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Published: February 21st 2009
HaLong Bay
A leftover from last post. Took it in the morning.Surprisingly for us, a few people we have met along the way in Vietnam have told us that this will be their last trip - one said that it was his first and he wouldn't be back, and he was a resident of Thailand. Others are more experienced travellers in the country. They cite various reasons for their decisions including a general 'I am over SE Asia with its heat, humidity and constant hassling of tourists'. Inevitably, I guess, some don't like the food and others can't get used to the differences from whatever their particular culture may be. There aren't a lot of people with a negative view but, at the same time, it is not realistic to suggest that everything about Vietnam is wonderful.
One experienced US traveller told me that he was tired of constantly being overcharged as a tourist and complained that he felt that tourists tend to be viewed as 'milk cows' by most. He particularly objected to being overcharged where he felt that the money was going into the pockets of big corporations rather than the people actually delivering the service. He was absolutely correct. I bought a bottle of 'big water' - 1.5
litre bottle - from an older lady on the street in DaLat. Amid smiles and laughter from her mates she charged me 10,000 dong. She knew and I knew that the going price in DaLat was 8,000 dong. I laughed and inspected the water for something special and gave her the 10,000. She had 'overcharged' me less than 20cents Australian. Since then we have paid 10,000 just about everywhere else except in convenience stores where it is either 6 or 8,000 so I have been 'ripped off' everywhere. Oh dear!
With tours it isn't clear who is getting the money. It seems pretty likely, though, that the bloke on the bottom of the pile is not getting a lot and that, along the way, there are people who are raking in a reasonable proportion. But is that different to the situation in any country? It is possible that it is the difference people pay in prices that gets up noses. On our trip to HaLong Bay we found that most had paid prices around the $50.00 US mark for the 2 day trip including buses to and from HaNoi, overnight on the boat and all meals. Some, though, had
paid over $70 and others as low as $40. We were one of the lower ones, and that may explain my relaxed approach, but I figure this is just the way the system works and that it is not unique to Vietnam, nor to SE Asia.
The hassling of tourists can be an issue but it does seem to be pretty mild in Vietnam compared to other places. People complain of being constantly approached by cyclo drivers, motorbikes, taxis and the variety of street sellers. They are probably right. Since we have been in HaNoi we have been approached by the same people regularly. They seem to operate on the basis that 'maybe this time'. One book seller told me that 'surely you need a new book by now. You have been here for days.' But there is never any malice, always a smile and, provided you acknowledge the approach with a wave or a shake of the head, they leave you alone. Hardly much of a difficulty and nothing compared to what we are told to expect in India, for instance.
One gripe that I will support is about the bloody motorbikes. Before I am forced to
Dong Xuan Market
in HaNoi. They don't bargain with tourists here. It is pretty much all bulk stuff. The attempt to bargain on a hat was met with a derisory sniff. edit this to say 'but think how much worse it would be if they were all cars', let me explain. I recognise that they are a very flexible and useful form of transport in this country at its stage of development. They can carry 3 and sometimes 4 people at a time - although there are now rules about that. They can carry all manner of goods and they are, all in all, vital to the economy. But why do people need to ride them everywhere? Through crowded markets, along footpaths that already have bikes parked across them, into shops, along skinny paths, through red traffic lights and, of course, on the wrong side of the road.
The government announced the other day that it was not going to rescind its recent ban on carrying livestock on motorbikes but would now give greater attention to 'explaining' the change. This would mean, apparently, that you can still carry livestock - cows, pigs, goats etc - on motorbikes but now you have to put them in a cage or box of some nature. This also goes for dead livestock. There is a concern that carting of meat about on motorbikes is
This Bloke
led the Vietnamese against the Chinese a 1,000 or so years ago. One of a long line of leaders who had a similar task a health hazard. I guess it is not too much of a problem if the meat stays on the bike - it is when it falls off that the real difficulty cuts in.
Hanoi is a city that can grow on you. When we first made it here it seemed pretty much like most other big Asian cities. It is of course but there are differences. It is less frenetic than some, seems to have a lot of parks, lakes and, in some parts that we visited, wide streets and footpaths. Footpaths that are wide enough in fact to have badminton courts laid out on them. I don't know when all of the games are played, but there are a lot of these courts in various places around the city. We only spotted one that had a family playing one afternoon.
Our hotel was in the Old Quarter. Again it was one that we had booked on HostelWorld. This site provides feedback from previous guests and, even though the hotel can also put its own comments on, the comments have proven to be a pretty good guide to what you can expect. The system is open to problems
For Adam
Even Che gets the graffiti treatment although I have to say it was a lot less than others had recieved. though. It is possible for people to either talk up or talk down a place. We have spotted a few where someone is going to a lot of trouble to bag an excellent place that we stayed at and others where apparently bogus posts give rave reviews of places that other reviews are less complimentary about.
Our hotel was called the Loyalty and was in Hang Hanh about 200m from Hoan Kiem Lake. It cost us $22 US a night but that was only after some negotiation. The standard price seemed to be $45 each per night. We were at the point of packing to move out when they agreed to the price we were after. Lovely staff, great location and reasonable breakfast included in the price.
The Old Quarter is basically the tourist zone, or perhaps more correctly, the budget tourist zone. It has skinny streets and some expensive shops. It also has a night market that operates on Friday and Saturday nights down a street that has to be 2km long. The stuff on sale is pretty much the standard stuff T shirts, clothes that are superfluous to requirements in the shops, toys and lots of
Cyclos
Just hanging out waiting for a tourist to walk past cheap jewellery. It certainly attracts the crowds. You walk up one side and walk down the other and you are in deep trouble if you think you might turn around. I created major drama for those travelling in my wake each time Pat spotted something she wanted to look at more closely.
They sell a lot of toys over here. Toys of all types. One impressive one is a helicopter that flies around. Bit like a large mosquito. If either of my children eventually do the right thing I might just come over here, buy a small shipping container and load up. Until then, well they can keep developing their technology.
There seems to be more of a French influence around Hanoi that in most other parts of the country, not that we are experts on the subject. A lovely French lady we met could point out things that had a strong French influence. We will check out France in due course and report back.
We visited most of the key tourist sites around the city. Missed the National Museum though. Pity that. We did go to see Uncle Ho but he, or rather his mausoleum was
Uncle Ho's Place
Note the spike of the revolution breaking the links of the chain - or at least that is what I think it represents closed for the arvo when we made it. Pretty terrible thing to do to the bloke. He had wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered around the country so, instead, they pumped him full of preservative and put him on show to all and sundry. It is hard to believe he would have approved. We did go to the Ho Chi Minh Museum and it was better than most providing a lot of interesting material about his lifelong campaign to have the country govern itself. Yet again I was struck by the ignorance of the US and its allies in thinking it could beat this mob after they had seen off so many invaders in the past.
The Temple of Literature was worth a visit if just to see the stone plaques engraved with those who had received their doctorates over the centuries. Apparently you go there and rub the heads of the turtles that carry the plaques for luck if you want to do well in an exam.
The 'Hanoi Hilton' or Hao Long Prison was another place on the visiting list. There had been all sorts of stories about this place over the years
Academics
Not sure of the symbolism of the tortoises. Maybe all academics are a bit slow? from pilots who had been imprisoned there during the Vietnam War so we were interested to get a look at it. It was actually not as forbidding as some other prisons I have been to, both old and current ones, but it was clear that, when it was operating it was a tough place. It housed political prioners during the French days and they packed them in pretty well. There were 4 women's cells that used to house 300 at a time. There wouldn't have been much room to move. The men spent their days with their legs bolted to the floor with manacles. They were not able to move about at all. There was also a pretty functional looking guillotine still in place.
By contrast it looked as if the pilots who had been held there were treated pretty well although it was obviously very tough for them as well. They did have photos of John McCain being hauled out of a lake after he had been shot down over HaNoi. From what we heard during the war he should have been torn limb from limb by the crazed communists. Instead they obviously went to considerable trouble to
Hao Long Prison
They didn't have a lot of room to move here. Looks as if they were kept in this situation for pretty long periods. get him out of the plane and apparently look after him.
HaNoi has many good restaurants. We found some of them and obviously missed a lot but the best and most consistent value for money that we found was just around the corner from our hotel. It was called the Rainbow. The food was a cut above everywhere else that we tried and we ended up going back there a few times. We haven't done that often, so far, on this trip.
The most interesting menu we came across offered dishes you wont find in many places - dog, of course, porcupine, 'small birds', snails (the French influence), snake, eel, rabbit, 'cock's testicles', rat and cat among other better known eating animals. Most of these dishes have to do with virility or the production of male children. We also received some instruction on how to prepare a cat for cooking. I will provide details should someone seek them but the basics are as for a pig. You leave the skin on and remove the hair using hot water and a scrubbing brush. We didn't actually order cat and are pretty sure that we didn't eat any.
We
Play Up
and lose your head. left HaNoi a couple of days ago and flew first to Singapore, waited for 5 hours in the Low Cost Terminal and then caught a Tiger flight to KL. The fare for this flight was zero but we had to pay $44 in fees and charges each. There were only about 20 people on the flight. Obviously, not many people want to fly into KL at 10.00pm. It is about an hour in a taxi from KLIA to KL. The expressway was long, very smooth and pretty much empty. A RM60 trip.
Our hotel was in Jalan Petaling smack in the middle of the night market, which has changed since we were here last but more on that next post. KL has changed a lot since we were last here.
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adamasao
non-member comment
Che
Thanks for that....and that is now your challenge. You are going to have to find a depiction of the man for each blog post from now on! Easy! have fun.