Good Morning Vietnam (1st October)

This post of the blog covers the period from when we landed in Vietnam till the end of our time in Hanoi. To pitch a rather tenuous Lord of The Rings theme, it felt we had made our first baby steps outside the Shire and tentatively entered to into the Prancing Pony in Bree; I know I felt rather like an ickle Hobbit trying to get a beer from men when trying to cross the road; but more about that later.

We landed early morning of Wednesday 1st October and, after forty-five minutes fighting the visa processing system, were reunited with our bags and found the minibus to journey into the Hanoi Old Town. I am actually quite relieved to have spent two years in Dubai, as whilst the visa process at the Hanoi Arrivals was illogical, it was light years ahead of any government process in the Middle East. 

Basically, you had to second guess the process, which consisted of submitting completed visa application form(s) and passport(s) at a counter hidden round the backside of the visa processing department and wait for it to be processed inside. At some point afterwards, with no seeming adherence to first come first served, you were called to present yourself at the front counter. It is quite funny that there are people that I have been friends with for over thirty years and I am not one hundred percent sure of their middle names, but I know the full names of complete strangers, as they were announced to much smirking and sniggering all round. My regal sounding middle names definitely was in the top quartile of tittering decibel levels...

With the appropriate amount of U.S. Dollars paid, our passports were handed back, which on closer inspection showed that a whole one page was taken up with our new Vietnam visa sticker. This reaffirmed my opinion that I was right to get a new passport, as I only had eight pages left in my old one even though it was only two years old, and I had already used up two pages in my new one entering our first country.

So, once we located the right minibus and had waited the eternity for it to fill up, we were on our way into central Hanoi. It is amazing that all round the world the drives from the airports into their host cities are remarkably similar: haulage, car hire and distribution companies near the airport; utilities next; then the dodgy parts of town;  and a few business areas and Universities before reaching the touristy bits. 

Whilst similar to most routes into city, it was actually an interesting drive, primarily as this is my first time in South East Asia. Secondly because I was sitting next to an American graduate who seemed genuinely impressed that I had heard of the company she was starting her graduate job with after her trip, a small company called Accenture! Finally it was an interesting drive due in no small part to the fact that the driver lost interest in customer service the longer we got into trip and successive drop-offs. He started out dropping people off at the doors of their hotel/hostel. By our stop he was reduced to pointing up a reasonably main road saying that it would be five minutes that way...

Our hotel (Old Town Hotel Hanoi) was excellent and comes highly recommended by us, for both the standard of the rooms and also the excellent location. After a quick shower and change of clothes we were out exploring what Hanoi had to offer. Anyone that has been to Hanoi will testify that it is a magic place. A mixture of large green spaces, vast centrally located lakes, bustling streets and an array of spectacular architecture. We took in Hoin Kiem Lake and the outsides of the Opera House, Revolution Museum and  Women Museum before entering the Hanoi Prison Museum; which was extremely interesting. 

This was the place that Vietnamese activists against French rule, as well as American pilots captured during the Vietnam War, were incarcerated. There was even a picture of previous US Presidential Candidate John McCain taken during his captivity in the prison. It also contained artefacts, pictures and narratives of wider Vietnamese history so, all in all, it was a suitable place to dip the toe in the water to the history and culture of the country.

After some street food for lunch (I will leave that to Becs' blog on foods of the world for details - I will include her blog address in a future post) we then took in the Temple of Literature and the Flag Tower to end the afternoon wander about. The Flag Tower is similar in importance to Hanoi as Trafalgar Square is to London, as it seems like the place that people gather on important national events. 

Unfortunately the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and other buildings around the Botanical Gardens were closed in preparation for Vietnam' Independence Festivities on the tenth of October, but it was still a successful day sight seeing. We are also extremely excited to experience the 60th anniversary of independence when we are in Ho Chi Min the day before we leave Vietnam for Cambodia.

As we knew after two days at Ha Long Bay we were proceeding by train to Hue, we went to the train station to purchase our sleeper tickets. At this point I should mention the other thing that any visitor to Hanoi will remember about the place; crossing the roads. Quite simply they are an experience in themselves. Standing like Lemmings on the edge of the edge of the abyss, with no sign of traffic rules, we followed the lead of locals and slowly edged across the road, becoming isolated islands with traffic flowing around us like the currents of the city's Red River. 

Very quickly we managed spot the gaps and learn the two vital rules of crossing: 1) never stop; and 2) keep at a constant pace. Despite the chaos we never saw any accident in Hanoi. The traffic only proceeds at 15-20 MPH and all drivers seem to have respect for pedestrians.

With a few main roads crossed we managed to present ourselves at the ticket office at the train station. We tried every pronunciation of Hue: "Hue", "Huey", "Hey", "Hoe", "Hoey" etc. As a Londoner I really appreciated the devious almost slapstick humour of the residence of Hanoi as the lady at the ticket office just let us continue on regardLess whilst chuckling through her teeth and then using the first of our iterations before producing our tickets.

The next substantive post will cover the period of the 2nd and 3rd of October when we were in Ha Long Bay and on the train to Hue but my next post will be on some history of Vietnam. 

Tam Biet x