out and about: Hanoise

This intersection was the most ridiculous one we'd found in Vietnam yet. In this photo in particular you can see three people casually walking across a landscape of motorbikes and cars traveling in every direction.

Friday / Day 1

I've spent the last week since returning from Vietnam getting over jet lag and in the mix haven't found the time to blog but now I'm going to finally catch up on the last few days of our trip. Greg and I arrived in Hanoi after a flight from Da Nang and immediately took a cab to our hotel. Fortunately we ran into a danish couple in Hoi An that was living in Hanoi and told us exactly how much to haggle for (350.000 VND or about $8.50 per person).

We arrived at Tu Linh Palace Hotel (2) and were greeted by River. He was probably the friendliest person we met in Vietnam. Perhaps I liked him the most because he didn't try to sell us anything like all of the past hotels (tours, tailors, etc.). He handed us a map and showed us a good route to take in order to see the old town and marked down all of the popular tourist spots like Ho Chi Minh's resting place and a few famous pagodas. We had made plans for the following day to take a tour to Ha Long Bay so we decided to just walk around the old town.

First we hit the lake with the red bridge. The story behind the lake has something to do with a turtle and a sword and a king who got the sword from the turtle and then returned it? I can't remember... haha. We continued walking around and stopped at the restaurant in the first picture below for lunch. Once again Greg had Pho but I asked for them to leave out the hot water since all week the temperatures were around 95 with 80% humidity so I enjoyed some chicken and noodles.

Walking around old town we began to notice that every street had a theme. There was the metal working street, the gold street, the linen street, the spray paint street, the touristy souvenir street, the art street, the list goes on. Turns out that is actually how the city used to be laid out and has since kind of kept that form. Every street was pretty narrow with just as many motorbikes and cars as could fit on them. Some were not so busy, others were so busy Greg and I couldn't even walk down them for lack of space. There are ten times as many power lines as are necessary running overhead and trash is collected in piles along the side of the road to be burned in the evening.

We stopped for another meal at a crepe place that was absolutely delicious. Greg caved and had something other than noodles. He doesn't care for sweets but even he was craving some sugar. After leaving there we eventually ended up at the market place which, like other market places had the stench of rotting foods and vendors operating out of small tent-like structures but, unlike the other markets we had seen, also had a massive mall structure. Inside the mall was more crap than I could bear to see. Honestly I was so repulsed by the smell of the former market place yet somehow the amount of plastic and useless items crammed into one place in the latter market was cause for even more disgust. I just couldn't help but think of all the Earth's resources that were being wasted. Of course we all waste things one way or another but this was excessive.

After so much walking we were both exhausted and famished. There was a nice restaurant by our hotel so we ate there and befriended a nice couple who sat next to us. We went back to the hotel to regain just enough strength to head out to see the night market. It was certainly bustling but didn't offer anything that Greg or I would want so we walked the length of it and returned to our hotel again to get some rest before our tour in the morning (and soak up all the AC). Despite my best efforts to stay awake for the FIFA match, I was out by 10pm.

Monday / Day 2

Perhaps I should have made this two posts... oh well!

We returned from Ha Long Bay on Sunday around 4pm and enjoyed a relaxing evening. We wanted to check out that crazy bar scene we had seen on our first night so we sat and began people watching. We saw a girl petting what appeared to be a pet chipmunk but then the chipmunk disappeared causing us to wonder if it was a pet at all. People whizzed by on mopeds with their dogs resting at their feet. An old man sat by us and purchased every single item that was offered to him. We meandered from bar to bar but ended up back at the first bar again at which point we met a group of french students. They were so fun to talk to that we sat with them for several hours until the bars closed at which point I had consumed 2 beers and Greg, perhaps, 10? 15? Our french friends finished the night off with a shot and convinced Greg to do one too so, needless to say, he was a little dehydrated the next morning haha.

In the morning we did all of the touristy spots in a matter of a few hours. We walked along the lake by old town to the Hoa Lo Prison (Hanoi Hilton). The exhibits went on to showcase how the Vietnamese were tortured mercilessly there by the French and then at the end had two rooms dedicated to how "well" the Americans were treated there. I honestly felt silly reading some of the descriptions. It all seemed to be a bunch of propaganda. We continued on to the Temple of Literature which was quite fantastic and then to Ho Chi Minh's resting place passing loads of embassies along the way. We carried on for a little longer towards the bigger lakes outside the city but Greg was quickly fading due to the hot weather and a bit of a hang over so we caught a cab ride back to the hotel for about $2 total and found a place to have some lunch. The lunch we had was perhaps the most delicious meal we'd had in Vietnam. It was pricey but we had dong (VND) to spend before leaving anyhow so we went all out. I had two banana lassi's and the Bun Cha, a meal that Hanoi is well known for.

The meal was our last stop before catching a taxi to the airport. We arrived at the airport with what we thought would be a fair amount of time to spare. Well we spared all of that time in the line to get our boarding passes. We luckily weren't forced to check any bags and got our tickets after... I don't know... an hour? While waiting in line we met this girl named Sam from San Francisco. She studied at MIT and has traveled all over the world and now works for a company in SF so we had a lot of things in common to talk about. She got her ticket before us but we found her again in line to get on the plane (we arrived at our gate as the plane was beginning to board). It turned out she was in the row ahead of us and when no one filled the third seat in our row we invited her to sit with us. Three hours later we were in Taipei and realized our flights to California were at the same time. So we hung out for two more hours during our layover before waving good bye at our gates (which were next to each other).

The flight across the Pacific was mostly spent sleeping and flew by quite quickly. I believe it was 13 hours but we must have slept for close to 8 or 9 of those hours. Al picked us up at LAX around 10:30pm. All in all it was a successful trip I'd say. Vietnam was certainly an experience! Thanks for reading.

Lunch

The red bridge to a pagoda on the lake. Can't remember the names of the lake or pagoda...

Greg eating a crepe and getting his dad some propaganda art. His dad fought in the Vietnam War.

You want sandals? They've got sandals. You want mannequin feet? They've got mannequin feet.

THREE FLOORS OF THIS

Just some cool architecture

For the first time on this trip, we shared a room.

Breakfast buffet

The bar scene in Hanoi is nuts. This is the main intersection where all the bars are. People flood into the streets. As the night goes on bars expand one plastic set of chairs at a time eventually taking over. At midnight the police go around the city shutting the bars down. My favorite part of this photo is the small child in the right bottom corner.

Night Market

This is that same intersection slightly earlier in the evening. Bia Hoi translates from Vietnamese as "Gas Beer" but more commonly "Fresh Beer". The beer is brewed in the morning and is often sold in the next few days if not that afternoon. It's only ~3% alcohol and, more importantly, only 5,000 VND or 25 cents per glass. Also, to the left of the "Local" store was a skate shop!

This old man kept buying alllllll the things. Every person that came by trying to sell him something would buy it. I decided it'd be fun to have my shoes cleaned for a dollar. They were still dirty. Oh well.

Our french friends, a bartender laying down, and the Scottish bar owner being weird. We spent most of the night with our new friends talking about politics, music, and traveling (mostly politics) in a combination of French and English. Greg and I got to practice our French and they got to practice their English.

Temple of literature. These turtles are called stelae and have a list of all the names of people (along with a few personal details) who passed certain grueling exams.