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There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it. - Charles Dudley Warner
The itinierary said 24 hours, guess the technical stop and the layover counted but it 21 hours flying. The stop was in Frankfurt not Korea and we got off; people got on , how is that technical? Anyway we landed in Hanoi and hit the road to the hotel in a taxi that was heavy on the horn.
We are in the Old Quarter and this place blows us away. We read all the websites that say the traffic is bad but we are NYers right? how bad could it be? well the scooters are reckless and stop lights are optional. Crossing the street is a lesson in bravery and a leap of faith as you walk and try not to look at the scooters going around you . There are at least 5 million scooters in this country!
Last night we met our tour of who represent Australia, New Zealand South Africa and Ireland . After dinner we sat in the rain on plastic chairs drinking Bai Hoi pronounced beer hoy. Long our guide says there is
no Vitenamiese word for beer so they borrow from the French . Bai Hoi is fresh beer made daily at the brewery and is sold straight from the keg in stores that resemble a general store with out doors or windows a 3 walled structure covered with canapies that really are just cleverly hung tarps. We watched the people on scooters dart by covered in pounchos because the rain had begun. Its monsoon season.
Today we had the morning tour of Ho Chi Mins mauseleum, as luck would have it today is his birthday so we could go in to visit his never ending wake, he gets re enbalmed every year. We saw the Temple of literature where stone turtles display the names of doctor of philosophy holders. We all rubbed the turtles for good luck along with the locals, do they want a Phd someday too?
The Hanoi Hilton was a sobering experience , this is the prison John McCain was held for 6 years and there are pictures of his recent visit here. There are also pictures of him being pulled from the water in 1968. When it was built by the French in 1896 it
was the largest prison in Indochina. The prison was first used by the French to punish the Vitenamese political prisioners, using forms of torture like ladders tied to their necks and bolting their feet so that they could not lay down. Our guide Long demonstrated that for us. The feet are on the highest part of the incline so that one could not lay back or all the blood would rush to their head, so they spent 15days sitting up. By the time American pilots were inprisioned, those torture devices had been put away . The American piolts were all released in 1973.
Tonight we are boarding the overnight Reunification Express train heading south to Hue pronounced "Way", how will we ever get the pronouncation right with this spelling?
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Cristobal
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Enjoy your visit to Vietnam
Hi there, Hope you are enjoying your trip to Vietnam., I am not going in that direction, please write and tell me more of your experience on that side of the planet. Have fun...........................and a lot of beeeeers......................................................