Hello Hanoi!

It’s time to back up a month or so and finish blogging about our trip to Vietnam. I realize that I still have to finish Cambodia, but I figured Vietnam could be easily done in one post and I am all about checking things off my to do list. Vietnam was on our list of places to travel, mainly, because Curt’s brother, Kenny, was going to meet us there. When his plans changed, we just never changed ours. So…after 3 nights in Cambodia, we headed to Vietnam. We decided to go to the less busy, more slow-paced, Hanoi to spend most of our time. We only had 3 nights there and one of them we got in town just in time for bed. Since we were so tired, we slept in the next morning and got ready VERY slowly, not leaving the hotel until 11am. As we were preparing for the day, we marked off the few “have to see” places in Hanoi so we had some goal in mind. We started at the Old Quarter and visited the pagoda in the middle of Hoan Kiem Lake.

 

Meandering through the busy streets of Hanoi was an experience in and of itself. I have NEVER EVER seen so many motorcycles, motorbikes, mopeds or any other motorized 2-wheeled forms of transportation. It reminded me of an ant farm. At some moments, you couldn’t see the concrete under the motorcycles, there were so many. They were up on the side walk, running into pedestrians, making it obvious that they rule the space outside. Although as you passed by residences and stores, it was not uncommon to see a motorbike inside. You would be shocked how small of a space they can fit through. 

On with the walk. We were in search of a place for lunch and had a restaurant in mind, but were struggling to find it. After about 20 minutes of serious searching we fell upon it. This was a French Cafe that also acts as an art gallery. It was really cute and the people were very nice.

Now the top thing we had wanted to do while we were there was visit the old Hanoi Prison (as known as the Hanoi Hilton). It’s a fraction of the size it used to be, as they demolished most of it to build a serviced apartments. Gotta love that!  The prison has a brutal history starting with the French occupation and ending with the Vietnam War. As we read the descriptions of the artifacts, it was clear that the perspective we were reading from. NOT AMERICAN!

 

 

They even went so far as to say they treated the American POW pilots better than their local prisoners and had pictures of them receiving gifts and playing basketball. Looked like a bunch of American frat boys hanging out in Vietnam. It was pretty absurd. Very informative of the cultural, so we felt we were getting a good cultural lesson. The kids were exhausted already, as were we, so we headed back to the hotel for dinner. We ordered in and tucked away the kids, just to collapse ourselves. 

We felt very fortunate the following day as we connected with a former AWCP (American Women’s Club of the Philippines) member that recently moved to Hanoi, “B” (as in Beverly). Spending time with B was a saving grace for us, we loved spending time with her. Turns out this was also reciprocated, as she was longing for an English conversation where she was clearly understood. B took us to one of her favorite museums, the Ethnology Museum and we walked the halls learning about Vietnamese history and culture. We were shocked to learn that Catholic religion plays a HUGE role there and even had it’s own wing in the museum! Who would have thought! At the rear of the museum, they had built traditional Vietnamese houses you can walk in. It was a great way to learn about the culture.  B then took us back down to the Old Quarter to some of her favorite stores. B took us to a tea house she likes that overlooks Hoan Kiem Lake. We had to walk through a clothing store to then enter a residence (which was in, what they call, a tube house). Then we placed our tea/coffee order and headed up 3 flights of VERY tight spiral staircases to then end up on the roof of the residence overlooking the lake. It was a great view and the Vietnamese coffee is much better than the coffee I loved in college/grad school (Young’s Cafe for those of you in the “know”). Curt and I ordered Vietnamese coffee as often as possible! It was truly a unique experience we would have never had without B. We dined on street food, which was bold and daring for us, as it’s usually not recommended for tourists. B vouched for the sidewalk stands, so we felt we could trust the food.  Ellery was the only one who wasn’t keen on the food (although I am sure that doesn’t surprise anyone), although she did ask Curt to buy her handmade cracker/cookies from a vendor walking down the street. Turns out, they were pretty good! The rest of us enjoyed the food and were quite surprised how much we liked it. Curt and I knew we liked Vietnamese food and have sought out a good restaurant we like here in the Philippines as well, but street food is better. It must be the idea that you are sitting in tiny chairs on a sidewalk and eating from a vendor you know hasn’t use Clorox in the existence of his little stand. It’s daring, bold and oh, so good! From there we stopped in a lot of shops and wound our way through the Old Quarter. We were hoping to make it back in time to get tickets to the water puppet show. We were actually too late and the show was sold out until several hours later. Somehow, Curt begged and pleaded with the ticket lady and was able to get us all in for the next show.

We killed time by the lake while we waited. Water puppet shows are the equivalent to Vietnamese cultural shows. It’s a pretty old tradition and a very original idea. It’s exactly as it sounds. There is a curtain with a pool of water in front of it. People behind the curtain push out puppets, on long sticks, from behind the curtain and the puppets interact and dance to the music, in the water. Except for a very tired baby on our hands, everyone enjoyed the show and we even bought puppets at the end. 

Too long of day and I was even nodding off on the way to the hotel. Then we had to pack and prepare and tomorrow we headed to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) for one night. You might think we were nuts going to Ho Chi Minh, but we had to go there to catch our plane to Manila the next morning, otherwise we would have skipped it. By 12pm the following day, Curt was at the  pool with the girls at the hotel in Ho Chi Minh and Jones was napping. We didn’t want to waste a night in Ho Chi Minh sitting at the hotel, so we made reservations at a neat restaurant in a nice hotel downtown. We went early and walked the more popular streets and were surprised at how much we liked the city. It was very different from Hanoi, but there was a lot to see and interesting things to look at. We even took the girls in a shop and bought them Vietnamese outfits. Curt and I were a little disappointed we didn’t plan more time here, but there is really only so much you can do in 8 days! As we packed up that night and prepared for our journey home, we felt we didn’t give Vietnam our heart. Not because we didn’t like it, but because we were so exhausted after Cambodia. I have lived and learned and now I know that after a major sightseeing vacation, we need to head straight to the beach for 3 days to recover!