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Day 19 - Hanoi
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GOOOOOD MORRRNING VIETNAM....
Sorry, been looking forward to doing that for days ;)
God this place is noisy.
We are on the 8th floor and all you can hear are car & bike horns ! I think they use horns like we in the UK use indicators, brakes and maybe even mobiles ?! Drivers or riders don't seem to ever use their mirrors, they just pull out and wait for the horn to be blasted right behind them !
They use the horn to warn other drivers not to pull out, or to get out the way, or to ask them out, or to see how their Aunt Ethel is, it's amazing.
I think the fundamental difference between our culture & their's is that we use the horn AFTER someone does something stupid (with a bit of swearing, natch), whereas they use the horn to try and PREVENT someone doing something stupid...
As Katie pointed out this morning, thank God we didn't get a room near the ground floor, all the noise would have driven us crazy !
We slept really well last night, even if I stayed up until 1:30am to watch Portsmouth v Liverpool from last weekend (an erm... "thrilling" 0-0 draw) and all the Champions League goals from Tues/Weds games... Can't tell you how much I miss live English football :(
We decided to explore Hanoi on foot today, as everything is quite walkable here. I wouldn't say it's an attractive city, but there are some nice spots.
We started off at the Hoan Kiem lake near our hotel, which is quite pretty...
...we then walked to the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, who led the communists of the north to victory over the might of the French, the Americans, and ultimately their 'capitalist' brothers in the South of the country.
I'm certainly not saying that he was a good guy, but under his command (North) Vietnam became the most feared and ruthless army in S.E. Asia, after the Chinese. They took on all comers, and won.
Ho Chi Minh's guerilla war eventually forced the oppresive French colonialists to withdraw from Vietnam, and he then set about forcibly re-uniting the communist north with the capitalist south.
As we all know, America and others soon joined forces with the South Vietnamese to protect the south from communist rule, but HCM's army ultimately forced the phenomenal American war machine to withdraw after devastating losses on both sides.
Buoyed by this incredible success, his communist army then set about removing the Khymer Rouge from power in Cambodia (so that they could instal their own puppet leader), and they did the same thing in Laos.
Of course the north Vietnamese could never have achieved these feats without the financial & military support of their Chinese 'big brother', but there is no doubting the phenomenal strength of his army and his leadership, particularly from their humble beginnings as a rag tag resistance just decades earlier.
Unfortunately the mausoleum was closed at the moment because his body is in Russia being re-embalmed, but the building itself is quite interesting, and in a nice part of town. We had a good wander around and enjoyed having some space after the tight streets around the hotel !
We somehow contrived to completely miss the famous Royal Palace and the Ho Chi Minh museum which were literally round the corner, but we did go into the Temple of Literature, which rather puzzlingly contains no books whatsoever, unless I missed something ?!
The grounds did have some very nice temples & gardens and it also pretty quiet, at least for Hanoi.
We then wandered back towards the hotel for lunch, which was allegedly a "budget" place but neither of us found it particularly cheap. Still, I decided to have my first "pho", which is a Vietnamese noodle soup with beef, quite basic but tasty...
I guess you could call me a "Pho Selecta" ?! Yeh yeh, I'll get my coat ;)
We then went on a mission to book our 2 day trip to Ha Long Bay, which is about 3 hrs east by bus, but is supposed to be stunning, loads of islands and boat trips.
Interestingly (worryingly ?!) all the tour agents we visited seemed to have the same tour, so it was just a question of finding someone who we trusted to actually show up at the hotel tomorrow morning, and also trying to find the best price.
In the end, after about an hour of searching, we plumped for the only guy who was actually honest with us, even if he clearly couldn't be bothered to give out the usual spiel peddled by his competitors !
He was like "all the tours are the same, just pick one. My price is good, but it's the same tour as all the others, same type of boat, same type of food, the government controls everything."
After the previous 20 minutes of sales patter & barefaced lies, that was very refreshing, and we're glad the trip is finally sorted.
We now need to sort out transport down south for when we get back to Hanoi, but we couldn't face more slogging around in the heat and craziness of the streets today, so we've come back to the hotel to relax for a bit ! It's nice to have a telly so we can chill out for a while...
We've decided that there isn't enough in Hanoi to keep us here for 3 nights, so we'll stay tonight, do the Ha Long Bay tour tomorrow, and then have one final night here before heading all the way south to eventually arrive in Ho Chi Minh City / Saigon.
I'm a bit gutted that our new schedule means I won't see any of the live Premiership games tomorrow, but I guess I'll survive ;)
After relaxing for an hour or so, we wandered around the streets, impressed at the odd bit of colonial style architecture...
...and we found a great street stall selling nothing but (super ?) furry animals ! HOW cute ?!
There was just time to find a particularly interesting type of local ice cream (just for you Ste !). You can't beat a bit of this ;)
...and then it was back to the hotel to sleep and pack for tomorrow.
Can't wait to get to Ha Long Bay tomorrow, looking forward to relaxing on a boat and no walking for a couple of days !
lots of love,
Al & Katie xx
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