Hanoi

It took me five minutes, the time it took the taxi to take us from the train station to our hotel, to decide I liked Hanoi.  Even at 6am, its tree-lined streets seemed to drip with character and we were looking forward to doing some exploring.  Three days later, both Magge and I have decided that Hanoi is our favorite city that we've visited on this trip.

We didn't have any plans for our first day, so we decided to do what we do best: wander.  All we had was a recommendation for lunch and a map and we set off.  We walked by the recommended lunch spot and hesitated.  It was a hole in the wall, had a tiny menu with no English, the customers were tightly packed along bench seating, and we didn't know if we were in the mood to be adventurous coming off our train ride.  However, it was very popular with locals, which is usually a good sign, so we walked in.  It didn't matter that we couldn't read the menu, because the restaurant (more like a glorified street stand) only serves one main dish.  Without even submitting an order, the waitress plopped down two bowls of bún bò.  It turns ou that all you need for my favorite dish of the past seven months is noodles, bean sprouts, small cuts of beef and some greens topped by crushed peanuts and dried onions.  It's nothing fancy, and doesn't look like a piece of art, but it is delicious.  Day one was off to a good start.

After lunch, we walked to Hanoi's French Quarter, an area of the city included in the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die but barely referenced in our guidebook.  Our opinion sits between the two.  It does have some nice French architecture, including the Opera House and some colonial mansions, and had a relaxed atmosphere compared to the frantic Old Quarter, but it doesn't really stand out enough to be required viewing.

French architecture

As we wandered aimlessly, a barber set up on the sidewalk started waving at me.  If you've seen recent pictures of me, you probably agree with him that I needed a shave and a haircut.  I know I did, so I sat down and endured the most painful shave of my life.  He used a straight razor to scrape off two months of facial hair growth without shaving cream or even water.  I thought this must be how Vietnamese men shave, and I didn't want to be the sissy American that complained, so I just sat there and winced.  He also fashioned my mustache into the infamous Hitler style.  For a minute I worried he was going to use it as a ploy to drive up the price in exchange for fixing it, but he eventually shaved it off.  Towards the end, he decided to break out the previously unavailable shaving cream.  Jerk.  He was extremely thorough with the haircut though, refusing to allow a single stray here.  I don't know how long he spent cutting every single hair, piece by piece, with his scissors, but it was too long.  By the time I realized I didn't like my haircut because it was too militaristic, I just wanted to get out of that chair, so I paid him and left.

Think happy thoughts

At least he thinks I look cool

The next day, we went of a self-guided walking tour around Hanoi's Old Quarter.  Starting off at the Ngoc Son Temple, which sits in the middle of a lake in the middle of downtown Hanoi, we spent the next several hours walking through twisting, narrow, bustling, crowded, atmospheric and dangerous (motorbikes are just a notch less murderous here than in Saigon) streets.  Street names are constantly changing, as they used to reflect the type of merchandise sold on that block or blocks (e.g., P Hang Bo was where baskets were sold, P Hang Gai was where silk was sold, etc.).  The shops don't necessarily keep to this level of organization anymore, but a number of them do.  Tourism has taken over some of the Old Quarter, but a good chunk remains very local, with vendors selling bamboo ladders, live frogs, tin boxes and more.  You will get lost in the Old Quarter, it's just a matter of whether you'll find your way again before a seventy year old grandmother runs you over with her motorbike or not, but that's part of the fun.  Wandering these streets provided one of those moments where Magge and I are reminded why we are taking this trip.

Thap Rua (Tortuise Tower) in the middle of Hoan Kiem Lake, in central Hanoi

Ngoc Son Temple and Huc (Rising Sun) Bridge

Y

You're not even safe from getting run over while perusing the market

Fresh seafood

Dried animals parts that you've never even heard of

 These pictures don't even begin to capture the feeling of the Old Quarter, but they're all we have

The inside of a restored merchant's home/store, built in the late 19th century

Predictably, getting this picture taken meant the vendor subsequently tried to rip us off on some fruit; the exchange ended up with her storming away and our slightly overpaying for some bananas and pineapples

We're taking a three day trip to Halong Bay tomorrow, so we didn't want to do too much today.  The plan was to go to a museum, and then hit one of the local parks.  The museum was the Hoa Lo Prison, better known to Vietnam War-era Americans as the "Hanoi Hilton".  The French built the prison in the late 19th century to house Vietnamese "criminals", especially those fighting for the liberation of Vietnam.  After gaining independence, it was turned into a POW camp to hold American fighter pilots that were shot down over Hanoi, with John McCain being the most famous.  The museum focused mostly on the prison's pre-Vietnam War usage and its related fight against French colonialism, but there were a couple of sections covering its era as an American POW camp.  Predictably, these were filled with propagandist pictures of American prisoners participating in fun activities while smiling.  A plaque reads that the "Vietnamese government had created the best living conditions to US pilots."  The POWs that were tortured and subjected to unsanitary conditions beg to differ, but the skewed presentation is to be expected here.

The Hanoi Hilton

Apparently POW camp can be fun!

There were a number of creepy statues showing Vietnamese confinement under the French regime

Following our time at Hoa Lo, we walked to Lenin Park, which is supposed to be a nice green area with yet another lake.  Nobody, including the ladies that chargedowing our time at Hoa Lo, we walked to Lenin Park, which is supposed to be a nice green area with yet another lake.  Nobody, including the ladies that charged us admission told us the park was undergoing massive renovation.  Most of the paths have been torn up, waiting to be bricked, and the sizeable lake has been completely drained and is full of bulldozers pushing around earth.  With nothing to see except locals playing badminton, we turned around and headed back to the hotel. 


We still have a number of things to see in this city when we return from Halong Bay, but simply the  energy and atmosphere of the streets have pushed Hanoi to the top of our lists.  Not even the 108 degree heat (and that's without taking into account the humidity, of which there is plenty) have put a damper on our first three days here.