Old Quarter

The Vietnam Diaries 2011: July 20th – Hanoi

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We’re up at 9:30 and go down to catch breakfast before 10:00. Before we’re able to make it to the restaurant we’re ambushed by the receptionist who starts telling us the plan for our evening departure to Sapa. She doesn’t get far before she is interrupted by Mr. Son (hotel manager). There’s some visible tension between them and the woman walks off muttering something in Vietnamese (if we listened closely enough I’m sure we could have learned a few useful swear words). I guess she’s not happy about Mr. Son “stealing” us, now that we’ve reached our VIP status. Mr. Son tells us that everything’s been arranged for our trip. We should be back by 19:00 to be driven to the train station where we’ll take a night train to Lao Cai as part of our journey.

We set out to look for a place to stock up for our homestay with the tribes in Sapa. We’ve done some research on staying with e.g. Hmong and the recommended gear is:

  • Toilet paper (a rare item in most homes of Hmong and other tribes)
  • Token presents for kids (pens, pencils, notepads, candy)
  • A gift for the host family

This kind of diverse shopping list is best served by a supermarket. One problem: there aren’t any supermarkets. It does not seem to be a very common store format around here. There are a couple of specialised stores selling toiletries and similar household items, but that’s not enough to cover the full list. Lonely Planet mentions a proper supermarket called Fivimart. What it doesn’t mention is that Fivimart will only make itself visible during the full moon in uneven months to those whose minds have reached a higher plane of consciousness. It’s entirely impossible to locate and the map provided by Lonely Planet points to a wrong location.

“So, can you see the final destination coordinates, marked with a giant “X”? Well that’s not it!”

After unsuccessful attempts at finding the elusive Fivimart we settle on a smaller hypermarket that has most of what we need (except pens, pencils and notebooks we thought of giving to the Hmong). We get a big and fancy looking box of candy for the host family and a few small packs of candy to hand out to kids. We go back to the hotel to pack and check out. We leave our bags at the reception and go out to catch a few more Hanoi “must sees”.

First stop is Lenin Park. Or, more Vietnamically (that’s totally a word, I swear) – Lê-Nín Park. Vietnamese have a compulsion about splitting multi-syllable words into smaller words or at least hyphenating every syllable, something I’ve already explored in my earlier posts. Lenin Park is clean and rather small. It’s full of people exercising and men playing that same mysterious game with long narrow cards that we’ve seen on our first day.

Right across the street from the park is the Flag Tower of Hanoi. It…towers…over 40 metres above the city. We turn onto a road to the right of the tower and make our way to the Presidential Palace complex. The streets here are much wider than in the Old Quarter and with far fewer people walking them. In fact, the only people around are stone-faced guards standing by giant gates to the Ministry of Defence. Katka wisely decides not to take any pictures here, because our travel plans don’t include a trip to prison on espionage charges.

To really teach you a lesson they use your own camera to take your mugshot

The whole area is filled with imposing government buildings and embassies. There are guards on every corner and guides by every building. What I’m saying is: there are quite a few guards here. Most houses have cars parked by them. Owning a car here is a sign of wealth and bad spacial awareness, since the majority of roads in the Old Quarter can probably accommodate around half a car at best.

We make it to the Presidential Palace, but finding a way inside proves tricky. There are many different gates, but only one of them is the “official” entrance, so it takes us quite some time to walk around and find it. Inside the “park” we find that we’re limited to exploring only a small area of the premises. We can look at the Presidential Palace but not come too close to it.

Essentially, we can only see the areas where Ho Chi Minh used to live. The dude loved the whole “keeping it simple” thing so much that he refused to live in the Palace itself. Instead he built himself a wacky Stilt House and surrounded it with bearded bush-dragons disguised as Santa Clauses:

Wwwwwaaaazzzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

We explore the area and check out the Stilt House, mango road, an older house where Ho Chi Minh lived earlier, a lake full of carp and a small museum with some Soviet cars Ho owned. “Pimp My Ride” wasn’t that big of a thing back then, so the cars range in colour from grey all the way to black.

Outside of the Presidential Palace enclosure is the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Here Ho himself lies in an embalmed state, waiting to spook faint-hearted visitors. We only admired the building from the outside. Not because we’re faint-hearted, but because we’re scared senseless of Ho’s ghost haunting us in the night.

Nearby is the One Pillar Pagoda, which is a small wooden temple built on a single stone pillar. It’s supposed to resemble a lotus blossom, but instead my brain conjures up an image of Baba Yaga’s Hut on chicken legs. I’m crazy like that. Right next to it is the Ho Chi Minh Museum. Again we only explore the building from the outside, since by now our brains are thoroughly ho-chi-minhified (also, totally a word). (CONTINUE TO PAGE 2)

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The Vietnam Diaries 2011: July 18th – Hanoi

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I am woken up at midnight by Katka shuffling blankets and bed sheets around. Apparently there were some invisible monsters crawling in the bed and she’s on a brave quest to locate and exterminate them. I cannot tell whether this behaviour is the result of some unknown jetlag side-effect or whether there in fact have been some insects in our bed.

Following the unsuccessful search for bed bugs Katka goes back to sleep. I try to do the same, but with less luck. You see, my brain often does this thing where it goes into thinking mode and won’t switch off. If I applied all that brain power for good I would have secured world peace about ten years ago. Unfortunately, the things my brain usually focuses on at such moments are of the “did I remember to pack a toothbrush” and “what’s our ‘to do’ list for tomorrow” variety.

After attempting ineffectual remedies like reading and trying to fix the banned Facebook, I finally fall asleep around five in the morning. I sleep until one in the afternoon. It is too late for the breakfast served downstairs, so we have a quick snack in our room with the complimentary fruit and 3-in-1 coffee provided by the hotel. Then we head downstairs to arrange trips for the next day and do some extended sightseeing.

Upon seeing the receptionist I say “Good morning!”, since my brain has been awake for less than half an hour and it is indeed morning back in Denmark. The receptionist answers with “Good afternoon!” and gives me a wide smile. Schooled in the art of English by the “water poo pet” lady – touché! We arrange with her for one of the pre-packaged trips to the Perfume Pagoda the next day and then head out to explore. Before we step out we’re given an umbrella, which is supposed to protect us from the sun (in Denmark this function is served by layers of rain clouds that don’t go away).

Two-thirds of the Danish population are unable to correctly identify the object in this picture

We have a quick “breakfast” (it’s around two in the afternoon by now) at a cafe full of westerners. Prices are high compared to the rest of Hanoi, but still well below anything we’re used to in Denmark. Here we do some planning for the upcoming days and settle on a three-day trip to Sapa, which is yet another one of the tours organised by Rising Dragon III hotel. We find out that the umbrella is more a burden than anything else, so for the rest of the trip I carry it lodged between the backpack and my back, like a (very ineffective) Samurai sword.

We still don’t know much about Hanoi and the must-see places. Fortunately, Lonely Planet has a ready-made one day tour meant specifically for tourists who spend less time researching their destinations than Kesha spends inventing song lyrics. We decide to follow this tour, which starts at the same Hoan Kiem Lake that we’ve visited the night before. We discover that our traffic navigation skills have already improved dramatically and we make it to the lake faster and with far fewer near-death experiences than yesterday.

In the middle of the lake on a tiny island lies the Ngoc Son Temple, which is built in honour of Tran Hung Dao. According to the first link this guy “defeated a force of 300,000” Mongolians. I assume he had an army to help him achieve this feat. Else he’s the 13th century equivalent of Rambo, only armed with nuclear weapons (and otherwise well equipped, if his “subtle” middle name is anything to go by). The small wooden bridge leading to the island is filled with groups of people pouring in and out of the temple. We take a few pictures of the island from the bridge and decide to skip the temple visit itself for now. Instead we follow our receptionist’s recommendation and head on over to the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre. Here we get tickets for the next evening, after our planned return from the Perfume Pagoda.

As we leave the ticket booth we are ambushed by a female street seller carrying various fruit on a stick to which two baskets are attached. Before we can say “what the fuck is going on” her hat is on Katka’s head and the stick is thrown over Katka’s shoulder. The woman points towards our camera, while constantly nodding and smiling. I snap a picture of Katka. Then the hat and carrying stick migrate to my head and shoulder. Katka snaps a picture of me. The woman throws some random fruits into a plastic bag, hands it to us and asks for 100,000 dong. I know this is way too much from my extensive online research during the sleepless night before. We end up leaving her with 50,000 dong, bringing the price level from “daylight robbery” to “steeply overcharged”.

Those kiwi fruits better have gold flakes in them! Wait, on second thought, I really hope they don’t!

Katka is on a hunt for some Vietnam-appropriate pants that are comfortable to wear with all the humidity, so we swing by a clothes store. We agree that I’ll be the official price negotiator for this trip, even though haggling isn’t exactly my forte. Katka settles on a pair of Ali Baba Pants and calls me over to negotiate. I apply all of the advanced bargaining techniques I’ve learned from reading stuff. They include going to below half of asking price, pretending to leave, stating that I’ve seen the pants sold cheaper elsewhere and threatening the shop owners with a gun. OK, I didn’t try that last one, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it work in a movie (or ten). To my surprise I manage to bring the price down from the starting 320,000 dong to 150,000 (although I have no clue whether even that price is reasonable). (CONTINUE TO PAGE 2)

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