14/5/02 Back in Hanoi, Vietnam Phillip
Well, I'm back in Hanoi. I think I've covered most of the sights here that I want to see. I went to watch the famous Water Puppets with a group of Norwegian and Danish girls, after which I helped the local hawkers try to sell postcards to tourists (shocked a few French tourists by saying "I give you good price") and did the famous museums around town. The big thing to see in Hanoi is the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum which is where his body is available for viewing. Honestly I was a bit let down, not sure what I expected but I waited with Ernie (remember her from Thailand?), Alex and Amy (English folks) in the bitter cold rain, soaked to the skin to spend maybe a minute shuffling past the body. Anyway, Uncle Ho's picture is plastered over everything here. I think it's a bit ironic that he specifically didn't want to be placed in a mausoleum and insisted upon being cremated.
Anyway, Kelly and co went to Ha Long Bay a day before me. I was going to go with the group of Norwegian girls but when we were supposed to meet we didn't find each other and I ended up bumping into Ernie anyway. Booked us on a Kayak tour of Ha Long Bay. HLB is a bay that is spattered with 1600 massive limestone islands/cliffs. Very beautiful. On the bus journey we ended up meeting Amy and Alex and all got along great. I even bumped into Kelly on her way back from HLB in a hotel restaurant. As I chatted with the others (now including two Swedes) I discovered that we had paid far less than the other. We only paid $40 for 3days and two nights including everything (and our own private guide) so we got a great deal when the others had all paid $60! We spent the first night sleeping on the boat, but before setting out for the night discovered that the crew charged almost a $1 for a beer! We managed to convince them to let us leave the boat for a few minutes and I haggled a shopkeeper down and returned with a case of beer for a 1/3 of the price!
Had a great time on the boat swimming and jumping from the top of the crow's nest, had to impress the girls ya know... Kayaking was pretty good fun, Ernie and I got to go through caves and tunnels. Good fun, but I got pretty badly sunburned (more freckles..).
We've all booked ourselves onto a 14-hour bus tonight to Hue and so I'm giving trekking a miss. The weather is pretty miserable today in Hanoi and the forecast for Sapa (where the trekking is) is pretty bad too. I hope Kel got better weather than us!
Hanoi has been an interesting city. Certainly I've seen and done lots. I met some crazy cool people which make such a difference, and I've gotten to drink tons of Bia Hoi (10cents/pint). Most of the sights here are war related. I went to the Army Museum but really wasn't too impressed. Seemed to be a bunch of crashed American planes and didn't exactly present an accurate view of the war. I'm still ploughing through my book on the war in Laos though. Seems like the US Government has admitted at least that they were there but still deny the scale of the war. Apparently during the peak of the bombings in Laos the US was dropping more bombs per years on Laos than in the entire Vietnam War.
Today it's pouring outside so that's why the entry is so long. I've also decided to cut down my time in Vietnam by about a week or two. I want to get to Hong Kong a little earlier than expected and fly out of Bangkok to HK around the 5 or 6th of June, so I only have two weeks left in Vietnam. That should give me enough time to learn some more Vietnamese, which has been a little easier to pick up than Lao. I've still barely got 7 or 8 phrases but I use them a lot!
I have a few insights into Vietnam that I’d like to share though,
1) The driving here is by far the worst I have ever seen
- Driving home yesterday we passed 4 or 5 wrecks where it's obvious people were killed
2) The people in Vietnam are all lovely. Even the taxi drivers here are friendly.
3) Vietnamese car horns are much louder than anywhere else in the world!
4) No matter what price you are quoted, expect to half it for everything (except food)
5) Try to learn the name of your hotel and perhaps even a street address
- Otherwise you can end up wandering through Hanoi for 3 hours in not so nice areas!
6) Don't buy the jewelry! Although I hear gold is pretty good value here.
7) You don't have to eat dog if you don't want to.
8) Vietnamese people are either very well dressed or dressed terribly.
9) In a head on collision between a horse drawn carriage and a truck, the truck will win....
10) Most backpackers smell terrible!
I need to apologize for the lack of pictures from me. I do have tons of rolls from Thailand onwards but I'm waiting until Kelly has enough and we'll mail them all together. Sorry to everyone who's been asking about them, but they'll probably take another month.
Also, I wanted to wish my friend Nicole in Austin a big "Get well soon!" I'm thinking and praying for you!
Posted by Admin at May 14, 2002 02:17 AM