Hanoi

When we eventually reached the Hanoi bus stop we were so relieved to be off the bus after 26 hours, but realised that we were still not in the centre of Hanoi and needed to take a taxi from the bus stop. The two girls we met on the bus were going to the same part of the city as we were, so we decided to save on costs and share a taxi together. The usual group of ten desperate taxi drivers were crowding around us, so we chose one and walked towards his taxi. Seeing the meters on the taxis, we were reassured as the driver couldn’t rip us off as easily (or so we thought). It was only when the four of us started putting our bags in the boot that the driver started protesting, saying that he could only take two of us and the other two would have to get in his mate’s taxi. This was obviously beneficial to them but not for us. We insisted that we were travelling together as a four and got in the taxi while the driver and his mate were almost having a punch up. The driver then got in the car and we set off.

Jonno had set up the navigation on his map to show us where we were going, and after a while we realised that the driver was taking us an extra long way, and the meter on the taxi was increasing quite a lot. But seeing as we didn’t speak enough Vietnamese to question him, we just had to accept that he was ripping us off, and we were too tired to argue. When he dropped us off, we had to run to an ATM over the road as we did not have any Vietnamese dong, and we gave him a note and waited for the change. The driver just took the money and did not make any attempt to give us change, and when we asked him he refused, shut the doors and started driving off. I managed to grab the car door handle and sat in the back seat again and demanded the change. He reluctantly pushed a few notes in my hand (which was still short of the right change) and then drove off.

Takes a lot of skill to balance it all

We hadn’t booked a hotel, so followed the girls towards the hostel they wanted to stay at and found a hotel nearby which although wasn’t as cheap as we were hoping, it had friendly staff, breakfast included and a nice room. We put our bags down and went in search of some proper food as we had been surviving on the bus with mainly biscuits and crisps.

Locals spending time by the lake

The next morning we were armed with a long list of things to see and do in Hanoi, and had to try and work out how much we could cram into the two days we had allocated for Hanoi. While eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant, we stated talking to a Vietnamese man who lived in England and France but came back to Hanoi every year for a few months, and he gave us some useful information about the country. As we were brought a plate of watermelon, he explained that the locals referred to watermelon as ‘Vietnamese Ice Cream’. He also helped out the hotel staff by teaching them some English, which we got to see one evening. We thanked him for the advice and went out to explore. We stepped out from the hotel and were immediately assaulted by a variety of sights and sounds; a completely different experience to the laid back Laos! Scooters and bikes were coming from all angles with items precariously balanced on them, from boxes to huge bouquets of flowers to poles and even some had dogs as pillions. We were used to seeing people being inventive with carrying things on scooters in Southeast Asia but there were definitely more in Hanoi. The streets were also bustling with market stalls and street food vendors with new and interesting delicacies.

The first thing on our list was Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, which was only open in the mornings for a few hours. After a half an hour walk we arrived at what seemed to be the building, and after a bit of looking confused and searching we found the entrance. We went through a few security check points, Jonno had to put his camera in a special camera bag provided, and we were ushered into a long queue of solemn faced people and lead single file into the mausoleum. Ho Chi Minh was the communist leader of Vietnam from 1941-1965, and was loved by many Vietnamese for gaining independence from French rule and fighting for a united, independent Vietnam. When he died, his body was preserved and set up in the mausoleum for people to pay their respects. We entered the dimly lit but immaculate building, and were just behind an old man with a very long thin oriental style beard who was shuffling along. He was helped up the stairs by uniformed members of staff; it was obviously a great effort for him to have got here. The body of Ho Chi Minh lay in the centre of the room, and we were only allowed to walk around the edge of the room without stopping. Upon seeing the body of his previous leader, the old man became overwhelmed and started weeping. This had a profound effect on us- it was clear how much Ho Chi Minh meant to the people of Vietnam even to the present day. I can’t think of any British leader who could bring me to tears with such devotion. (Jonno – Margaret Thatcher comes to mind but brings tears to my eyes for differing reasons!)

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

After this eye opening experience, we came to the Presidential Palace and the house on stilts where Ho Chi Minh lived. He refused to live in the grand palace, and instead chose the simple house on stilts behind the palace, where he had minimal possessions. We also checked out the museum on site too, but it was difficult to understand as the information was in either Vietnamese or French.

After leaving the Ho Chi Minh complex, we continued our walk down the streets, passing a few other museums but none that took our interest enough to warrant a visit. We did stumble across a photographic exhibition which aimed to highlight the living conditions of construction workers in shanty houses- a small room was set up as a row of their accommodation, with sound effects and layered photographs of household items.

Another place on the list was the Temple of Literature- a temple of Confucius and Vietnam’s first national university. Although temples don’t excite us as much as they used to now, this temple had a different style and was beautiful to look at.

Temple of literature

The last place on the list for that day was Hanoi Prison. Hoa Lo Prison was built by the French and used to detain political prisoners who supported communism, and later for American prisoners of war in the Vietnam war. It showed the conditions that the Vietnamese political prisoners lived in, some of which were in tiny, dark cells with their feet shackled to the walls. Another part of the museum showed what life was like for the American prisoners of war- there was definitely some propaganda going on as the music and environment suddenly changed, it was brighter and more upbeat, and the pictures were of the American prisoners playing games and smiling. It was an interesting place anyway.

Hanoi prison- reconstruction of the prisoners in the cell

The following day we had another museum to see- the Museum of Ethnology. It was pretty far away from where we were staying but seeing as the taxis were not the cheapest and we couldn’t work out how to use the buses, we chose to walk it. This took about an hour and a half but we passed lots of interesting things to see so didn’t mind too much. The Museum of Ethnology was dedicated to the different ethnic and minority groups who live in Vietnam and in various other parts of Southeast Asia; it went into detail about the origins of the different groups and how they have split up or migrated to other areas or countries. In Vietnam there are over fifty different ethnic groups so there was a lot of information. They had traditional costumes on display and household items and tools from villages.

Reconstructions of rural village huts

Burial hut with some very tasteful carvings

Lots of people and websites had strongly recommended a trip to Ha Long Bay, where rock formations emerge from the expanse of water to create some stunning scenery. And it’s no surprise that where tourists want to visit, there will be thousands of tour companies offering a package trip. Usually we would fight these to go on our own, but due to the limited time and the recommendation to do an overnight stay on a boat we decided to go for one of these organized trips. We visited a few companies who all said pretty much the same thing- there are three tiers of boat; the basic budget one which apparently was very old and basic and if you’re lucky it won’t sink, the middle range one which they all wanted to sell us, which was a bit more expensive but apparently the quality was so much better, and the fancy ones which they didn’t go into much detail on- I think they realised there was no point in trying. After a while of umming and ahhing about if we wanted to spend an extra $30 on a better quality boat with luxuries such as air con, a cooking class and free beer for 2 hours in the evening, we decided to treat ourselves and go with the mid range one. We were told that we would be collected from our hotel early the next morning for the two day and one night trip.

The following morning we checked out of our hotel and were taken to the minibus by our tour guide. There were thirteen on our particular boat, most of whom were on two or three week holidays rather than long term travelers. The minibus took four hours from Hanoi to reach the harbor, and included a rest stop where we had the option of buying a wooden engraved dining table and chairs set, or a five foot ceramic vase- not the kind of things I would usually shop for in a service station. We arrived at the harbor, and were taken to our boat. The boat itself was okay, it had a dining area with a bar, a lower deck for the bedrooms and an open air top deck with some deck chairs. Our room, which we had been sold to as a big room with glass shower doors and air con, was a box with about 20cm space around two sides of the double bed, and a tiny wet room with a shower attachment from the sink, and the air con was only turned on for a few hours overnight. This was a reminder why we don’t usually go on organized trips- the description and pictures are usually very exaggerated! We were summoned to the dining room for lunch, which we were allowed about 15 minutes for before getting to our first stop- the caves.

Rave caves

As we have now seen endless caves we did not have much excitement when entering the cave, but this one was a fancy cave, with a proper path and steps in place and colourful uplighting everywhere. This at least made the cave look pretty and a bit more interesting, a bit like an accountant dressed in drag. The guide took us along, telling us that if we used our imagination there were lots of formations of various animals and scenes in the cave, such as a crocodile, a dragon and a sexy woman.  This took a lot of imagination to see, and would have been a lot easier if we were on LSD I am sure. After this enlightening experience, we were hurried back on the boat for another short ride before we got to our next activity- kayaking.

Again, it was kayaking as promised, but expectation vs reality kicked in. The kayaking was only in a designated area the size of a large pond and a couple of archways, and we arrived to find that quite a few other boats were there doing exactly the same. We had to wait for a kayak to become free, and were then allowed 30 minutes to paddle around the designated area before returning to the boat. Jonno and I had a kayak between us, I sat at the front and Jonno at the back. We paddled through one archway and found ourselves in a peaceful area surrounded by rocks, so stopped paddling to appreciate the silence and peacefulness. We spotted what looked like an eagle flying over ahead, which was miraculous, although we’re not bird experts so it may have just been a fancy pigeon. Then, for reasons completely unknown to me, Jonno decided that this was the perfect time to start rehearsing for the circus and he could start with standing up and balancing on the back of the kayak. One moment we were appreciating the serenity, and the next moment I was thrown out of my seat and into the water, luckily not having anything electronic on me and managing to catch my sunglasses. While we both struggle to try and turn the kayak the right way up, Jonno then exclaims that one of his shoes has come off in the water, so starts wading around to try and find it. The bottom of the water was not deep, but was covered in sharp jagged rocks and thick slimy mud, which meant that we managed to cut up our feet and the lost shoe seemed to be swallowed by the mud and was lost forever. So we gave up on the shoe, and instead put our concentration into getting back into the kayak- easier said than done. Every time we tried to turn the kayak upright, it was filled with water and was too heavy to lift out of the water to drain. We fought with the kayak for about ten minutes before realizing there was only five minutes until we had to be back on the boat. So we climbed into the bath that was our kayak, and started to paddle back to the dock. The mass of water in the kayak, however, meant that it kept trying to overturn itself, and every slight movement wobbled us dangerously on each side. With a lot of effort, we managed to pull up to the dock, where we were interrogated by the guide about why us and the kayak were no longer dry. We then hobbled back onto our boat, one shoe lighter.

Views were not so bad...

We then had a short period of time on the boat before we were summoned to the ‘sunset party’ on the top deck, which was held at about 4pm, two hours from sunset. We were given a complimentary shot of red wine, and a big plate of watermelon. Jonno saw it and said to the guide ‘Aaah…Vietnamese Ice Cream!’ The guide then looked at him, frowning, and said ‘No, it’s watermelon”. Of course, silly Jonno.

We were then told that we could go swimming around the boat, which seemed like a nice way to cool down as we had now dried out from our previous dip in the water. We climbed down the ladder at the side of the boat, and were immediately hit with the current which was pushing us back towards the boat. We either had to constantly swim away from the boat to stay in the same place, or cling onto the ladder to stop drifting away. After about 10 minutes, a few members of the group started scrambling back up the ladder onto the boat, and soon after that I noticed a lovely layer of black, oily scum floating on the top of the water that was beginning to surround us, and promptly followed suit of exiting the water.

After a much needed shower/dribble of water from the shower head, we got changed and went back up to the top deck to watch the actual sunrise, before going back downstairs for dinner. When dinner had finished, the guide then told us the rules for the 2 hours of free beer which was basically that we got a jug for each table and could fill it up ourselves from a big barrel. Let the games commence.

I awoke the next morning pouring with sweat; they had cut the electricity in the rooms so there was no fan or air con and the sun was blazing through the windows. After getting dressed and checking out quickly to escape the heat, we went up to the restaurant for a predictably disappointing breakfast. We made a short journey to an island where half of the group got off; they were doing a three day trip, and some more people got on the boat. As we made our way back to the port to get our bus to Hanoi, we were given a ‘cooking class’  which was basically rolling the pre prepared spring roll mixture in soggy rice paper. The boat then stopped and we got off, were herded onto a minibus and had another four hour journey back to Hanoi.

Just like making fajitas but more asian

We had been researching the best way to get around Vietnam, as we had limited time and lots to see and do. Buses were the cheapest option but they take the most time. The trains looked really good but were actually quite expensive, and it turns out that internal flights can be a lot cheaper than the trains. So we decided to treat ourselves and take a flight to our next destination.

All our photos from Hanoi can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/132802327@N02/albums/72157659433444693

All our photos from Halong Bay can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/132802327@N02/albums/72157661060948519