SE Asia Honeymoon - Hanoi Round 1

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Julia and I set off on our 30 day honeymoon around 11pm on 16 December 2017; first stop the ancient city of Hanoi, Vietnam.

The night time flight saw me taking the middle seat and Julia getting the spacious aisle seat. I contorted my legs into place for the 10 hour flight to Hong Kong and somehow managed to stay in that position for nearly the whole flight... I think the seating arrangements were Julia’s strategy to convince me to fly premium on future long haul flights – she is still to learn my love of budgeting will win out over leg comfort 9 times out of 10 J

Hong Kong we had just enough time to watch a sunrise over the tarmac and Hong Kong’s beautiful mountainous backdrop while we sipped our Starbucks gingerbread lattes. Our connecting flight to Hanoi’s new international terminal departed Hong Kong on time.

Arriving at immigration at Hanoi was a bit chaotic… they had a system where you complete and submit a form along with your visa letter and passport… the person behind the counter grunted, took the documents and passed them to another individual that disappeared and we were signaled to step back into the crowd of waiting and slightly confused tourist. Time passed and there was no sign of our documents and we had no receipt to demonstrate we’d actually handed over all our documents… finally we found someone with enough sense to point us to another counter where one by one the projected a passport photo up on a screen – when our photo popped up we approached and thankfully were handed our documents and were free to go.

Once through immigration and with bags on our backs, Julia and I discovered we have very different approach to selecting transportation to our accommodations. When I’ve travel in the past I’m always on the hunt to find the most challenging mode of transport; bypassing taxis for the random city bus, train or even better airline shuttle bus. Julia sensibly selects the most convenient and comfortable mode – taxi. After “faffing around” in the heat and humidity looking for transportation (Julia’s words J) I came to my senses and we arranged a private cab to town – which included air conditioning and a bottle of cold water.

We arrived at Hanoi City Palace Hotel early-afternoon and attempted to check in… we found the receptionist was going to go to great efforts to sell us a tour before we would be formally checked in and given access to our room. Miraculously, once we’d agreed to a city tour for the following day, the room that had been unavailable 5 minutes before due to cleaning was now fully prepped and we could check in (this despite the fact that the receptionist had not received a call from cleaning indicating that the room was ready). Once in our room we discovered our first folded towels in the shape of a swan on our bed; oh we also discovered hotel safes in Vietnam aren’t actually fastened to anything, good thing we brought our extension security cable which I used to fasten the safe within a small cupboard.

Jetlagged but committed to adapting to the time zone we headed out for a few hours of slow exploration around the Old Quarter of Hanoi. Highlights included: an incredible number of scooters and cars navigating their way through the narrow old streets, all the while snaking around pedestrians and street vendors. Amazing French infused architecture ranging between the simple shop with home above to impressive government and school buildings. Shoe cleaners that would follow me around calling to me and pointing at my shoes indicating that they would wash the dust/dirt off of them – not that the shoes would stay clean given the detritus, dirt and greasy puddles that covered all walking surfaces. Sampled sweet Vietnamese coffee with egg – I was not a fan, Julia however was. Pho dinner at famous Pho10 shop – sit and point at your selection of beef and two minutes later out pops a bowl of steaming noodle/beef soup , yummy. Of course given that I was traveling with Julia we saw lots of ‘live’ cats, tame street chickens and small dogs in drag.

We headed back to the hotel around 5:30pm and called it an afternoon and prepared for the next days tour of the city.

Day 2 Hanoi

The morning started out with the hotel running out of COLD water… actually it must have been a pressure buildup in their hot water system which overloaded the cold water pressure – Julia was nearly scalded to death by the steaming water; and to top it off when she jumped out of the shower she nearly broke her neck when she discovered the shower drained onto the bathroom’s tiled floor and down the floor drain.

All our bathroom drama behind us we went downstairs for an abbreviated breakfast and waited for our tour guide “Dat” and his 12 seater van, and another bottle of water.

First stop was Tran Quoc Pagoda on West Lake – a very nice old temple and even older Pagoda.

Next stop was Ho Chi Minh complex and what we discovered was a 2km long line of people waiting to enter the complex to pay respect to the Dear Leader who’s body lays in state; amazingly they had a really efficient system of moving people along (I guess when your line monitors are police/army units with guns) and we moved through the queue in less than an hour. Our time with Ho Chi Minh was all of about 10 seconds. No camera’s are allowed to be used inside, but what we saw was amazing – Ho Chi Minh looking like he was taking a nap within a glass box, within a large square room of granite/marble, within a large mausoleum.

After leaving the mausoleum we toured the rest of the grounds and saw the Presidential Palace, Ho Chi Minh’s collection of cars, Minh’s simple traditional platform house where we supposedly lived (passing up the opulence of the palace – yeah right) and another pagoda.

Next stop was the Museum of Ethnology – a tired building with interesting exhibits showing the culture of the 54 ethnic groups that call Vietnam home.

Finally, we earned a lunch stop and a numerous course meal of traditional Vietnamese foods prepared in tourist friendly hygienic conditions.

After lunch, we saw the Temple of Literature – my favorite stop of the day. Such a peaceful setting in the middle of a chaotic city that had encroached right up to the complex’s walls.

Final stop for the day was Ngoc Son Temple on Hoan Kiem Lake – where we were told the first of many stories about the mythology of Turtles in the history of Hanoi. Julia was fascinated with the mummified 250 year old giant turtle that was displayed in the temple… sadly no giant turtles remain in the lake.

After freshening up back at the hotel Julia and I ventured back into the market part of the Old Quarter and found a street vendor that had set up miniature tables/chairs on the footpath and street – we took a seat, my knees nearly hitting my ears) and the flimsily plastic legs spreading out under the non-asian weight load. A great venue to sample real street food and local beer to celebrate our first full day in Hanoi.



We wandered back to the hotel taking a meandering route through the narrow streets and alleys as we explored all the way back to the hotel for our last night before heading to Ha Long Bay.

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Photos

Old Buddhist temple and Bodhi tree
Dating from the 6th century, this Buddhist temple site encloses a tree which is said to have been grown from a cutting from the original bodhi tree under which the present lord Buddha achieved enlightenment. The temple site is a small islet connected by a short walkway to the eastern edge of the large West lake (Tay Ho)