Advertisement
Published: July 29th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Due to our tight schedule, we didn’t waste much time in Hanoi. The following day we booked up a 2 day / 1 night trip around Halong bay staying overnight on the boat with Deano, El, Rich and our new found Kiwi friends Phil and Tyla.
We decided to spend the day sightseeing so organized to pay a visit to the Hoa Lo Prison Museum and the Military History Museum. No fun day in Asia would be complete without a silly hat, so myself Deano and James all bought ourselves a Vietnamese Army hat and set off on our tour. As there were 5 of us there was not enough room in a taxi so I decided to catch a moto. After initially thinking I was going to be stung for the fare as the others were splitting the bill, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it actually worked out cheaper. Also, there is no better way to see the city than careering around on the back of a moto; weaving in and out of traffic, jumping red lights, narrowly missing certain death on numerous occasions!
We arrived at Hoa Lo Prison Museum. Hoa Lo Prison was
opened by the French in 1896 to detain revolutionary fighters and patriots to try and stop anti-colonial movements among the Vietnamese people. Post liberation in 1954 it became a state jail, up until 1964 when it was used to imprison American pilots whose planes had been shot down over Hanoi. It was at this time that the prison acquired the nickname ‘The Hanoi Hilton’. Obviously we recognized the suffering that the inmates endured whilst held at the building and it was interesting to look at and learn about the building’s history; however with our new found novelty hats we just couldn’t resist a few silly photos!
There was a single cell in the dungeon area that you could walk into and still lock the door. We played the classic trick on Deano and waited until he had entered, then closed the door and bolted it behind him. As you can imagine, we found this hilarious! We saw a Chinese couple approaching and couldn’t resist watching their reaction. The guy wandered up and looked through the peephole to see Deano sitting inside, with his army hat on, probably looking similar to James in the attached photo (entitled ‘Prisoner’). The best
part was that the Chinese guy peered through, had a rather bemused look on his face, and then wandered off!!! It wasn’t until Dean called him back and asked him to open it that he actually did. We’re not sure if he thought Dean was being paid to be part of the exhibition, or he had just stumbled across an off limits wing of the museum that was still being used to detain prisoners! All in all very funny, but you probably had to be there.
Next stop was the Military History Museum. Now we thought we were able to have some fun in our hats at Hoa Lo, but the best was still to come. We spent a good hour running around like children posing in front of tanks, planes and heavy artillery which was thoroughly enjoyable. Tried to scale the watchtower, however we had spent so much time messing around that when we arrived the lady told us it was actually closed. After some gentle persuasion she gave us 5 minutes and it was worth it for some good views of the city.
After going threes up on a moped back to the Hotel, we decided
to hunt down a well recommended restaurant called ‘Little Hanoi’. After some really good, if somewhat expensive Vietnamese food we stumbled across ‘Bia Hoi Corner’. This is a collection of bars (I use that term loosely) all positioned opposite each other on the four corners of a crossroads. Bia Hoi is the local beer here in Vietnam. It is a draft beer poured directly from the keg and costs 2000 dong for a glass. Bear in mind that there are 15,000 dong to $1US so that works out at about 10p for a little over ½ a pint. Lovely!!! It really was a great evening. Sitting on kids’ plastic furniture, literally on the road, drinking cheap beer and enjoying some of the best people watching in the world! Mopeds flying around the corner nearly taking your head off; locals arguing over the price of their latest purchase; hawkers in straw hats selling you donuts/pineapples/lighters; street vendors with overloaded push bikes waving at you to draw your attention to their wares.
Due to insurance policies being pretty much non-existent over here, I always wondered how a traffic accident is handled. Whilst on one of my wanders around the city I
found out. There was a minor incident with no-one hurt and no real damage done that had just taken place when I approached. I noticed a small debate going on as I passed. A young woman and a middle-aged man were speaking in fast-tongued Vietnamese to each other. The woman was apparently showing the man some kind of damage that had been done to the obscure cargo that she was transporting. I carried on walking, not really paying much attention. I walked back along the same road around ½ an hour later and the same young woman and middle-aged man were now in the middle of a full blown argument, their voices raised to shouts. Whereas before there were a couple of early spectators hoping for a stand off, there was now a crowd of around 30 people surrounding the pair, all sticking their oar in at every available opportunity. It seems that the Vietnamese way would be to see who can shout the loudest and find the most witnesses, real or fake, that can back them up. It almost seemed as though they were both representing themselves in a private court case, with the spectators acting as the jury.
I watched for a while, totally fascinated by the whole situation, then left at the point the middle aged man had climbed onto his moped and was trying to drive off through the unruly crowd, with the young woman standing in front of his bike, one hand on the handle bars, the other waving an index finger in his face! What a crazy bunch of people.
Hanoi is a very hectic place, like any Asian city, but it seems to have a lot more character than Ho Chi Minh City. The streets are smaller, the shops are more interesting and there are a lot more places to find Bia Hoi!!!! After a genuinely bad start to the North of Vietnam, I am growing quite fond of Hanoi. We do however need some chill out time so we’re looking forward to our trip around Halong Bay tomorrow.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.113s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 13; qc: 63; dbt: 0.069s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Mandy
non-member comment
Beautiful
It all looks fantastic Pete. Now i've left work all i wanna do is go on holiday! no where near as extreme as you but def somewhere hot and exotic. Glad you're having a fabolous time, take care and enjoy yourself xxx