Back 2 Civilisation, well sort of civilised anyway

Its easy to see why a lot of people din't like Hanoi:- its a frantic, hot, dirty place where your constantly being hassled and overcharged for everything and anything you want. However i think once you can get ast that there is definatel reason to stick around, as there is a striking culture underneath this which says a lot about Vietnam.

on the way to Hanoi too

              Checked out the museum of ethnology in the morning, hiring a motorcycle taxi to do so. Im not a big museum fan by any means, but for anyone coming to Hanoi i would strongly recommend this museum. It consists of a ridiculous number of interesting exhibits, very well presented in three languages, abut the different ethnic groups in the country, their dress and their culture. It even has recreated traditional houses from each minority in the gardens outside, and you can go inside and see how the people used to live.

view on the way

           As a consequence of this museum being far more interesting than i had expected, i overstayed my agreed time with my moto driver. I thought to myself 'if he doesn't like it, he doesn't have to stay, i'll just get another driver' so i was surprised to see him still outside when i finished, obviously he didn't mind. Or so i thought...

        Got back to Hanoi, and when i went to pay the agreed price he was having none of it, and started guesturing that due to the extra time he had to wait, he nw wanteds substantially more. Had he told me this at the museum i would have been ok, but as he said nothing then i was having none of this. There then followed much arguing in the street, with literally everyone around us stopping to watch what was going on. After about ten minutes of trying to give him the money, and him refusing, i just left it in the basket of his bike and walked off. Then felt a hand grabbing my left arm and a very weak blow to the back of my head:- 'hang on, i just got punched by a Vietnamese guy!' which i found bloody funny actually. I signalled that i wasn't gonna fight with him, and just shrugged his repeated attempts to grab me and left.

statue of someone (i forget)

    I hate moto drivers!

     Forgot to mention that in the museum their was an exhibit ont eh economic supression policy that the Vietnamese government imposed from 1970-1985, whilst they were trying to resist takeover by the french, and i think whilst fighting the US. During this period, practically everything was rationed, and corruptly so. Most people barely got enough food to feed their families, and when they did they had to start queueing for thier rice (all they got) the night before, only to find half the time that when they got to the front of the queue either the food had all gone(due to corrupt offivials selling the food on the black market), or the rice was mouldy and worm ridden. People would leave rocks with their ration book number in the queue so as not to lose their place, such was the length of time they would have to queue. This was another period of history i knew nothing about, so i thought i'd enlighten anyone as ignorant as me.

entrance to Ngoc Son Temple

          They have something here which is a bit of an institution in Vietnamese culture, the Bia Hoi street vendors. Basically these are open shopfronts on street corners where the owners just sit there with several large kegs of beer, and serve it to passers by, who then sit on tiny plastic kiddies chairs outside in the street and drink their beer, which costs about 8p a glass. Its 'the' thing to do in the evenings here, and is fascinating to watch and engage in. I spent my evening whiling away the time at one of these stalls before my night train to Sapa.

hoam Kiem lake

Wow, lego!

A dragon

a guy used to ride this bike

hill tribe clothing

mask used in ceremonies

st Joesphs cathedral i think

traditional longhouse

white hmong i think