I
left for Hanoi around 6:30am to catch my flight and it was weird to be on the
streets at that time in my hood (Zhujiang New Town) which is normally abuzz
with people, cars, vendors, etc. For
some reason, the quiet/lack of people made it seem more “foreign” & made me
flash back to when I arrived in Almaty for Peace Corps (although that was like
3 or 4 in the morning).
And
check it out: going through security for my flight – leaving one “totalitarian”
Communist state for another one – I did not have to take off my shoes. Score another one for the over-zealous,
sheep-like American reaction to “threats.”
Are
there any U.S. airports where they will truck you out by bus to departing
planes? They do have the standard gates
here, and ramps to planes, but there are also many where you go through the
gate, get on a bus, and then get shuttled out to a plane. This happened to me in Cairo (another
flashback). For some reason, it kinda
trips me out, but also makes it feel a little “glam”/exotic to walk up a stair
ramp in the open air to board a place. I
feel like the President! J
As
for Vietnam, it was a nice trip. I
usually prefer 1-2 week trips where I bounce around to several cities, doing
forced march sightseeing to see as much as I can. This was the first time in a long time….can’t
even remember when…where I spent 6 days in one city. But it was cool. I did a couple of day trips, a city tour, and
then explored Hanoi the rest of the time.
Observations:
No
China smell! This was surprising since
Hanoi is a very old city (they celebrated their 1,000 year anniversary in 2010). But I finally realized it doesn’t smell for
the same reason Hong Kong doesn’t: Western sewer system – although Hanoi’s
French system is obviously older than HK’s British system, so we’ll see what
happens when it needs to be updated/replaced.
The
Vietnamese are much friendlier than the Chinese. Yes, I know this will come as a shock to
anyone who’s been to China! But I was still surprised they were friendly
to an obvious American considering….
As
I mentioned on FB, the currency was a challenge to deal with. One U.S. dollar is worth over 21,000
Vietnamese Dong (huh huh huh, I said dong!).
It wasn’t until I’d been there a few days that I could get over the
shock of hearing, for example, a t-shirt cost 100,000! As a result, I didn’t end up with many
souvenirs – in fact, only one. I usually
try to get one “semi-high end” local thing reflective of the culture (e.g., in
Egypt I got a really nice rug), and I was going to get a nice embroidered piece
of a local scene. But the first one I
found that I liked (of the One Pillar Pagoda) threw me off coz of the “high”
price (over 1.5 million Dong!), and then afterwards every one I saw just wasn’t
quite right. Ditto for t-shirts. At the end of the day, all I got was a
propaganda poster from the Vietnam war – but I’m happy with that! It shows a “monstrous” Nixon leering over
Vietnam/children and says, “The Monster Nixon!”
Hmmm, I guess that’s more a statement of fact, rather than “propaganda.” J
I
happened to be in Vietnam when they were celebrating Tet, which was cool as I
got to see the decorations AND experience the city both before half the people left and then after. When I was walking around
on New Year’s Day, I could actually cross the streets without worrying about
getting taken out by a scooter. The
claim is that fully half of the city’s population (6.5 million) goes to their
home village during Tet. Not all of them
took their scooters, but most did. There
are supposed to be 3.5 million scooters in Hanoi, which means more than one for every 2
people (which includes children!), but it sure as hell seems like I saw more
than 3 million myself. And apparently
they are not bound by traffic laws. The
t-shirt I should have bought had a stylized drawing of “Hanoi traffic” with a
mass of scooters. It was a trip.
The
food was good. Believe it or not, I did
NOT have any Pho while I was there, but I’ve never been much of a soup person,
have had good Pho before, etc. But I ate somewhere different every day – from
semi-high end places to the local fast food chain. I was only mildly adventurous, though – at one
place, I had some wood-cured shredded water buffalo (very good with the spicy
Thai dipping sauce and local herbs); and on the boat trip around Ha Long Bay, I
went ahead and had some fresh (non-fried) squid. Otherwise, I had standard fare I knew I’d be
okay with (fried rice, various vegetable and/or chicken and/or fish dishes,
etc.).
My
hotel was nice enough – esp. for the price ($20 a night, which included
breakfast – a decent buffet, too, not that “continental” crap that means some
token bananas and hard muffins). The Old
Quarter in Hanoi, where I stayed, is full of boutique hotels that run the gamut
from borderline scuzzy to high end. Mine
was a little “worn” in the stairway (no elevator), but my room was nice enough,
clean, good-sized bed, cute décor, etc.
The downside: their water system went down and I had to switch to
their “sister hotel” for my last two nights and the room there wasn’t as
nice/cute – tho still clean AND did have a bathtub (mine had a “mini” tub I
could not soak in), so I got to have a nice long soak in the tub for the first
time since I left the states!
For
anyone considering a trip to Hanoi, I would definitely recommend staying in the
Old Quarter. It’s very “authentic”/cool,
there’s lots to do and see (the lake is cool, as is the temple on the little
island in it), and it’s cool to wander the streets to check out the
architecture, food, markets (different streets are named after the goods they
sell), dodge the scooters, etc. You WILL
get the peddlers hitting you up. For me,
I had tons of guys who wanted to repair/fix my beat up shoes. It was actually kind of fun to see the
response from some of the guys with their little shoe repair kits – more than
one literally gasped when they saw mine.
To be honest, I should have taken one of them up on it just to see what
he could have accomplished – after all, it would have only cost me about 20,000
dong. J
Beyond
that, I got many, many guys asking, “Book?” (They all had small suitcase size
boxes full of random books – usually including “Catch-22,” “Papillon,” and
other random books, travel guides, etc. I
could fend most of them off by displaying a sullen Chinese look, shaking my
head quickly, saying no. But after I
waved off the books, they immediately said, “Marijuana? Woman?”
I almost always laughed at this, and then finally – out of curiosity –
asked one guy, “How much for the marijuana?”
When he said 1.5 million, again, I did the double take and moved on
(NOTE: for those interested in my more “risqué” adventures, e-mail me; I’m
trying to keep this blog PG for my parents/other delicate souls).
Most
everything else about the trip you can glean from the pics I posted on
Facebook, but I think my most interesting/surreal experience was the Ho Chi
Minh complex (with the Hoa Lo/”Hanoi Hilton” prison a close second). As a history student, it was very interesting
to see/hear about the French occupation and the Vietnam war from a different
perspective. Despite some of the things
they did during the war, it’s hard not to feel sorry for these people who have
been subjected to so much foreign interference (to put it mildly), and – as mentioned – it’s
amazing to find them still so friendly after all that.
Seeing
“Uncle Ho” – the actual Ho Chi Minh – in his preserved glass case in the Ho Chi
Minh Mausoleum was truly a trip. The
first time I’ve seen a dead body (the few funerals I’ve been to have been
closed coffin). The process, the security,
etc. to get in there, the eerie silence as you loop around the case, thinking
about this guy’s role in history and what he meant to his country, etc. It was just all very surreal. If I were Vietnamese, I probably would have
been crying all over myself. An
equivalent for an American would be seeing George Washington or Abraham Lincoln’s
preserved body. Very, very intense.
