So we arrived on our delayed flight from Bangkok to Hanoi last nhight. I feel weird getting into a new place in the dark- it feels covert and suspicious. Plus its hard to get a feel for where in the hell you are sleeping! Our motel is in the Old Quarter which is a rabbit warren of little alleyways divided up by old french style apartments and shops. I have decided that Hanoi is the weirdest place we have been to so far. The streets are about 2 metres wide and you can't walk on the pavement because they are cluttered with parked motorbikes and people sitting outside their shops. So you have to walk in the gutter or along the middle of the road which is buzzing with motorbikes, bicylcles and the occasional car not to mention people. There seems to be absolutely no order- there are some pedestrian crossings on the larger roads- but cars and motorbikes only slow down if you are crossing in front of them- so you have to just cross and hope for the best because the stream of traffic is constant and if you wait you will be there until the day you die. Sometimes we are pros and other times not so pro. I have found my hat obscures my vision and is a road crossing hazard! We woke up this morning to the incessent sound of horns honking! They never stop- a horn is supposed to warn you that there is a car or motorbike approaching you- but considering in Hanoi you are basically drowning in a sea of traffic it seems a little redundant.
I am not sure what I expected from Hanoi- but already we feel that Vietnam is completely different to thailand- which is nice. New culture, new landscape, new food, new language to devour.
Anyway we walked from one side of the Old Quarter to the other today. We stopped at the Ngoc Son temple whihc is on a little man made island in the middle of Hoan Kiem Lake. Apparently in the 1800's the emporer of the time was given a magic sword by this giant toroise that lived in the lake which gave him the power to rule. Anyway they say these tortoises still live in the lake- but we didn't see any!
We wandered around the lake- which is quite scenic amidst all the chaos- some awesome sculptures surround ( we suspect made of marble).
We walked across the Old Quarter to the Hoa Lo Prision Museum or "Hanoi Hilton" as nicknmaed by US prisoners of war held there in the 70s. It was pretty interesting and brought back many memories of studying the Indochina conflict for the HSC. The museum focused primarily on the conditions that revolutionary Vietnames prisoners lived in in the museum under french colonial rule. They showed photographs of the american prisoners who were kept there during the war- but they all looked tlike they were having a great time- eating Christmas Turkey and getting medical examinations... maybe a little bit of propoganda? can't be sure. But I can't blame the poor old Vietnamese... John McCain was one of the prisoners- hope they gave him a hard time! Not much else to be said that you can't find in a history book- except that seeing an original French guilotine was fairly chilling....
We topped the afternoon off with an icecream at "Fanny's" - I can't resist blogging about an icecream parlour with such a great/unfortunate name! I am lame and childish it can't be disputed. But the icecreams were pretty good- at 50 000 dong they would want to be. No thats actually onyl about 5 bucks. I can't quite get over the currency. 10 000 dong is about 1 dollar Australian.
Tomorrow we are going to Halong Bay- we turned lame and decided to take a tour- its super cheap and covers everything we want to do so we thought we would remove some of the hassle of independent travel. So we are up early to bus it to Halong city then we cruise the Bay- sleeping on the boat- then next day to Cat ba island, kayaking, swimming, rare monkey sighting etc.
So will keep all informed!
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2 comments:
Sometimes I think a French Guillotine would come in handy....
Holy hell!
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