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We arrived in Hanoi at 6am on a lovely Monday morning. As usual we were pounced on by loads of touts and taxi drivers but the thing is that D and I were the only non vietnamese passengers on the bus so that means it's not just the tourists who get hassled - how refreshing is that! In fact when we were waiting for the overnight bus, in the cafe, in the mystery location, the lady proprieter came and asked how much we'd paid for a ticket, when we told her she did a look of amazement - assuming we'd been ripped off we asked how much she sells tickets for and it turned out that she was suprised because we'd paid the same price as the locals and not tourist rates - hurrah!!!
Anyway back to Hanoi - we agreed a rate with 2 motorbike drivers and jumped on the back. It was amazing driving through the empty streets of Hanoi at such an early hour and also a really good way to start to get our bearings. My highlight was driving past a guy who was balancing 4 dead pigs on his bike, 2 under his feet, 1 on his knee and 1 on the back - welcome to Hanoi!!!
Our hotel is great and really centrally located from a tourist perspective - we are in the 'Old Quarter' which is a hustling bustling place (even at silly o'clock in the morning!). There are mopeds everywhere, all tooting their horns for no reason in particular, street sellers bouncing up and down the street because of the weight of their baskets and shop keepers with their wears spewing out onto the pavements making them impassable. As in all of Vietnam there are makeshift food stalls with little plastic tables and chairs dotted all over the streets some with gas stoves others with real fires and pots, all with lots of customers!
Our room wasn't immediately available on arrival so we decided to see Hanoi in the morning. It was glorious - we walked around the Hoan Kien Lake passing all these elderly people doing their morning excercises and tai Chi. It was also fairly quiet something quite unusal for Hanoi. In the lake is a temple which quite bizarrely has a gigantic embalmed tortoise in it - why? Well because legend has it that in that exact lake a gigiantic golden tortoise appeared and seized Emporer Ly Thai's sword which he'd used to drive the Chinese out - well I guess we can't say anything as we have St George and the dragon!
We had a huge day on day 2 in Hanoi - we were out again at 7.30am padding around the streets once again passing elderly people doing their excercises - this time some women doing a fan dance next to a major road! I was going to join in as I too have my own fan now but I didn't want to show them up! The reason for the early start was to get to Ho Chi Minhs Mauseleum before 1/2 of Vietnams school children arrived. How bizarre was that - you are ushered through the mauseleum very quickly and as I stared at his embalmed body (which gets shipped to Russia each winter for an annual overhaul) all I could think about was the fact that in his will he requested that he be cremated and yet here is his body lying until...well who knows! There are clear instructions about taking photographic equipment into the hall, quite simpy you can't, I had to hand my camera in on entry to be collected when we left. As we entered the room with Ho Chi Minhs body actually in it, a Vietnamese was being escorted out of the room by soldiers as he had a camera on him. I then started to panic as I remembered I had a camera on my mobile phone - I couldn't get out of the room quickly enough. His body lies in a building next to the area he actually lived in during the war and we saw his 2 houses from that period. I got whistled at by a soldier for taking off my cardigan (and I don't mean a pleasant wolf whistle I mean a you're in trouble whistle) which I quickly put back on and then got barred by an armed soldier for trying to look at some fish!! I tell you it was all far too stressful for me.
We then wandered onto the Temple of Literature which is the site of Vietnam's first university. The king himself used to set the exams and mark and grade them! There was some student award ceremony going on when we visited. The stone tablets which list all the successful scholars sit on the backs of tortoises (them again - well they are one of Vietnams holy animals). We noticed people rubbing the heads of all the tortoises so made a massive assumption that this must bring the person intelligence - David and I immediately started rubbing away heartily!
It was now time for breakfast - David knows exactly when it is meal time as he can't function without food. We were right next to a restaurant called KOTO which is a non profit project providing opportunities for street children. I had the breakfast buffet but D ordered poached egg on toast. Mine was simple and in fact I'd finished mine before D even got his. He was now stressing and making comments about chickens and eggs etc.. When it did eventually arrive he asked if they'd forgotten him at which point he was informed that this was a teaching restaurant and the chef had taken a few attempts to prepare the eggs - how bad did he feel then - it was classic!!!
On this busy busy day we also visited Hoa Lo Prison Museum it was built by the French to imprison the communists but was later used to detain US POW's who nicknamed it the Hanoi Hilton. I found it quite an eery place - it even still has the original guillotine! Most of the exhibits refer to the French treatment of the Vietnamese but one room does have info about the US prisoners. It is full of happy pictures showing the prisoners playing pool, cards, and enjoying a christmas lunch. The exhibit talks about how happy and well treated the US POW's were - given that Senator John McCain can't lift his arms above his head because of his treatment in this jail I'm not entirely sure that this exhibit is 100% accurate!!!
Our accommodation was located really close to St Josephs Cathedral and just before we left Vietnam the bishop died - the place went mad. Bus loads were arriving to pay their respects - the bell was being rung all the time and there seemed to be a continual service. There were so may people in the church that they spilled out into the square. Without meaning to be disrespectful but for descriptive purposes I'm going to say that the people all looked like ninjas as they all tied white cloths around their heads - men, women and children! Take a look at the photos.
A famous place in Hanoi for travellers is a junction in the Old Quarter called beer corner. David quite rightly wanted to experience this phenomenon so we headed over there one evening. The place is full of travellers all sitting on these low seats (the kind you get in primary schools in the UK) drinking fresh beer at 3,000 dong a glass. Now I've tried fresh beer (home brew essentially) in Hoi An and it was lovely but this stuff was disgusting! Even D had to admit it wasn't that great but I guess we were there more for the atmosphere than the quality of the beer.
Our final Hanoi experience was the Chinese Water Puppets - now this is not something that I would instantly imagine David liking but he did remarkably well only falling asleep once! I think the thing that kept him going was secretly taking photos without paying the additional 15,000 dong required for this pleasure - it muct have been the adrenalin rush! I on the other hand thought the whole performance was brilliant. The stories are all narrated in Vietnamese which is an immediate obstacle but it doesn't take Einstein (and remember we had rubbed the tortoises head) to figure out that they are based on ancient tradtitions and legends. It is so clever how they work the puppets and make them swim in the water etc.
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