The Least Screwed Tourists in Hanoi

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Jo woke me at 0500 as we’d planned to catch sunrise at Hoan Kiem Lake. The dimly lit narrow streets of the Old Quarter were yet to wake up and to say it was more pleasant when no one is trying to sell us something is an understatement. We made it to the lake just in time for sunrise* and I took plenty of photos.

* We hadn’t actually seen the sun since we’d been Hanoi but we assumed it must have been up there somewhere on account of the fact it was getting lighter.

Breakfast was at an expensive but perfectly located cafe right on the banks of the lake. Jo went traditional again with a bowl of Pho while I stuck with the bacon & eggs – a man needs his morning fry up to stay alert.

A few blocks away, we went into the Kangaroo Cafe to check out prices for train tickets to Hue. They were selling first class sleepers at US$49 each (D980,000). This was considerably more than the Lonely Planet had suggested, so we walked a few kilometres to the train station where we managed to secure them at D700,000.

We were due back from Halong Bay at 1700 on the following Thursday and were hoping to get to the station by 1930 – if everything went to plan, we’d cruise in (famous last words?)

The first real tourist stop was the Temple of Literature (founded 1070), dedicated to Confucius and the literary peers of Vietnam. It was still only 0815 and whilst it was open, there were few people around. We bought two D10,000 tickets and foolishly took a seat to rest up for a few minutes.

Cue the tourist busses… four or five of them, mainly containing the American retirees that were conspicuously absent from the War Remnants Museum in HCMC. The small window for quiet tourism had passed us by and we spent the rest of the hour or so trying to dodge tour groups and get photos and video without hundreds of Westerners in shot. The temple itself had some cool statues of Confucius and superbly maintained gardens that would have made for some excellent photos if I’d had a little bit more patience.

Walking through the newer part of Hanoi, we eventually came to the Ho Chi Minh Museum, a colossus of a building housing photos and memorabilia from Ho Chi Minh’s time in power. It also featured communist artworks, most of which were too abstract for my liking (or perhaps intelligence) The entries are open for anyone who can explain what a giant apple and banana on an even bigger table are symbolic of.

Right outside the museum is the One Pillar Pagoda – the backstory is a little too long to go into here and it frankly sounds a bit dodgy – Wiki it if you need more.

Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is a grand pillared structure commanding over a huge grass and concrete plaza. The grand man himself was not on show for our visit as he was off in Russia getting refurbished. 10 months of lying dead while hundreds of thousands of people stare at you does nothing for a blokes skin so the Russians give him an annual freshen up.

Both Jo and I were stuffed by the time we’d seen the Mausoleum and my camera battery was going flat (rookie mistake) so we decided to get a taxi back to the hotel. Ignoring the two that were slowly reversing and beeping at us, I picked one out of the traffic and we got in. The meter was already showing D42,000 – I knew it should have been D10,500 so I pointed it out to the driver… he giggled and reset it. The standard fare is D10,000 for each kilometre so I was surprised to see that no more than 300 metres down the road, we were already at D20,000. I told him to pull over. He was still negotiating a price after the doors were slammed shut. We ended up walking the three or four kilometres back to the hotel – cutting off our noses to spite our faces but feeling all the better for it.

On return to Golden Wings we were hit up for our onward travel plans (the staff were hoping to get a commission for selling transport or tours and have been getting more and more persistent as the end of our stay here nears). I was in no mood to discuss it so made apologies and went up to the room where I spent half an hour updating the blog.

We walked around the south side of the lake to the Revolution Museum (D20,000 – NZ$1.40) in about half an hour. It was fairly unimpressive, being mostly photos and newspaper cut outs of the Vietnamese struggles against the French and the Americans. Jo commented that she was museumed out so we flew through it in 20 minutes or so.

Another half hour walk got us to Hoa Lo Prison – best known to the west as the Hanoi Hilton (D10,000 each). This is where the French held revolutionaries and, later in the piece, the Vietnamese held captured Americans. It was well organised compared to most of the museums we have been to this trip although there was no tour in any language. Models of prisoners were in cells, tied by their feet and scary music played in the background. All comments on displays were how poorly the Vietnamese were treated by the French when they ran the joint. Upstairs, two small rooms were dedicated to the American prisoners of war who were shown in photos playing billiards and cards, all with smiles as wide as their faces. I’m not convinced the information could be called neutral.

Having fought off several cyclo and taxi drivers outside the prison, we turned the corner to an upmarket hotel and had the bellboy get us a cab that wouldn’t screw us (that wasn’t the exact wording of the request, but you get the drift). One pulled up and was told to go away then another one came by. We were told the trip to the Army Museum should cost D20,000 and the meter was turned on. A list of fares was on the dash so we felt comfortable.

The fare came in at D18,000 and as our taxi headed off into the sunset a young military type bloke pointed to the opening hours on the sign… it was closed on Mondays.

We turned back to the road wondering how on earth we were going to get a reliable taxi just as our man puled a u-turn. I flew across the busy road (I’d become a pro in road-croissing) and hailed him down. The initial confusion was quickly overcome as we asked him to take us back to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.

We wanted to see a stilt house where Ho Chi Minh lived for a while but were dropped off on a street corner "not far" from the one sight I was particularly keen to see so Jo suggested we went there first.

Not far is a relative term and after the long day our feet were nearly gone. The walk took about half an hour. We made a few wrong turns getting there and stopped briefly for some much needed meat of unknown origin kebabs. None of the locals could help us find this place – it was almost as though it didn’t exist – it’s certainly not in any guidebooks. At a small roadside BBQ in the middle of nowhere we found a girl that knew what we were after. Her broken english left us just marginally more confident that we’d find what we were looking for. We headed into a street no wider than a footpath, lined by homes and shops – somehow scooters still went flying past. We found an intersection where an old lady selling fruit must have known what two tourists were doing in the middle of what I guess is the Hanoi version of suburbia. She pointed down the street and there it was… Hanoi’s best kept secret.

In a small pond, no more than 20 metres by 20 metres in size and covered in green algae is part of the remains of an American B-52 bomber shot down on 27 December 1972. Huu Tiep lake holds what – for mine – had been the absolute highlight of our trip so far.

Other countries would have the wreckage on show in a Museum or have fished it out by now – not the Vietnamese. Right next to homes and a school is this mangled plane – and no one knows about it! No busses, no American old folks tours, not even half of the locals who couldn’t possibly have misunderstood my arms apart plane crashing to the ground impression when asking for directions.

We had the place to ourselves almost the whole time although a Canadian came by who had found the location whilst geocaching. I took more photos than I know what to do with.

As we came out of the alleyways into the wide, car friendly streets there was a taxi parked – the same company that used meters and displayed fares. After a ridiculously long day with more kilometres on our footwear than I’d care to count we decided against going to the stilt house and headed back to the Old Quarter.

The Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre is a “must do” in Hanoi although I’m really not sure why. Our tickets were for the 1830 show but Jo pointed out after we bought them that we were seated three rows apart. Fortunately as the house lights dimmed I dashed down to an empty seat beside her.

The Vietnamese Water Puppet show is not hard to explain – they are Vietnamese puppets – in water. As with the fine art museum in HCMC, I’m just not cut out for culture I don’t think. It wasn’t the worst and the band were pretty good on their traditional instruments (and an electric bass) but I guess it’s just not my cup of tea.

We hadn’t eaten a proper meal since 0630 so burgers and chips at the Kangaroo Cafe across the road from our hotel went down a treat. With a few drinks the D280,000 (NZ$19) bill was pretty good given the size of the meals.

We got back to the hotel at 2015 and I wrote the blog until 2100. We were stuffed in every way but it had been a hell of a day.

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