside in Hanoi

Lake Temple
Part of the temple at the centre of the lake

Real Bonzia
Eat your heart out dad