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The flight over was good, long and cramped, and quite bumpy at times, but certainly much better than i expected with the weather patterns over Auckland last week. The flight left pretty much on time - 12.05am and at 1.30am we were eating dinner. Seemed a bit strange to be eating at the time, but a nice meal all the same. I managed to get a little sleep but some of the ladies slept all the way, others stayed awake.
A very tired looking bunch of women stepped out of the plane at Hanoi Airport to a temperature of about 35 degrees. We were met by our local tour guide Nam, and we exchanged our money at the money machine. I got out $4,000,000 Dong. Yes, that's right four million dong. All in 100,000 D notes. Its going to take a day or two to get used to this currency. I had no idea at the time how much that was, but working out the exchange rate a little later on it was about $230 NZ. It was then that I learned that there was no need to exchange my money at home and put $US on my travel card, I should have just loaded $NZ and saved myself the exchange fee, as all the money i withdraw on the card here is Dong. And what i should have done was brought American cash. But there you go - you always learn these things later. All part of the learning curve, all part of the travel experience. The locals always quote the price in US dollars and you have to actually ask them the price in Dong.
Nam drove us to our Hotel - a ride of about 45 minutes. What a busy city . 4 million people, 3 million motor cycles and I am sure that every single one of them is on the road at the same time. The traffic is unbelievable and somehow it just all manages to mingle and merge at the cross roads - people, scooters (carrying anything from trays of eggs to 4 people, to big bales of stuff??!! - cars, trucks and buses. How it happens is amazing and later that night we had a lesson on how to cross the road. Phew what an experience that was. And later in the week we went on a cyclo ride around the lake and city centre and we were in the middle of all that merging traffic. What a hair-raising experience that was. However, Nam told us that the road toll for the whole of the country was 3.5 deaths per day. Not bad for all that traffic and all those people.
We arrived at our hotel, had time for a bit of a rest and a refreshing shower, we met for a Team Briefing. Kylee filled us in on some of the details of what was happening over the next three days . Nam then arrived to take us on a walking tour of the Old Quarter. What an amazing place - shops and buildings are only 3.5 metres wide. There are people everywhere, scooters zooming around the place. Vendors wandering around carrying their wares in those baskets that they carry over their shoulders. You took your life in your hands when you tried to cross the road, but the secret was – not to stop or run or reverse and just to mince your way to the other side and the traffic – that is scooters, cars, bikes, buses and trucks – will all drive around you. After trying it out on the back streets of the Old Quarter, he put us to the test on the main big intersection. Surprisingly, we all made it to the other side. And Nam assured us he hasn’t lost a tourist yet.
After our walk it was time for dinner and we were introduced to Vietnamese food at the restaurant directly across the hall way from our hotel. I had chicken with lemon grass which was really rather delicious. I enjoyed a local beer with my meal, some of the other ladies drank wine, while others enjoyed a cocktail. After the meal my was were closing on me, I was totally whacked, so my room mate Dianne and I headed across the road to our beds. We chatted for a while but Dianne soon realised she was talking to herself as my eyes had closed pretty much as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Up early for breakfast as we had to be on the bus by 8am. Breakfast is very interesting – on offer lots of fresh fruit, rice porridge, bacon, omelettes and little sausages, grilled tomatoes, a variety of Vietnamese food like cabbage and seafood and then the highlight – Kylee calls it Breakfast Dessert – pastries, croissants and little cakes and crème caramel or crème brulee. For breakfast – I know very decadent, but the Italians do it too, so it was very easy for me to adopt the habit.
Nam waited until we were all assembled in the hotel foyer before calling up the bus driver to come down our very narrow street. If he had to wait for stragglers he would have created a huge traffic jam.
The temperature was already around 35 degrees and our first stop for the day was at the Mausoleum, where we had to line up in double file to enter the grounds and then the building. Thousands of people every day come to pay their respect to Ho Chi Minh. From there we wandered around the place where he lived, past the presidential palace and his humble home. Hanoi is very Ho Chi Minh loyal and our guide was very knowledgeable about the life of “Uncle Ho” Apparently we will gte a very different view of the man in the south of Viet Nam.
The Museum of Ethnology was our next stop and this was fascinating with displays from all the different tribal people of Viet Nam. An a couple of added bonuses here, the first we came across a bridal couple having their wedding photos taken on the stairs. We learnt later from Nam that they have their photos taken 2-4 weeks before the wedding – in a different rehearsal wedding dress. This particular brides dress looked as if it was hired – it was well worn, and didn’t fit particularly well and her strapless bra cups were showing above her dress and the back was tacked close with long black tacking stitches. What a strange custom to have photos of a dress which isn’t really the wedding dress.
We visited the “Hanoi Hilton” the remains of the prison established by the French and then used by the Vietnamese to house the American prisoners during the American War. What a horrible place, a very stark reminder of how cruel humans are to each other.
A walk around the lake was canned as everyone was feeling so tired – the heat was certainly getting to us all.
Dinner was amazing – Kylee walked us to a popular place for a steam boat meal in the Old Quarter. One end of the table had a seafood one, while our table had beef. It was a great experience, tasty food, messy but loads of fun. Then came the walk home. We were going to stop for a dessert on the way, but a few spits of rain prompted us to walk briskly home, however the rain didn’t eventuate.
On Monday I was awake at the crack of dawn – my body clock hasn’t clicked in yet – and Dianne and I went down for breakfast. This morning I tried the rice porridge (which was quite bland) and sweetened it up with caramel yoghurt which made it extremely tasty. However, the wait staff kept asking me if everything was alright – they apparently add a whole lot of strange dried ingredients to their porridge, but because I couldn’t recognise them, I didn’t try them.
We met in the foyer at 9am and Kylee led us out on the first of our shopping expeditions. She pointed everyone in the directions they needed to go for their particular needs – some wanting camera stuff, others wanting a watch, some silks, and then those like Kathy and Dianne and I who were happy staying with Kylee and just seeing what was there.
I got spotted almost immediately by a little guy who kept pointing or poking at my shoes. I had on my faithful old blue walking shoes which I wore all round Italy. A little bit of the sole was coming away at the toes, and he wanted to repair them – Super Glue madam, very strong, very cheap. I tried to ignore him, and finally he gave up, but round each corner another one of them would latch on to me, until finally I gave in to a young man aged 28, married with a baby, who said he would fix my shoe for 50,000 Dong. So he sat me down on a little stool, and gave me some little sandals to wear while he set about fixing my blessed shoe. He glued the front and then proceeded to resole the heel with a bit of old car tyre, he cleaned them with a toothbrush and suddenly the price had escalated from 50,000 to 350,000. I gave him 250,000 because I hadn’t asked for the sole, but he followed me for two blocks and finally I gave in and gave him the other 100,000. After all the whole job cost less than $NZ20 and it will be another tale to add to my shoes, and hopefully they will last for another 100,000 kilometres.
We had met some other tourists at breakfast time who had suggested we buy silk sleeping bag liners for the train trip in a couple of days as the bedding might be dodgy, so I bought one of those, a fan to keep cool and that was pretty much it for my shopping. Most of the stuff is too small, the Vietnamese people are so tiny.
Kylee introduced us four girls to one of her favourite restaurants the Tangerine Garden, which is French food. I had a marinated raw beef in a coconut with diced coconut and chilli. It was delicious. I know it sounded a bit dodgy, but the calibre of the restaurant made me feel comfortable about ordering it and then for dessert I had a crème puff filled with cream and mango. Dinner tonight was at a huge food hall type place where we shared lots of different dishes – beef, chicken, pork and the others had lots of seafood. It was all very tasty and we are getting the opportunity to try lots of different foods and styles.
Our afternoon was spent walking with Nam through the Old Quarter , visiting a Long House on the way to the water puppet show. That was amazing. The music was performed by very young looking musicians who sat along side the water and they seemed to really enjoy the performance themselves. It would have been nice to have had a bit of a commentary about what was happening – there was only one little bit that we recognised from one of the stories Nam told us earlier about the carp turning into a dragon. But it was very clever, and of course the best part – the theatre was air conditioned, so for an hour we were out of the terrible heat.
Then came the cyclo ride – we sat in the front with a peddlar behind us and we were transported around the city and lake. Through the midst of all those cars, buses and motor bikes. At one point the traffic was stopped, there were sirens and dozens of police cars, police on motor bikes and then the official cars – the Australian Prime Minister was in town. For a few minutes the city came to a complete standstill. We had come across that earlier this morning – a whole street was closed off and we noticed that there was somebody of importance obviously shopping in one of the more up-market silk shops, but there had not been any identifying flags on the car at that stage.
And so – that was Hanoi – a bustling, busy, overcrowded city with millions of cars, and bikes and people all either scurrying around the place, or pestering the tourists to buy hats or fans, or postcards or an amazing array of the most unrecognisable foodstuffs, or the others just squatting in front of their shops hoping that we might stop and buy something. How they ever make a living is quite amazing. They just squat on the pavement between the motor bikes and their wares, and cook their meals, or prepare food – cut up chickens or ducks, chop up pineapples, or boil noodles. It is absolutely fascinating.
So I will leave you all here and catch up on the Halong Bay bit next.
