Hanoi

Subtitle

Overview

We used Hanoi as our home-base for the week-plus we'll spent in Northern Vietnam. Hanoi initially conjures up images of war, Viet Cong, Jane Fonda and the like. But in reality it is a wonderful, charming city (Scott: "with too many motorcycles") with beautiful French architecture (along with drab, blockish, concrete artifacts of buildings left from the Russians...). Like Bangkok, Scott's visited Hanoi a couple of times before, but never spent much time just hanging out.

At the end of our time in Northern Vietnam, we'll take the "Reunification Express" train, that runs the length of the country - from Hanoi all the way down the coast past those TV-news names like Da Nang and Hue, and onto Saigon. It'll take two nights and one day. (Update: the train was fully booked; instead we took Vietnam Airways. It was fine. We were a bit nervous about it)

Background:

"Despite fierce U.S. bombing during the Vietnam War (which here in Vietnam is called (understandably) "the American War", much of Hanoi's beautiful architecture remains intact, including many of the colonial buildings constructed by the French during their 70 years of occupation. Known as 'La Ville Français,' Hanoi was, from 1902, the capital of French Indochina, and visitors declared it to be the "Paris of the East". The most European city in Vietnam, Hanoi is home to nearly 2 million people. Less vibrant and more reserved than its cousin to the south, Hanoi is a great place to explore on foot. If Ho Chi Minh City is defined by hustle and bustle and people on the go, Hanoi's trademark is green parks and tranquil lakes. The city is divided into districts, many of which take their name from a lake within the district's boundaries. Each district has its own charms."

Updates

10/28/01 Bangkok-Hanoi. The best laid plans... after a mutually-sleepless night, we got up at 3am (Scott), 4:15 (Kathy), checked out of our hotel in Bangkok, and hailed a taxi to the airport. Scott negotiated the price down from 400 baht to 260 (the metered fare would have been about 200... Tourists generally pay more; stupid ones pay double) or about $6. Left our hotel around 4:50am and arrived at the airport 5:15ish - about 2 1/2 hours before scheduled departure time. Ok so there is some time when Bangkok traffic isn't gridlock.

No one else was in the check-in line - the procedure took about 5 minutes. Then the real waiting began. We hung out in the Thai Airways Business Class lounge (even though we were in coach) due to Scott's frequent flyer status, where he, um, borrowed the internet connection from one of the club's PCs and made it his own for a while.

Interestingly, this Bangkok-Hanoi flight had all the same precautions as our BOS-ORD leg: very heavy security, no scissors, tweezers, etc. Plastic knives with the meals. I hadn't suspected the security would be so high for non-US/European related travel.

The flight was delayed a half hour, but we made up all but about 6 minutes of it en route. Unfortunately, the plane's wheel-steering mechanism failed once we were on the ground, and we had to get towed in - a couple of miles. The first two-tractor broke down, mid-trip. A second was dispatched. How embarrassing! The tow took at least a half an hour.

Our guidebook advised us to purchase a voucher for a taxi, at a specific spot in the terminal. No such place. Scott goes to the Information Desk in search of honest information. Right. We're guessing the young lady at the Info Desk was the girlfriend of the [alleged] Taxi Driver who almost took us to the hotel (he'd followed us through the terminal and to the Desk). Except there was no indication that his car was a taxi, or that he was a licensed taxi driver - assuming taxi drivers have licenses. Welcome to Vietnam. We used to be naive about this kind of thing - but we've figured a thing or two out over the last 15 years of travel.

Ultimately, we got to the hotel (which is lovely) around 11:30am. Net: 7.5 hours, door-door. For an 80 minute flight. Welcome to Vietnam. All's well that ends.

10/29/01 Spent the day wandering around the Old Quarter (photos below). Kathy navigated us through one of the guide books' walking tours, and we found most of the sites/sights. Every street in the Old Quarter is dedicated to a different profession - towel street, blacksmith street, tin box making street, herb street (my favorite product on this street was "Toad Powder" for small children.) We walked so far and so many places that this part of Hanoi is starting to look familiar.

We both got barraged by Postcard Sales Terrorists; these are invariably boys, age 7 to about 14, hawking postcards, maps, and the same couple of books. They are relentless, and we found that the only way to get rid of them is not even to acknowledge their existence. This feels rude, aloof; but it's the only thing that worked. Hey, they're just trying to make a living.

In the afternoon we returned to the hotel to some ostensibly bad news: the Cambodian embassy (about a 15 minute walk away) quoted the hotel "1 to 3 days" for visa processing. We're leaving in two. We feared having to leave our passports behind while we traveled within Vietnam - not too comfortable with that. But it turned out to be no problem at all: $20, a simple form to fill out; pick up the passports tomorrow after 3pm. [postscript: the Consulate was closed when were arrived around 3:45, but it finally opened around 4:15]

The evening was a lot of fun. Recommended by all the tour books, we saw the Water Puppet theatre. A 1 hour performance of puppetry (and performers) in about 3' of water. It's completely amazing. Most of the pictures were blurry, sorry: light level too low and our seats too far for flash. Tickets for two with "camera surcharge": about $7.

Had dinner at the hotel's highly recommended restaurant again. Two beers each, a soup, an appetizer and two main dishes: $13.

Overall, we really like Hanoi. It's a city just emerging into the consumer market economy, and into tourism. While mostly unchanged from the 1950s (or earlier), there are now an infinite number of motorcycles; every one seems to have a TV; and cell phones (and cell phone stores) are starting to proliferate. The global economy's contribution to this emerging market. (Air conditioners are also an up and coming business). Other than that, I'll bet you couldn't see much differences from 40 years ago.

Most of the tourists who visit here seem to do it as part of tour groups - very few independent travelers. Puzzling - it is a very easy place to get around, and very safe. The travelers we have encountered seem to be mostly Australian, English, French, and of course the inevitable Germans on their 6-week vacations.

10/30/01 We spent entirely too long finding an internet cafe to catch up with the mail, then spent 7 hours out sightseeing, about 5 1/2 of it walking. It helps work off the food. The two main sights were Hoa Lo prison, known to Americans as the "Hanoi Hilton", where US POWs were imprisoned during the war here. As it turns out, the French built the prison to jail the locals... and they weren't very nice to them.

The history presented in the exhibit ends in the 50s, with only brief mention of the "kind treatment of American soldiers" [despite their oppressive intents...]. I think opinions differ on this, and the truth is probably somewhere in between. There is now a "real" Hanoi Hilton, the Hanoi Hilton Opera. It's a 5-star hotel. I (Scott) have stayed in it.

The other war-related site we visited was the Army Museum. This features the history of the struggle of the Vietnamese people through basically the 20th century - mostly the French and the Americans. It's been a tough century to be Vietnamese. There were three rooms of pictures of mothers who had lost all their 5-6-7-8 sons/daughters in the wars.

More beautiful, and more peaceful to be sure, was Van Mieu - the "Temple of Learning". This was a university of sorts, founded a hundred years ago to educate aspiring Aristocrats. Modeled after Confucius' home in Qufu, China, it covers 50,000 square meters of land.

We're staying at the lovely and not-very-expensive DeSyloia Hotel. This hotel has been the highlight of the trip. The Staff is wonderful, the rates reasonable, location out of the way but convenient. Oh, and it's cheap.

10/31/01 We visited the Museum of Ethnology, which covered the Hill Tribes' customs, dress, lodgings etc. It was interesting (but pictures of museums aren't, so there're none here...) but what really made it special was toward the end, meeting up with a class of students - either from a banking or economic organization. One girl in particular wanted to practice her English on us (she was pretty good) - and Kathy invited herself and I to visit their school, when we get back to Hanoi. May be tight on the schedule, but we're looking forward to this.

11/05/01 Got back from Sa Pa this morning after a short and (for Scott) relatively restless night. The train arrived in Hanoi around 4:30am. The good news is we're allowed to stay on board until 6:45; the bad news is they're moving the train cars around, crashing into things (it seemed like it anyway) - so little sleep was had after 5am. Welcomed back to the wonderful DeSyloia hotel, we promptly showered and went to sleep until about 11am.

The afternoon was an adventure, and an interesting one. Recall 10/31 (above): we made good on our promise to visit the kids' school. No problem finding it via taxi - but finding an English speaker to get us to the classroom - that was a different story. We did find the girl who'd invited us, and we spent a few minutes talking to her class of 80, then a couple of hours drinking beer with her and a classmate at the local bia hoi ("fresh beer") joint. Hanoi brand beer is awful.