Hanoi

June 13

We left Halong Bay at 9am to head back into Hanoi. Yey 4 hour bus ride again! I almost left my phone (aka Heathers phone) in the lobby because I was struggling with my bags and set it down for a minute and forgot to pick it up again. That could have been real bad. Luckily, the girl working saw and came running out with it. My bags weren't even in the bus yet. I'm sure I would have noticed because I alway check to make sure I have my phone, camera, iPod, and passport. But whew!

My comb was an actual casualty of Halong Bay. Left it there. So sad! I loved that comb. Had it forever. It was large and had the nice covered rubber ish parts on the end. Oy. Comb, I will miss you. Luckily, there were combs provided in Hanoi so I stole 2 and that should hopefully get me through my trip. They're the little dinky combs though, so well see. I spent the bus ride blogging. Surprise!

I don't really understand it, but even when we have 3 hour bus rides we always have a stop. Usually at least half an hour to get coffee or food or bathrooms or something. It's 3 hours... I feel like a break is rather unnecessary but whatever. I was actually okay with the stop this time.

I used the bathroom because I figured why not. But then I went across the street to the building we were supposed to wait in. I almost laughed out loud when I walked inside. Essentially, it was a huge shopping center. Are we for real right now!? I walked around. There were some really cool artisan things. However, they were pretty expensive as well as fragile so I didn't get anything. Then I saw something I thought Chris would maybe like, or at least he wouldn't hate it, so I got that for him. Plus, the store ABC is really cool because it gives a percentage of the money people buy products with to help out the less fortunate people in Vietnam. I really liked that idea. Matt confirmed it was true as well.

We ended up getting into Hanoi around 1pm. Our local guide (who was just with us for the bus ride?) told us a little about Hanoi. There are 7 million people living here and there are 5 million motorbikes. They eat dog but not on the first (I think he said first) day of the month because then you will be unlucky the rest of the month. They also eat snake and snake hearts (Andy did this after we left him) and in the rice fields they will eat rats. Why that was what he chose to tell us about Hanoi, I'm not sure.

We had about half an hour to rest before we were going out with Matt for lunch and an intro walk to Hanoi. For lunch I had this jungle green sandwich which was so good. It had chicken and pesto and some vegetables in it.

Hanoi is literally so hard to navigate. I'm sure it doesn't help that half the time I just blindly follow Matt around. The streets kind of reminded me of the streets in Kathmandu, Nepal though. Very narrow and winding. They were not as long as they were in Nepal though. But all the streets look exactly the same aside from what they're selling on the street. The shops/stalls are jam packed into very small spaces. Even when I tried to orient Myself it didn't work too well. Matt always said to orient yourself based on the large cruise ship building from the river, but that only works if you can find the river. And it's still like which way are we? (On the last day I finally figured out we were at the front if the cruise ship and 2 streets down in the opposite direction from the ship.) The streets had a different feel to them than they did in Kathmandu though.

The walk Matt took us on was pretty long. We were out from like 3 to 7 maybe?

The first stop was the war museum. That was... Meh. It ended up being one of the things that became included in our tour (we had a lot of problems in the hotel in Hue and g comped us each some extra money). None of the explanation signs were in English. Just the plaques explaining what different artifacts were. But that still didn't help too much with the story and how things happened with the war. I found it a little frustrating. There was a tower with the Vietnamese flag on top. Essentially it has just been there since Oct 10, 1954 until the present and the purpose is to hold the flag. There was a cool memorial area with a bunch of scrap metal from planes and B-52 bomber engines and stuff built up outside as well. That was probably the best part. There were tanks and planes on display as well. Missiles. The tank that crashed through the gates of the palace in Ho Chi Minh was in display. I forgot that's the tank it was and didn't get a picture :(

After the war museum we headed across the street to a huge statue of Lenin. It was in this open park area and a to of kids were there playing soccer and skateboarding. It was strange to see a huge statue of Lenin. As in they respect and like him.

Matt gave people the option to continue walking around with him or to go back so the group split up. I decided to continue walking with him. We saw a really large cathedral. The inside wasn't the most impressive thing. Duomos in Italy were more impressive. But you don't normally see cathedrals in Asia so that was cool. We also walked around the back and there were impressions on the wall and kids playing soccer.

We then continued to walk to the lake and we walked around that. It was really busy with locals. Around 5 or 6pm they all start doing aerobics there. There were people running around the lake. Lots of children. In the middle of the lake there is a stone temple which is a 1000 year old temple. The oldest in Vietnam. And Bret actually just told me that that part of Hanoi is one of the most continually inhabited areas of Southeast Asia. So that's cool.

We were supposed to meet for dinner at 7pm but we got back at 6:45pm and we all wanted some time to rest so we notified the others to meet at 7:30pm. Matt took us to a little Hanoi restaurant where we could get original Hanoian dishes. I got a chicken with 5 tastes. I don't remember what all the tastes were but there was definitely ginger, garlic, lemon, and cinnamon in it. It wasn't my favorite meal. Or anywhere close. But it wasn't terrible either. The best food by far was in Hoi An or at the homestay. Yummmm. So good.

Random thing I noticed: the Vietnamese will use the mirrors on their motor bikes to freshen up, reapply make up or hair gel. I don't know why I found it so amusing but I did. And they just pull over to the side of the road and do it. It's just funny to me.