Hanoi

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Hanoi started with a rude awakening. RUDE. Nancy and I took a night bus from Phong Nha to Hanoi. I took Advil PM (hadn't gotten the Valium yet) and slept fitfully next to the bathroom with the door that kept swinging open. My earplugs mostly stayed in my nose. At 6am, we were awakened by all the red lights in the bus turning on and a Vietnamese song BLASTING through all the speakers. You know those songs where it's a woman and a really wavering voice? Imagine that waking you up at 6am on a bus filled with red light and not being able to turn it off or down. This was followed by what I can only describe as a Communist March. Nancy and I were bewildered, to say the very least. We got dropped off nowhere near the bus station we were promised, got our things together, and set off to find our hostel. Hanoi at 6am was quiet and peaceful with the occasional people sitting on the sidewalk drinking tea and groups of women doing Tai Chi in the park by the lake.

We got to our hostel and were told check-in was at 2, but the room could probably be ready by 11, so we should come back and check. We searched for coffee and breakfast. We found a coffee place and had coffee and cheesecake (not a breakfast place, but we were so hungry). Then we found a place where Nancy could get bahn mi. Since they served breakfast, I ordered more coffee and pancakes. After 45 minutes of waiting for my pancakes (we were the only ones in the restaurant) I re-ordered them and got them within 10 minutes. Once we were fed, we found the company I was going to Halong Bay with. I popped in, paid, and got everything settled for the next morning's early pick-up. By the time we left that office, the city had fully woken up.

Here's what Hanoi is like. Hanoi is...hectic. The old town, where I spent most of my time, is tiny winding streets. It's definitely a maze. The streets are PACKED with motorbikes, taxis, tuktuks, and vans. You'd think there might be sidewalks for pedestrians. At 6am there are. LOVE 6am in Hanoi. During the day, the sidewalks are also packed. Not with pedestrians though. With parked scooters, Vietnamese people sitting on tiny stools drinking tea and eating noodles, food stands, and shops. Where do the pedestrians go?, you may ask. Well...umm....in the spaces they can find. This involves a lot of dodging motorbikes and humans. After crossing the street in Hanoi, I can do anything. i AM INVINCIBLE.

Here's also what Hanoi is like. Each of these little streets has a theme. All of the shops on the street spill open onto the street and sell the same thing. But only for the length of that one little street. Here are some of the themes:

Ribbons and zippers

Buttons

Sunglasses

Bamboo pipes and ladders

Stainless steel kitchen appliances

Hardware

Fabric

Snacks

And many more. With some time still to kill, we went to the cathedral, which we couldn't go into, so we said "oh, look, cathedral" and moved on. We walked to the women's museum, which was really cool. Each floor was dedicated to something like birth, family, marriage, history, and fashion. We learned about the marriage rituals of each Northern tribe, women who fought in the war, and we picked out our favorite outfits on the top floor. THEN IT WAS FINALLY TIME FOR A NAP, SO THAT'S WHAT WE DID.

That night we bought a bottle of wine and drank it while our hostel decorated for Christmas. We went to the night market, where we saw a lot more misspelled things and went to bed early because the naps just weren't enough.

For the next lots of days, see "Halong Bay and Beyond."

I came back to Hanoi after going to Thuy's village. I checked into a new hostel and was sitting on my bed when Yorick walked in! (from Nha Trang and Hoi An). I was psyched to see him, and we went out to dinner on the street. After walking around for a bit, we got a drink at the rooftop bar of the hostel and went to bed. The next morning, we got breakfast upstairs, and then I walked around the city for a long time. We met up for lunch with Yorick's english friend and got Bun Xao, which was amazing. That afternoon I went to the Hoa Lo prison, where the French colonists kept Vietnamese political prisoners and the Vietnamese later kept American POWs, including John Mccain. Again, very anti-American, very much "look how well we treated them in prison and you guys suck for treating them any less." It was a really interesting place.

The next day I hung out at the hostel and then walked around some more. I went to a bunch of sites, but they were closed, so I just did a lot of walking. That evening I went for egg coffee and met an American girl. We got Vietnamese barbecue, which we cooked ourselves and was so good. We walked the length of the night market before parting ways to get on our night buses.

For the next few days, see "Sapa"

When I got back to Hanoi, it was 4 am. I got to walk through the streets again when it was dead quiet. I slept for a few hours at Flipside hostel in a room with no door before I got up and moved to my new hostel, See You At Lily's. After very little sleep, I spent most of the day on my computer hanging out and getting food close before my room opened and I could nap. I went to bed really early that night.

The next day was my last full day in Vietnam, so I did all of the things. I went to the war history museum, which was mostly in Vietnamese, so I couldn't understand much. But there were a lot of bombs, tanks, planes, and helicopters, which was cool. And so many tiny children on field trips. Then I went to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, which is the most communist thing I've ever done. After circumventing the whole area until I found the entrance, I went through a metal detector, and got my camera handed back to me in a special camera bag. We lined up to be released, and I met some Americans in line. We all walked in two lines on the side of the empty road (empty of motorized vehicles. There were some tourists about), and at one point I was stopped and told to hand in my camera to a booth. I did, and we continued to march in our two lines to the entrance of the mausoleum. They made sure no one had hats or sunglasses on, and everyone had to have their hands out of their pockets. We walked through the mausoleum silently single-file with guards placed every 5 feet around the dark room where Ho Chi Minh's body was. It was so creepy. As soon as we left, they just let us go, and I got my camera back and went to the hostel.

That night I went out with some people from the hostel to the outskirts where one of the hostel workers lived. We got pizza and talked about Vietnam. When we returned to the hostel, I had an early flight and no money, so I went to bed to awake at 4am for my flight to Bangkok. One more 4am in Hanoi, and the end of Vietnam.

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Hanoi
We loved our time in Hanoi even though it rained the entire time we were there. We especially loved the water puppets. Fascinating.