All about hanoi...
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2008
1
30
117
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Hue,
Vietnam
Friday, October 31, 2008
sunday 19 october
this morning, we wake for breakfast, and soon after leaving our hotel, to the cries of 'how long you stay?' and 'do you want to book a tour?', we come to realise that maybe the people of hanoi don't eat breakfast, or if they do, they certainly do not cater to the western palate where breakfast food is concerned! because we cannot find a suitable place anywhere, in between the alley ways of the old quarter, or further out afield, where the swarms of mopeds stop you from getting anywhere anyway! finally, we find 'finnegans', an irish breakfast, which says it does an all day breakfast! result! only problem was, it really wasn't as good as the aussie breakfast in vang vieng, which we were now using as our benchmark of quality, and the price wasn't really justified, especially since we'd had nicer breakfasts at most definitely half the price. actually, i think it cost about 100,000 dong or three pounds, which still doesn't sound a lot for a big breakfast, but when you're on a tight-ish budget and know you could have had something better elsewhere, you do start to begrudge paying a dime to anyone! this too is made worse by the fact that we do often leave a tip, which has become standard out here - partly for service and partly because everyone's paid such peanuts - though even so i still have great pains doing so because all i can remember from working in a type of 'service' trade was that we all worked our arses off for john lewis, and though we were all part of a partnership meaning we all got a yearly bonus, only once was i ever left a tip, for my blood, sweat and tears, by any customer. and i'm sorry anyone, and everyone, who's ever worked as a barman / woman or waiter / waitress, and so holds dear the argument that tips are necessary to supplement their wages, but you work hard, i worked hard, and i never got shit extra! why the bars and cafes and restaurants of the world don't just pay you guys more money, rather than continuing this stupid tipping situation, i'll never understand?! anyway, after leaving said tip, we headed back to the hotel to decide on a plan for the day... ...
contd. writing on november 1st from the thien thanh (blue sky) boutique hotel in hoi an - a massive treat for my birthday tomorrow!
right, where were we?
and on arrival at the hotel, we were pestered yet again about whether we'd like to book a tour to halong bay, to which we said maybe. you know how you might say maybe to any craft stall owner, after staring at their goods for so long that they believe you're going to buy, though you think their prices are still too steep, OR how you might say maybe to someone you don't really want to see again for a drink, well that's the 'maybe' we use around these parts, all too often. maybe has to be your answer to every other question, simply because you're asked if you want to book a trip, a cyclo ride just around the corner, a meal, a bed for the night, so very often, that saying maybe is just easier, and softens the blow, than giving an outright no to every next person! anyway, after milling around in our room, getting washed and dressed, watching quality american shows on 'star world' and staring blankly at the hundreds of vietnamese and chinese channels, we studied 'the book' - 'lonely planet' - and decided to move our butts into gear to get across town to visit ho chi minh's mausoleum. now, personally, being quite ignorant where history is concerned - i've absolutely forgotten everything i ever learnt at school and college - i just wanted to see the dead dude embalmed. however, having arrived in hanoi when we did, we came at the precise time when he's shipped off to russia for three months, for yet more expert embalming. so unfortunately walking around ho chi minh's open casket, and witnessing the hundreds of thousands of people showing their respects, was just not going to happen this time. nevertheless, we decided we would still go see the mausoleum, palace and museum to see what all the fuss was about. back out on the main street, our 'maybes' were cast to one side, for a change, to agree to a cyclo ride across town, by a man who looked well passed his sell by date! this man was old and still trucking! it's odd actually. everyone who's young looks about 12, though they get up every morning at 5am and work late every night to please us damned foreigners, and yet there they are still looking like kids! that is until they get much older and then they just look like they're ready to die! and yet even they can still be seen getting up early and working late, and trudging through paddie fields, and hauling baskets of bananas and pineapples about town! it's crazy, though i suppose it's better than spending your last days, staring blankly at four magnolia walls and dozens of others on their last legs, in a miserable rest home?! anyway, this guy was quite happy to negotiate a price for us and so with the two of us, bundling onto a cyclo, which we think was actually only made for one, our poor driver mustered all his energy to get us across to see ho chi minh! and what a ride! he took us all around the old quarter, down all the back streets, crammed with mopeds and street sellers. it was an amazing sight, just looking up and around at all the french inspired architecture, and all the mini shops contained within people's homes; and imagining the cogs of the brains of all the young moped owners working overtime as they negotiate their way through the swarms of traffic! brilliant! actually, at this point, i just want to describe to you what the houses in vietnam look like, because they are not like any other we've seen since we've been out here. i mean yes, the buildings in the towns and cities still appear to look like massive, concrete LEGO bricks that people still live AND work from; and every building still bears massive metal shutters to allow the owners to 'shut up shop' / give them some privacy and go to bed; and every home / shop still appears to be packed full of the family's furniture, most precious possessions, - or not depending on their wealth - odds and ends, and their mopeds, at the end of the day, as was the case throughout thailand and laos; and yes, in the more rural parts of vietnam, there still exists the odd wooden hut with thatched roof that we've seen so many times on our travels. BUT, in vietnam, the difference in people's homes / shops, from those in thailand and laos, lays in the fact that unlike those we'd seen before, which are relatively small, wide fronted and whose 'shops' take up a mini space in the doorway, the vietnamese buildings, in general, appear to be very tall and skinny, and yet deep, with the 'shop' space taking up so much 'forecourt' out front that it requires a corrugated iron roof to protect it from the rain and means that, unlike in thailand and laos, it is that much more difficult to be nosy and look into the family in question's home! to explain, i think 'the book' says the buildings in vietnam are purposely this skinny so that, like 'way back when' in england, the people don't have to pay massive taxes on their frontages, if that makes sense. anyway, so after whizzing through the back streets of the old town, we were taken out onto the main road, to take us out to see ho, where we found ourselves, sat upon this cyclo, out in the open, and level with every speedy bus, car and moped going passed, which meant for some great shots of the hustle and bustle of hanoi's city streets. afterwards, after being dropped off at the mausoleum complex, we walked down a runway that ran parallel to a massive green open space and ho chi minh's 'tomb', which was absolutely huge. i mean this man was either absolutely cherished by his people to have been built such a place FOR HIS DEATH!!! or they were so fearful of him that they were forced into building this place? or he had some insecurities with his downstairs nethers, much in the same way that men with tiny do-das drive such massive cars! hahaha! anyway, it was an incredible sight, and one that the japanese (?) tourists could not stop snapping. it was the biggest, greyest, LEGO brick ever built, and yet despite it's miserable appearance, in comparison to so many of the grand, elaborate monuments we'd seen throughout thailand and laos, it was still absolutely magnificient. it's just a shame the guy wasn't home for tea. maybe another day?! after, we took a walk around mr chi minh's residence - palace, lake and house on stilts, where he lived and worked, and which again was very plain - or 'rich tea' as i like to say! after escaping from the waves of japanese - again can't be sure, but they were carrying cameras! - we visited the museum, which could have been a fantastic experience, had we not been herded in at 3.50pm, minutes before they intended to close, and around the entire space! i mean, there were security guards stopping us from taking decent photos, reading the plaques, and wandering around the exhibits without a care; and upon the massive group of us, who had been invited into the museum so late, leaving each stage of the place, another set of lights were switched off as if to say ' time to move it along please'! ah well, at least this time we hadn't been screwed out of cash! that night, after what turned out to be quite a productive sunday, we had dinner with joe and len - the couple from our 'rescue' mission out in vang vieng - again. we ate at another local restaurant, serving squid, massive prawns, pork and pigeon - though later we questioned whether we actually had eaten pigeon, or simply any bird they'd fished out of the sky! afterwards, sean and i braved the mean streets of hanoi, in search of cheap beer, in the form of bia hoi, and which we'd heard would cost us just 10p a glass! well, we found cheap beer heaven on a cross roads, which appeared to have been set up purely for the tourists, who weren't keen on sitting at the more local bia hoi bars, populated mostly by sneering males and haters of all western folk! here, we drank 10p beer and tried to watch a world of book and food sellers go by, although it wouldn't be hanoi without a little bit of hassling on their part. so here was also where i sat, in a daze, trying desperately to work out where exactly, THAT girl, who'd had her picture taken while running from the acid rain, had lived; and where here, a cheeky looking book seller handed me the exact book of the story of this very girl, i'd was interested in! and so here was also where sean and i snapped up a copy of this book, along with 'the killing fields', thinking they were bargains! how wrong we would be! after a few more bia hoi, we visited mao's red lounge, before catching a cyclo back. the driver of which was a git, deciding to charge us extra when he saw we didn't have any smaller change; and as were we when we woke up the guesthouse to open up for us two drunkards!!!
