Vietnam Day 1 & 2 - Hanoi

It was late by the time we ventured down from our room – much to the amusement of our hostess Thuy and her Sister, the maid/cook. We knew that Vietnam was a former French colony, but we were still surpsised to receive a baguette with butter and jam for breakfast! We also had our first local coffee, which was amazing – I immediately thought I would like this country.

With a few directions on how to get into the city we set of in search of Hanoi’s Old Quarter – which was home to the majority of attractions and touristy places. The walk there was interesting. We didn’t realise just how far out the place was, or anticipate just how busy the road just near us would be. It took us a good 45 minutes to get into the Old Quarter – and it was mayhem on arrival.

At least she picked the good shoulder...

The streets are lined with shops bursting at the seems with clothing, souvenirs, shoes, hats – along with fresh food places, cafes and bars. A lot of the action is centred around the lake, so we headed in that direction to ponder our activity for the day – plus by this point it was HOT and I wanted to sit down with a cold beer. Unfortunately for us, in our lost and dazed state we were prime targets for the locals and no sooner had we heard the words “Hello, you want banana?” from behind us did Lisa have a traditional wooden carrier on her shoulder with the woman insisting I took her picture before she removed it – and then put it on mine. Before we knew it, we had agreed to buy a bag of over-ripe bananas and pineapple for about $5 – probably more than we were paying in Australia during the peak of the post-cyclone banana shortage when they were $20/kg!

 We laughed it off (eventually) and reassured ourselves that everyone we knew who’d been here had the same pictures we’d just taken. We found a pub and sat for an hour or so readjusting to the heat and pace of the city by watching it go by.

Temple cat

Just the 200 year old embalmed tortoise in a box

After venturing to the temple on an island on the lake (featuring a rather entertaining temple cat which kept swiping at other tourists but seemed to take a shine to us), and tackling the Silk Street shops we sought out an LP recommended restaurant for our first Vietnamese food – it was quite a big place (catch 22 of picking things from the LP is they are all now busy, have put their prices up and are full of tourists!) but in a really nice setting, all outdoors and sheltered from the hustle and bustle outside. The food was REALLY good, so we stayed a while and tried to plan out our days and weeks ahead over a couple of drinks.

Another advantage of the countries colonial past is the abundance of patisseries in the city – so on our way back we grabbed desert & battled the night traffic out of town. We picked a slightly different route this time, and randomly stumbled upon the site of the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. It’s on a block that is completely sealed off to traffic, in front of a large grassed area full of locals going for an evening stroll or jog.

The Mausoleum itself is usually home to the embalmed body of Uncle Ho (as they affectionately call him) – which is on display in a glass cabinet within a darkened, armed guard protected room. Ten months a year you can queue, be lead through to the room and quickly file past to see their national hero – unfortunately October and November are the two months you cant! We had to settle for enjoying the building from outside, although that was actually fine at it looks rather impressive lit up at night.

The Mausoleum

By the time we made it back we’d probably walked a good 20km in the heat that day and were exhausted – so opted for some Dexter in bed whist the city hummed with activity behind us.

We managed an earlier start the next day and set off in search of the Temple of Literature – again we braved the walk as it looked a bit closer than the Old Quarter, plus we stopped off for breakfast on the way to break up the trek. The temple was rather impressive, and detailed the ancient Mandarin history of putting stock into education and literacy amongst the people.

Afterwards we braved our first taxi to the Museum of Ethnology, which chronicles the different ethnic peoples that make up the modern Vietnamese population. It was really interesting seeing the different cultures separated by geography & tradition although by the end we were a bit cultured out!

Finding comedy where we can in the museum of ethnology

Outside they had some cool examples of different types of regional dwellings including a giant wooden barn-type structure a good 5 stories high which you could clamber up and look inside, although we regretted that as the floorboards felt a bit flimsy and the clamber back down was a bit tricky!

Afterwards we decided to walk back towards the homestay – but break up the journey with a stop off at a restaurant somewhere along the way to break up the trudge. The LP said one particular street was lined with seafood places alongside the West Lake, which only looked about 20 minutes away. Rather foolishly we headed there on foot, figuring we’d see something along the way – but it turned into one of the worst 45 minutes of the trip so far…

Little did we realise but the Museum was on one of the major highways leading in and out of the city – and it was rush hour. On the map the distance didn’t look too far, but once you factor in the fact you can only get to about 30% of the pavement because of various obstacles like food stalls, scooters, angry looking dogs etc you are constantly dodging traffic (well, fortunately they dodge you but are very liberal with the use of their horns – which is pretty un-nerving). At one point we HAD to cross it, roughly 6 conventional lanes but the bikes are usually 3 or 4 to a lane mixed in with cars, buses and trucks. Pedestrian crossings are marked on the roads there, but much like they were in Bali – just for decoration. The flow was constant – so we just had to take our chances and move out when one gap emerged – moving slowly along keeping eye contact with approaching riders to make sure they were going around us.

Couldn't resist...

We made that one after about 10 minutes of waiting and trying our best – then went around the corner and had to cross a smaller, but equally packed road. This time – we had to wait for some scooter riders that were making a u-turn to go, sandwich ourselves in-between them as they crept out and stopped the traffic one way – they jump past them on the other side before everything started moving again. To put it bluntly it was fucking stressful.

After 45 minutes we made the fabled seafood-restaurant-paradise road, traffic was still insane and all we could see were street food vendors with seats on the road – it was so hot out we just couldn’t do it. Then, to further compound things we walked past a small food stall – really common everywhere outside the tourist area – about the size of a fridge, with a glass cabinet on top and prep area underneath. In the cabinet, Lisa thought she saw piglet heads and asked if I’d seen them too (given we hadn’t encountered that before)… Unfortunately for both of us, my eyesight is better and I saw quite clearly that they were dog's heads. A quick look back at the sign confirmed it – immediately culture-shock kicked in.

Our haven

For some reason we still didn’t just jump in a Taxi and say “take me to fucking McDonalds – at the Airport” and we changed tactic and walked towards the Lakefront itself (dog-meat-street was the one behind it). Initially it was much quieter, calmer and a good decision – there were guys stood on poles fishing the lake, people riding bikes, families out for walks – it was serene. Serene until we looked a bit closer at the water, which was littered with literally hundreds of dead or dying fish stretched along the edge and even on the pathway which we figured was a result of the rainfall and flooding from the typhoon.

Fortunately for our morale – we soon came across a place called “Kaffiene Pub” which was such a welcome haven we almost didn’t leave again. After some beers, cocktails (some bad pizza next door) and a de-stressing shisha (just flavoured tobacco for all the grandparents reading!) we made the relatively short trip back to the homestay, and packed our bags ready for the early start in the morning.

Really enjoyed Hanoi – the old quarter especially, it was just a bit of a shame we hadn’t picked a place a little closer to it, or at least had a little more faith in ourselves to flag a taxi down.