Nathan’s Blog

Hanoi is a cool, chaotic city.

We were a little shocked at first as it’s a pretty full on place, especially where we were staying in The Old Quarter. Our initial reaction was to get in and out as quickly as possible, cutting our time there to 1 day, but we soon got into the groove … and liked the place.

The Old Quarter is a grid of streets, each with name representing the trade of the street – shoe street, toy street … you get the idea. Shoe street still sells shoes and toy street still sells toys!

On our first day in Hanoi we wandered around the narrow streets of The Old Quarter and took in the sights, smells and sounds.

Vietnamese drivers use their horns as presence transmitters and so the maze of streets in the Old Quarter is a noisey place. The motorbikes seemingly repel each other at close quarters, like a flock of birds – or an inverse square law for the 3 physisists that may be reading (geek!!).

Crossing the road is all about eye contact and confidence!!

We ended our walking tour (courtesy of Lonely Planet) with a Bia Hoi at a street cafe at one of the main Bia Hoi junctions. Bia Hoi is a light larger, introduced by the Danes, that is micro-brewed at each street cafe. At 20p a glass it’s supposed to be the cheapest beer on Earth. We had a couple!

The following day we were up early for the mueseum circuit. First up was the Mausoleum – Ho Chi Minh’s resting place. His body is preserved and presented in an open casket.

There was a very sombre mood in the queue of mainly Vietnamese visitors. It is almost a pilgramage and rite of passage for the Vietnamese people.

The queue was broken at various points by imposing military guards who had the look of the authoritarian regime of yesteryear. The effect this had on the normally animated Vietnamese in the queue was immediate and incredible. The queue was slowly marching forward in double file and to say that the Vietnamese looked oppressed would not be too much of an exageration.

It is easy to see how fear can rule and we saw first hand how readily the power of the past can be leveraged.

Against all this seriousness, we were of course fighting back the giggles! We managed to pinch them off pretty early, thank God!

As we approached the inner chamber, it became apparent that Laura hadn’t read the break out section in the Lonely Planet and had no idea what she was queuing for. Her face when she saw a dead man staring back at her was priceless!! She very quicky made her way to the exit the only way you can when you are in the shrine of a man who is worshipped in Vietnam: a sort of half run, half walk shuffle, with little movement of the upper body!!

After Laura had come to terms with what had just happened we wandered around the grounds looking at where Uncle Ho used to hang out in the brief time he controlled the country. I liked his study, which had framed pictures of Marx and Lenin over his desk.

After a quick pit stop at Koto Cafe, we headed to the House of Literature, Hanoi’s first University and the former seat of education for Royality.

We headed back to Koto (cool cafe come training charity for local kids) for a lazy lunch on the roof terrace to escape the buzz of the city for a while.

After lunch we jumped on the back of a pair of motor bikes to get ourselves across town for the next cultural leg. Very cool being in the thick of the river of bikes cascading through the city.

Next up was the History Museum and the Revolution Museum. The former was pretty dull, the later much more interesting as it chronicled the sucessive invasions and Vietnam’s struggle for independence.

We ended the day in a restaurant that only served one dish: shallow fried fish served at your table in pans on a coal stove.

After our trips to Sapa  and Halong Bay  we had one final night in Hanoi, before an early flight to Hue the next day.

We went back to a few places we knew (drinks at Lucky Bar and dinner at 69) and then took a final stroll around a city I was strangely glad to be back in.

We stood and watched some local über cool kids break dancing for fun, not money. Then we grabbed an ice cream and wandered around the lit lake, which was dotted with young romantics taking in the night. All very pleasant.

Hanoi. Done.