Hanoi, Vietnam

We arrived in Hanoi in the early hours, after a long bus trip from Da Nang, a boring town between Hue and Hoi An, which is mainly used as a transportation hub connecting the North and South. After a little bit of searching, we found a decent enough room at "Real Darling Cafe" in the Old Quarter for what was supposed to be an impossible price when we mentionned our budget to Hanoites. The first thing we did was to start the process of getting a Chinese Visa which was to take 5 working days but in a week peppered with public holidays, it meant we would have a bit of time to kill...



We started our explorations of Hanoi by walking around the Old Quarter which is a bustling hub of narrow twisting streets full of scooters on the road and all matter of goods on the footpath. Trying to navigate the two is a challenge at the best of times. The French Quarter, on the other hand, is like a sterile version of Paris with wide streets and handsome buildings without the heart and soul. The city centre is easily manageable on foot and combined with a more agreable temperature, we were able to give our flabby legs (from all the sitting on buses and not a lot of exercise) a good work out.



The next couple days were filled with touristy activities which was also a bit of a novelty after a long stretch without entering a single museum. We started by visiting the National Art Museum which was ok but not great. It seemed that although it could have been a decent collection, none of the artworks were very well preserved or restaured and the general standard of the works was pretty low and crude. On the other hand, some of the art galleries we visited in the centre show that Vietnam has some wonderful contemporary artists, as well as some very crafty copiers of classic works.



We have also taken a new liking for any type of shopping centre to the point where we can not resist visiting one if we even just catch a glimpse of the escalators. We love how delightfully cool and orderly they are. If they have a Nike store or any other brand we know, then it's the jackpot and we spend a few minutes perusing the neat racks of predictable merchandise. It's embarassing but it's true!



On our third day, we woke up especially early to go visit Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum complex and although the waiting lines were a bit frightening, we were both glad we stuck it out as the experience was both sobering and memorable. Uncle Ho's body is displayed at the centre of a dark cool room, inside a glass coffin with uniformed guards at each corner. His face and hands are lit and he appears to be glowing. As thousands of people walk around him everyday, the leader that the Vietnamese revere looks sound asleep. Even the crazy Korean woman directly (and I mean directly) behind us stopped pushing and calmed down for a while.



As usual, the rest of our time was filled looking for good breakfast, coffee and lunch places to add to our list. We succeeded partly as the coffee in Vietnam is divine, strong and sweet. Pho, the staple dish is always a good fallback and we are enjoying the last of our baguette opportunities (before heading to China).



As we seem to now accumulate them wherever we go, we were in the Capital City in time to celebrate two public holidays with the crowds. The first one was "Liberation Day" on the 30th of April, which marks the day when the Viet Minh conquered Saigon and defeated the American army. We celebrated with circus performances and fireworks around the lake. Never had we seen fireworks being greeted with so much applause, cheers and cries of joy. That was something else and we were both stunned, expecting the Western blase attitude to such things. Afterwards, the streets were like a river full of scooters but it wasn't flowing at all. We spent 5 minutes on one street corner contemplating how we might get through as there was not a single gap left between the bikes, only chaos. The next day, we celebrated "International Labour Day" which I suspect people only bothered with because the stage for performances was already set up from the day before.



Our last day wasn't great since I seemed to have an adverse reaction to the widespread use of MSG in the kitchen and spent the day in agony with a terrible headache and nausea. We planned a trip to Halong Bay to fill the remaining time until our passports can be picked up and also worked out the next couple months, through China, Mongolia, Russia and Scandinavia which should get us back to Nice sometime in July.