The Vietnamese have a saying in English- "same same but different." Basically this is used to describe any two things that are similar in meaning but not entirely the same, for example strong and powerful are "same same" in that they have essentially the same meaning but different in that the word powerful as in "he is the most powerful man in his company..." or "Mercedes make a more powerful engine than Renault..." cannot be replaced by strong without changing the meaning of the sentence. Does this make sense?(I lecture business not English so perhaps Kate should have written this part).
Anyway after an early start and a two hour Air Mekong flight we landed in Hanoi and our initial impressions of the city were, same same but different. Hanoi is similar to Ho Chi Minh City in that both have tall but narrow, rocket style houses wedged tightly together, each house has a beautifully painted facade with an ornate balcony crowded with statues, shrines and pot plants or wooden window shutters and different coloured window frames. These narrow clusters of colour have all faded from the sun into soft pastel shades and older buildings are streaked black from thousands of heavy rains. The streets are alive with vendors and tourists and locals sitting on minute plastic chairs drinking coffee or enjoying a meal, each few steps has a new noise and a new smell- sometimes pleasant sometimes unpleasant- and all the time above you is the wacky crisscross of telephone lines, bunches of sagging cables journey from every direction and knot together on wooden poles in giant complicated vulture's nests that would be the thing of nightmares for any 'first world' health and safety rep. The people too are every bit as friendly and hospitable as those in the south and everyone we encountered was pleasant and polite (hawkers not included).
But where Hanoi and HCMC are different is that Hanoi somehow is more beautiful, it's hard to explain but you can feel a greater French influence in Hanoi, whereas HCMC feels more American/modern. For example the streets in HCMC, for the most part, are built in a grid formation whereas Hanoi has curving narrow roads , couple this with the fact that HCMC is very flat and Hanoi's terrain, like Durban's, tends to rise and fall and you can never really see where a road ends, this of course makes every street and alley far more exciting and alluring and makes exploring, provided you have a map, very entertaining. On a side note both cities are remarkably safe and unlike Durban you feel confident knowing that any alley or street you do enter you are guaranteed to walk out again.
Our hotel was excellent, the room was clean and modern and it was positively palatial compared to the horrific Hotel Seri Nilai we stayed at in Malaysia (officially the second worst hotel I have ever stayed in, the first being Bershonof Bridge in Zimbabwe where I had to sleep with my 4 iron to fend off roaches and possible intruders). In a cruel twist of fate the builders who built the bathroom at Seri Nilai obviously built the bathroom for this hotel too because despite the large vanity, fluffy towels and fake marble fittings they also placed the shower head directly over the bog??? Having worked in hotels before I make a point of testing all the lights, air con and TV when entering a room to make sure they are working.
Duncan's travel tip # 142 finding a fault as soon as you enter a hotel room makes it much easier to fix the problem or for the hotel to move you to another room, coming back after dinner to discover your TV doesn't work when all the maintenance chaps are off duty and you will likely not be watching Desperate Housewives that evening. Also if there is a major problem eg. You come home after dinner to discover a rat and a cockroach playing scrabble on the bed spread, the hotel will be less inclined to give you a full refund as you have already 'partially' used the facilities, if this was discovered immediately and you haven't used the facilities at all they basically have to refund all your money.
After inspecting the lights, the TV channels and under the bed for a scrabble board I flipped on the air con listened for a whirring noise and then deemed the room inhabitable for the next twelve hours so we headed out to explore the streets of Hanoi.
We left the hotel, map and guide book in hand, and were eager to explore our surroundings. Our first stop was Hoan Kiem lake, about a 10 minute stroll away. Well, it would have been a 10 minute stroll away if Duncan's inner Jack Russell had not emerged. Give Duncan a new city and a sophisticated camera and you can happily sit back and be entertained for half an hour watching him run back and forth taking pictures of everything from buildings to bowls of phỏ. So by the time we reached the lake we had actually walked the distance of it 3 times, this is part of Duncan's charm and one of the many reasons I adore him. Hoan Kiem lake is a pretty big lake in the centre of the old quarter and, according to Eye Witness travel, is what was left of the river that once ran through the city. We walked over a bridge to get to an island that boasted a beautiful old temple, and in the centre of the lake, off limits to people, stands a lone Pagoda now stained with black markings from the elements that stand out against the grey of the walls. It really was picture perfect.
After enjoying our walk around we snuck into a coffee shop to decide our next route. It was between the Temple of Literature or the B52 wreckage, Uncle Ho's Mausoleum and museum. Both the guide books that we have suggest giving yourself "at least half a day" at the Temple of Literature due to its size and attractions. Having plenty of time, we decided we would go there. Upon arrival we were impressed at the state of this 1000 year old university. We wandered about the 4 courtyards, examined the rocks (resembling tomb stones) that had the names of all the people awarded with doctorates engraved in ancient script and enjoyed seeing the shrines inside the temple. All of this took, at the most, 25 minutes. After conducting a thorough search to make sure we hadn't missed anything, we left. It was at this point that both of us decided to take what a guide book says and do the opposite. I don't know how these people keep their jobs but it's apparent to me that the man who wrote our particular book actually spent his entire HaNoi trip in Bia Hoi corner in the Old Quarter. As so little is written about this area, it is where we decided to go next.
Like Saigon, the Hanoi old quarter is also divided into streets specialising in one specific type of item, there is a street selling only wedding dresses, a plastic street, a silk street, toy street and even a shoe street, luckily for me the Dog Whisperer was on discovery channel when we had flipped through the channels earlier and I quickly employed Caesar Milan's technique for excitable pooches, every time Kate eyed a pair of pumps I would point to her and make a PSHHH noise to focus her attention, normally Kate might have been inclined to show me a finger of her own in these circumstances but fortunately we were headed for a street that was far more exciting than any stiletto could ever be, a bia hoi street. Bia hoi or 'local beer' streets involve sitting on tiny plastic chairs, drinking local beer at absurdly cheap prices (the balance of the price comes in the form of a headache) and watching the hustle and bustle of the busy street. A 750 ml beer cost 7 000 dong .. the equivalent of R1.80 (or 30 US cents for our American reader) I have never been a great one for people watching but we were rewarded when we saw Goldfinger the bond villain, he hasn't aged at all since his cheating on the golf course days, and is as portly, red faced and piggish as ever, he even had the same blond hair style brill-creamed in a side parting and a tan safari suit, we were so convinced that is was Goldfinger that we suddenly had the feeling of panic that were being watched by his minion Oddjob, and had to remind ourselves that that he had been electrocuted to death and was not hiding around the corner getting ready to throw his hat at us. Unbeknown to us we were in fact being watched by a film crew who suddenly approached us for an interview, I am not sure if the interviewer was Oddjob on the Atkins diet or not but he did speak as little English and had the same sinister smile. After the brief but awkward interview the camera man started filming "candid" shots of us from different angles and by the time he got to his low angle shots by crouching in front of us we were both in agreement that people watching is only fun when you are the watcher and not the watchee. I am not sure if the footage was for the news or TV show they might have CG'd our faces into a porno for all we know but I do hope that wasn't my fifteen minutes of fame, with six Bia Hanoi's in me I can only remember five of them.
We decided to leave and get some dinner before the makeup artists, gaffers, and chief grip arrived. With no particular place in mind we opted to wander the fascinating streets in search of a nice restaurant for dinner, like an apocalypse of zombies the streets were now swamped with hawkers obviously looking to pick off the weakest and/or drunkest of the herd and, for some reason, these hawkers were all obsessed with super gluing my shoe back together. They would run up to me shrieking and arms flailing and then start grovelling around my ankles trying to super glue a scuff mark. This behaviour would seem bizarre if you were sober so after several malty beverages when the first 'zombie' came running towards me with a tube of adhesive I did that stupid steppy half jump thing you do when you think you see a snake and nearly kneed the chap in the teeth (after the seventeenth zombie attacked me I was trying to knee them in the teeth). I soon grew weary of doing the cha-cha-cha and moon walking around the hands of these glue obsessed idiots so we ducked into the nearest bistro for a quick meal and of course another beer. When we returned home I realised that in our eagerness to see the city I hadn't properly checked the air con and despite whirring away it was blowing air about as forcibly as a hamsters sneeze. Reception gave us an industrial fan that did a great job of keeping us cool but sounded like a Chinook taking off.
We had quite an early start the next day as the bus was picking us up at 8 am. On paper 8 am is actually a pretty decent time, however, I was faced with the mammoth task of waking up Duncan. This task is usually pretty hard but it becomes impossible when a fair amount of cheap beer has been consumed the night before. Knowing of Duncan's 45 minute morning bathroom hogging ritual, I had to get up much earlier to squeeze in a shower for myself, calm my nerves and try and awaken the sleeping beast. At first I tried nicely, which didn't work so I had to move to a more aggressive approach to make sure we didn't get left behind. Eventually out of frustration I ended up pulling off the blankets and yelling "Get up!!! The bus is downstairs!!" at 6:45. Duncan, now in an absolute panic, almost turned himself into a julienne vegetable when he shot out of bed and almost straight into the industrial fan. The next time he spoke to me was an hour into the bus ride. All was eventually forgiven when the excitement of getting on board our boat set in.
After enjoying a delicious seafood lunch on board we were taken onto one of the limestone islands that had a grotto and a cave. First up was the grotto which was very interesting and quite fun to walk around. Being Vietnam, the inside had been illuminated with different colours to make it more enchanting. The guide would point out the various animal shapes the rocks resembled – the most memorable one being the massive breast he pointed out. Unlike all of the other rocks inside, this one had a very smooth surface and the guide told us that it was because people would rub the giant breast as it ensured your first born would be a son. Interesting. Next up was the cave, which are notorious ganglands for bats. And for those that don't know, I have an irrational fear of bats (to a point where I once locked myself in my car for 20 minutes due to the bat outside of my window.) I was torn between seeing the inside of this massive cave and keeping out of danger outside. Eventually I did an echo test and deemed the cave bat-free. I am so happy I did go in, the cave was typically cold and dark and just so much fun to walk around in. Unlike the grotto, the cave had been left in a very natural state with only lighting to see where you were going as the pathway was very twisty and uneven. Usually this would be a bad place for me to be in but it was poor Duncan who had a hard time. For some reason his shoes had no grip inside and he was sliding about the place like a seal on an ice cap, a result of all the moon walking I had done the day before to avoid the super glue zombies.
After surviving the grotto and the cave, we boarded the boat and were greeted with a glass of wine (balsamic vinegar) on the sun deck and a chance to relax and enjoy our surroundings while cruising about. We passed a small fishing village of people who live on Halong Bay. Our guide informed us that the only time these people leave the water is to get petrol or if there is a typhoon. These people survive by fishing and then rowing about the bay selling their fish to boats. The boat moved around for about 2 hours and every 5 minutes we were presented with a view more beautiful than the last. In the early evening the boat anchored and we were told that we could have a swim in the ocean on condition that we jumped off the 3rd level of the boat! Duncan being feline like made it clear that he thought those of us that wanted to swim were absolutely deranged. Having previously gorge jumped and sky dived, leaping from the 3rd story of a boat into water didn't sound at all scary. However, after stepping over the safety rails the 6.5 metre drop now looked more like a 30 metre fall to death. I wish I could say I smiled and jumped gracefully but it took 10 minutes to muster up all of my courage and convince myself that my previous blog about my bad luck was nonsense. At least I wasn't the only ninny on board, after seeing the drop all of us had doubts but eventually another lady and I decided to do the first jump together. Duncan was sent downstairs to take pictures and a man that had chickened out of the jump kindly offered to count us down. We were in position and the countdown started. "3...no no, wait, I think there's a jelly fish down there." Indeed there was, so we waited 2 minutes for the jelly traffic to move along and the countdown started again. "Jelly fish ... Clear! And 3 ... 2 ... WAAAIIIT!!!" As we were about to throw ourselves off a boat a local lady selling fresh produce came rowing around the corner directly under where we would have landed. This could have either been the most catastrophic event Halong Bay had ever seen or the funniest, either way I am glad I wasn't involved in it as death by dragon fruit isn't appealing to me after my last encounter with them and Duncan would now be writing this part of the blog with a smirk and an "I told you so" look. Third time being the charm and we finally got our full countdown. " Jelly fish ... clear. Local on a boat ... clear. 3 ... 2 ... 1." And so we could finally fling ourselves off and into the ocean. Feeling quite chuffed with myself I scurried out of the water to see Duncan giggling. I couldn't understand why until I saw the pictures, it turns out that every time I jump off something high my arms flap like I am trying to fly, there is obviously some deep psychological under-development that makes me believe if I try hard enough I can defy gravity. Anyway, I wanted a good picture so I did it all again and tried to look less like a pterodactyl and more like an Olympic diver.
That evening we had to gather on the dinner deck and attend a 'cooking class' which involved making our own spring rolls, our instructor showed us how in 3 easy steps. Step 1 Pick up a piece of rice paper, which by the way is so thin it makes a Kleenex tissue look like war and peace. Step 2 spoon mixture onto rice paper. Step 3 roll tightly, fold in the edges and then finish rolling. Seemed easy enough in theory but in practice was quite difficult. My first spring roll went something like this, Step 1 pick up the Kate Moss Kleenex. Step 2 try get the mixture of pork, shrimp, squid and vegetables to fall off the spoon. Step 3 apologise to the people on either side of me for splattering them with squid meat when I did finally mange to shake the mixture off the spoon. Step 4 roll the paper so that all the filling leaks out the end. Step 5 reroll the paper, fold it and hand the baguette sized spring roll to the instructor. Step 6 instructor discovers that I had accidently picked up seven pieces of rice paper unravels it and hands it back to me. Step 7 repeat steps one thru five and hand the instructor a spring roll resembling a javelin. After another four attempts I finally nailed it and managed to make a rather neat looking little spring roll, basically solving a Rubik's cube is easier.
After dinner we went down to the front of the boat and were given bamboo fishing rods with line and a lure attached. Apparently squid aren't deserving of bait. We sat patiently for 20 minutes trying to coerce the squid to eat our big metal hooks but no luck. The captain then came to check on us, threw in a rod and put a red bucket over the spot light. It seems squids are huge fans of red light districts as they all flocked towards the red light and 2 minutes later we heard a squid squeak, saw ink in the water and a rather large squishy thing on the captain's hook. He threw the creature into the red bucket and disappeared, leaving us to try again. We tried to attract the squid with the red bucket trick again but all it really did was bake the few unfortunate squid that were inside it. After half an hour Duncan and I lost our patience with the elusive squid and Duncan resorted to trying to stun the animals by smashing them on the head with the lure. Needless to say, this didn't work. Duncan, now hell bent on catching anything, even tried to fowl hook an innocent Toby fish swimming by, but only managed to scare the poor thing. In the end, I managed to hook some seaweed and Duncan managed to scare away any aquatic animal in our immediate area. Of course the reel (ha ha reel get it) reason we didn't catch anything was not entirely due to our sub standard angling skills, a boat anchored not far from us had karaoke as their evening entertainment and the guy hogging the mike was horrific. He was so bad he made the Mekong delta lady, whom Kate described as 'sounding like a cat having a turf war', sound like Enya and if fish had ears they would have been lining up to have their heads smashed in.
The meals on the boat were fantastic, the crew really outdid themselves and each meal had five or six dishes to get stuck into. Our lunch the next day consisted of fresh fish, prawns, mussels, rice, vegetables, pork, tofu and squid cakes. Of course we didn't touch the squid cakes because secretly we knew that they had been cooked under the red light of the bucket many hours before.
It was also on the boat that I noticed something peculiar - Kate, who is usually akin a grizzly after hibernation in the mornings, for some strange reason becomes an early riser whilst on holiday and develops this really annoying habit of waking the second the alarm clock starts blaring, Kate herself then starts blaring, at me, instructing me to get up NOW! Surely once my eyes are open I am technically awake and I don't understand why she continues. Perhaps she expects me to stand to attention, salute and shout 'Zieg Heil!' what I do know is that she is lucky I love her so much or else she may just have jumped from the boat again, only this time with a pair of concrete shoes on.
Tragically we had forgotten rule #142 again and despite checking the hot water, the bed side lamp and under the bed for scrabble pieces we forgot to check that the shower head was connected to water mains, so showering onboard involved squatting like a super glue zombie under the knee high tap, this was however the only fault on the entire trip and the cruise and its activities were very enjoyable.
When we were told that kayaking around some of the islands was included in our cruise I was so excited and had visions of Duncan and I leisurely paddling our way through little coves and admiring the exquisite views surrounding us while the sun shone on our backs. What my imagination had forgotten was the competitive streak that Glenwood boys instils in their students, so while we had the sun and beautiful views I also experienced a minor "boot camp" style intensive cardio workout. If I slacked off I was told to pick up the pace and the fear I now had of sergeant Carter-Brown meant our leisurely kayak turned into a race against ... no-one. Not even the guide could keep up with us so we kept having to stop and wait for directions so we didn't get lost among the hundreds of islands. In all honesty it was quite nice getting a bit of a workout after doing so much relaxing, it would have been better though if I wasn't constantly mocked for being a "skew kayaker." Duncan was convinced that the reason we kept drifting to one side was not because of the tide, no, it was because my left arm is SO much stronger than the right and I was the reason. I find this rather impressive seeing as though I am 70% right handed. Obviously eating and playing pool with my left hand has given it a major advantage over the right ... perhaps I should give this advice to Men's Health.
The rest of the morning was spent at our leisure and we had time to admire the last of the views. Suddenly about 20 boats came into view and it appeared that the captains had lost their minds as they were ramming each other's boats in the same fashion that you drive a motorbike here. We asked the guide what was going on, and he informed us that we had approached "the two fighting chickens" - this was one of the most popular sites in Halong Bay and everybody wanted a photo. I couldn't make out one chicken nevertheless two, and was quite happy that we didn't go into the game of bumper boats. We had our last (squid-free) lunch on board before getting back on the bus and heading off to Hanoi.
We arrived back at the same hotel and immediately walked into a bit of a debacle with our room. After the faulty air con the room had obviously been placed out of order and they didn't have a place for us to stay. Luckily (for them) the problem was resolved very quickly and they decided to 'walk' us to anther hotel. Walking a guest is an industry term for when you overbook the hotel and a guest who has booked a room doesn't get one, usually it involves checking them in to a nearby hotel, driving them to the new property, grovelling, apologising, compensating and then parting ways feeling a bit like a sheep carcass when the Balboas were having marital problems. In this instance walking involved quite literally walking across the street to a hotel meters away. This hotel was not as pretty as the first but was actually much better, it had a big bathroom with a separate shower loo combo, a turbo charged air conditioner, full satellite television with all the English channels we hadn't seen in a while and best of all a painting of Chun lee from Street Fighter bare breasted by a lotus pond. The artist had quite obviously spent about 5 minutes painting her face and about three hours painting her boobs and by the time he reached her hand just sort of rushed a birds foot thing. Either that or maybe she broke it punching Blanca (for those not familiar with the game Street Fighter this will entire paragraph will be meaningless, similarly anyone not familiar with the Rocky series please ignore my previous carcass comment).
Next day Mein Fuhrer woke me up early again, we packed, said goodbye to Chun lee, left our bags at reception and set out for a full days sightseeing before our flight at 19h00 that evening. Today we were going to get a full dose of culture and had lined up a few attractions that were a must see according to our map. First on the list was the flag tower, this is a spectacular citadel in the Old Quarter and beneath it is a fascinating military museum. The tower itself is impressive and above it flies an enormous Vietnamese flag. I could ramble on about the splendour of this place and its significance and get all artsy but to avoid readers chundering on their key boards and to avoid having to include page numbers and chapters I'll keep it short. Basically it is very interesting and I would highly recommend it to anyone travelling to Hanoi. The museum has photos, uniforms, weapons, medals and unlike the university of literature you could actually spend half a day here. In the courtyard are tanks, MIGs, a Huey, an old half track (Kate liked this one), missiles, bombs and loads of other hardware either used or captured in the war. We both thoroughly enjoyed the museum and it really showcased just how brave the Vietnamese troops were in taking on bigger nations. From the museum we walked through some exquisitely beautiful parts of the city to get to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, unfortunately the queue to get in was around the block so we didn't get to see inside but we did enjoy walking round the gardens, exploring the museum, which has some really strange exhibits and also seeing the famous one pillar pagoda. The one pillar pagoda is very beautiful but, like the temple of literature, didn't quite live up to the guide books hype. Something the guide books all seemed to leave out is the wreckage of a B52 in a lake in the city, after under hyping the military museum and over hyping the pagoda and temple we decided to find the wreckage and see for ourselves. A quick detour through the botanical gardens and after finding our bearings on the map we managed to locate the wreckage. It is quite simply a big chunk of twisted metal lying in a lake and there are two of the planes wheels semi submerged next to it, but the surrounding area is so scenic and peaceful that it's hard to imagine that it once was part of a big machine of war.
Despite my frequent teasing in this blog, Kate is actually the best person to travel with. Every sight seems more special and every day is guaranteed to be packed with adventure and laughs so walking around the country's capital was made all the more special because of her company. We were so enjoying exploring together that we decided to walk back to the flag tower (which was by now freaking miles away) and then catch a taxi from there back to the hotel. A decision we would somewhat regret several hours later when we were both suffering from third degree chafe, but even this we were able to laugh at, eventually.
The decision to walk back, though not physically a good idea, was great for getting a real feel for the city. So often the books point you in the direction of everything touristy and you can be in a new city without ever really experiencing it. We stumbled upon another lake with a vast choice of restaurants along the water's edge. We enjoyed watching people paddle in their swan themed boats and the wharf cat eyeing out our lunch. We also found ourselves in the street that housed all the embassies and the presidential palace. It was in the last afternoon walk where we could truly see how different Hanoi was to HCMC. The streets lacked the constant rushed chaos, tree's sheltered the roads from the sun and you could actually walk on the pavements. It just seemed more liveable and we were quite sad to say our final goodbye's.
Finally it was time to head for home and we caught the hotel courtesy car back to the airport. We left Hanoi feeling really amazed at how this city with a population of well under a quarter of HCMC's and the unique marvel of nature we had seen the day before had exceeded our every expectation. But Vietnam is a country that never ceases to amaze and on the trip to the airport we saw something that could only ever happen here. There are many hazards on the Vietnamese roads, people pushing barrows of fruit against the flow of traffic in the wrong lane, motor cyclists holding structural steel rods well five meters in length and flying down the roads at speeds that could only result in a giant human shish kebab, open man hole covers with a coke tin as a warning triangle, motorbike passengers holding huge sheets of glass for others to drive into but, to top it all and just minutes outside the airport I might add, we saw a motorcyclist with one hand on the handlebars and the other holding an enormous king cobra by the head, the snake still very much alive was wrapped around his neck and didn't seem at all impressed, presumably because of the speed he was driving at, I'd take my chances with the wheelbarrow any day.
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