An easy one and a half hour flight from Siem Reap and we were in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. This feels like the biggest city we’ve been in so far – huge motorway with 4 lanes going in each direction. As we got closer to the city the scooters and motorbikes appeared – there are a lot! There was also a lot of road works as apparently they are building a metro.
We arrived at our hotel around 8pm – The Hilton no less – our fanciest hotel of the trip. It was in a really central location beside the opera house and was nicely decorated for Christmas which we hadn’t seem a huge amount of. We took a walk around the neighbourhood and found a cosy little spot for a drink and a nibble and made a plan for the next day to see the sites of Hanoi.
Breakfast was amazing – I went full Asian – dim sum and mini banh mi sandwiches – delighted with life as we jumped in a cab, in the rain to get to the Ho Chin Minh mausoleum. The weather was unseasonably cool for Hanoi – it was approx 10 degrees colder than Cambodia (16-18c) so it was a nice respite from the heat – the rain we could have done without it was only light showers and considering they had recently had a typhoon we considered ourselves very lucky.
Things get serious at Ho Chi Minhs’ mausoleum! You need to follow the instructions of the guards and abide by the rules. As the recorded announcement repeats “if you have bad manners towards the rules you will not be allowed in”. There are long queues but they move fast and are very orderly!! No chewing gum, no cameras, no water, no hats, no sunglasses, no talking. You’re motioned in, walk around the body laid out in a glass case, no stopping just keep moving and the visit is all over in about two minutes. I have to say he looked very well – possibly better than he did toward the end of his life. He didn’t look so skinny and still has the beard! The regular maintenance is obviously working – it seems he goes for touch ups quite regularly so we were lucky to get to see him. It was exactly the same as seeing Lenin in Moscow which I thought was a one-off but apparently this is how the communist leaders are revered. Now I’m gonna have to see Mau!
Once we were inside the grounds we could then visit the museum, palace and house where he lived. The yellow palace is where he received foreign dignitaries:
The cars used to drive him around:
House 54 where he did a lot of his work:
The Stilt house where he actually lived:
The museum was interesting. There is a huge statue at the top of the staircase as you enter. Most of the exhibits feature photos of Hi Chi Minh visiting parts of Vietnam and meeting with all the different people in the country or receiving them in Hanoi. There are lots of photos and even some video footage of him meeting leaders and members of communist parties from all different countries. I was looking out for some evidence of the relationship with Cambodia (their neighbors) but couldn’t see anything.
There were lots and lots of letters and quotes from him and again more photos of him writing poetry or speaking at a rally or meeting more people but I didn’t see anything that told me what he did in the 20 odd years after the country become a republic. We did have to leave as the museum was closing at 12 so maybe I missed a section… There was a really interesting exhibit on how the Bolshevik revolution inspired the Vietnamese.
Next we headed toward the old quarter and Hoan Kiem lake. There’s a very pretty red bridge which we walked across to visit the temple and the famous turtle on there:
We spent quite a bit of time walking around the old quarter. It’s an interesting place – chaotic small streets and alleys packed with people working, selling fruit or clothes, making food, washing dishes in basins on the footpath… there are people eating in tiny little cafes (if you could even call them that – some are actually just someone’s little space where they’ve set up a fryer and are serving something on a stick) and drinking tea and coffee sitting on tiny low chairs. There are a huge amount of tea shops – not coffee, tea… so you can imagine how excited I was that I could get a good cup of tea but no.. I tried about 6 of them and they had the weirdest tea concoctions I’d ever come across – cheesy tea (yes tea with cheese!!), banana tea, grapefruit tea and when I asked for just black tea they said “oh no, no black tea”!!!!
Every second place is a spa so you are never far away from a massage and there’s the odd temple here and there. We visited the oldest one in Hanoi. We also visited the Hanoi cathedral which was having some work done on the inside but badly needs a facelift on the outside and we had a delicious gin cocktail (mine was cinnamon and orange peel infused) at the Mad Botanist (shout out Lynny Kramm) overlooking it:
Lightly oiled with gin we headed to the water puppet show at Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre by Hoan Kiem lake. The people controlling these puppets are clearly very talented and the musical instruments and singing seemed very authentic. It was a nice way to spend just under an hour and only cost $100,000 VND (that’s about $5)
Time for another cocktail we stopped at the Metropole hotel which is a famous French colonial hotel where lots of famous people have stayed since 1901. Charlie Chaplin spent his honeymoon here and there is lots of interesting history and photos on the walls. As you’d imagine the drinks were pricy – half a million!!!!
Some local grub finished off the busy day in Hanoi and although it wouldn’t be one of my favourite places we visited it was a good day and a good intro to Vietnam.
HALONG BAY
leaving Hanoi city we drove along a road that has the biggest mural in the world. It’s 6km long and it was really cool to look at while in the crazy traffic.
On the 4 hour drive to Halong bay it is misty, overcast and raining.. not boding well for our cruise. We set off in the mist hoping to see this:
But we actually see this:
Still it was very cool and added an atmospheric feel to the place. At any moment you’d expect King Kong to jump from one of the islands!!
Our ship, Halong Jasmine was very old school with wooden corridors and old lampshades – it was really nice. Surrounded by the fog it felt like we were on an equivalent of murder on the orient express! With just 13 passengers on board we’d see who survive the night!!
After a lengthy lunch of no less than 6 courses (soup, salad. 2 appetisers a main and dessert!) we headed out on a small boat to visit the floating fishing village called Cua Van . There’s a lot less families living here now- about 200 compared to 1,000 some years back but the fishing people have been living this way for over 200 years. Seeing the tiny houses they live in made me feel very lucky to be coming home to the grandeur of Glen Ellan!
Next stop the Tien Ong cave. Fascinating to walk through and see the stalagmites and stalactites. Archeologists, in fairly recent excavations, reckon they have found human bones from 8,000 to,10,000 BC.
They kept us busy on the boat with activities.. next up a cookery demonstration! The chef showed us (with the help of a translator) how to make fried spring roles and of course we got to eat them. We later sat down to another huge meal of 5 courses and it was really delicious. We got chatting to a group of Americans on our tour and enjoyed a few drinks.
The next morning we got up with the sun and headed for tai chi class on the sun deck. There wasn’t much sun to see but the maintenance guy turned up and took us through our tai chi moves. It was mild weather with a little mist falling on us – ideal conditions for outside tai chi!
Our last excursion from the cruise was a visit to Tip Top island where we climbed 400 steps to look at the beautiful views of the bay – they were still beautiful even though we had no sunshine and most of the islands were in fog! There is also a little beach on this island so although it wasn’t quite swimming weather we did go in for a little paddle!
Breakfast and then back to the mainland for the journey back to Hanoi. Goodbye Halong Bay I will have to visit another time and pray for better weather.
On the way back to Hanoi we stopped at the temple of Mon Chau who was a famous academic who was a friend of the king hundreds of years ago. Rumour had it that his wife had an affair with the king and he was accused of murdering the king and exterminated (in the words of our guide) for the crime but later was found innocent. He looks a bit like Confuscious and is still revered today.
Our very cute little guide also pointed out a statue of a unicorn which is completely different to what we know a unicorn to be…
Back in Hanoi we had two places left on our list. Firstly we went to the temple of literature. It’s made up of four courtyards with a temple at the end. It used to be a college but now students come to look for inspiration and pray for good luck in their exams!
There are turtle monuments for each professor/doctor who qualified over the years:
Before heading back to the Hilton to pick up our bags we headed to the “Hanoi Hilton” aka Ho Loa prison where political prisoners were held in the colonial times and then more recently where US pilots where detained.
There was a very interesting exhibit about the relationship with the US and there was quite a bit of footage of John McCain who was imprisoned here for five and a half years. This was the uniform he was wearing when he was captured.
Bags collected it was off to the airport for our next flight….
odohertyelaine 