Welcome to Hanoi.
Good morning, Vietnam! We both got just a few hours sleep, but woke up feeling good. I must have had a dozen dreams about checking into our hotel, street walks in Hanoi, etc. Hanoi is on my mind.
This is a great hotel, with classic street views from our second floor room. It is indeed the Hanoi Grandeur, including a full breakfast, which I normally don’t eat, but couldn’t resist.
And then, out and about to explore Hanoi. Our hotel is on Hàng Than Street, not quite the Old Quarter, but right on its edge, and like the Old Quarter itself, the street is busy.
We will almost certainly take a guided street tour later, maybe even two, but for now we walked through the Old Quarter, which starts just a few hundred feet from our hotel, and which is very much what I expected, sort of like Marrakesh Express. The streets are crowded and noisy, shops sell everything and just about anything you can imagine, and mopeds and scooters are everywhere, and you take your life in your own hands when you cross the road, even at a pedestrian green light, and pedestrian street crossings seem to mean nothing to drivers. It’s just the way traffic works here.
The Old Quarter is crowded and jam packed with people and stores of all kinds. We walked to the Dong Xuan market, not too far from our hotel, which was pretty intense, and much like the markets in Mexico City, and probably the world over. Vibrant. Dense. Noisy. Messy. Filled with good aromas. Narrow passages between shops and stalls. Marrakesh Express.
From there, we continued walking through the Old Quarter, which I loved, and stopped for something cold to drink, at a small and very nice and friendly café, where the staff spoke English, and were very interested in learning about us. From our very little experience since we arrived last night, we see this culture as very different from the polite and community-minded Japanese culture, but this café was similar in that they were polite, friendly, and interested in us. Following Laurence’s lead, I had kombucha, for the first time in my life, and it was pretty good, chilled with ice and flavored with fruit. Very thirst quenching.
Small Korean flags, a yellow star on red background, and sometimes interspersed with flags showing the hammer and sickle, were everywhere, and a reminder that Vietnam is a communist country.
We stopped at a place advertising tours, including to Ha Long Bay, where we’re headed on Wednesday, and we decided to take a one day tour, leaving from and returning to Hanoi that same day. The fee is all-inclusive, and a very good deal, and by returning to Hanoi it makes it easier to get to our next stop, Ninh Binh, about 60 miles south, rather than heading there from Ha Long Bay. I canceled our hotel in Ha Long Bay, (although had to pay the hotel cost, which was about $41).
Talking of a good price, although Japan was inexpensive, Vietnam is even less expensive. A bottle of water and a popsicle, for instance, cost me 66 cents. Our hotel, which is very nice, and includes a full, and very nice, breakfast, is just $77 a night.The one day tour of Ha Long Bay, including everything, is $44. Our dinner this evening was $6 each.
We walked some more through the very bustling and crowded Old Quarter, and from there headed toward the French Quarter, which is very different. The streets and avenues widen, there are central parks and large squares, and the buildings change entirely, to a French colonial style, and at times you could be in France. It is also more upscale, with high priced stores all over the area. It is very lovely. Both the Old and French quarters are wonderful, each in their own way, with the Old Quarter just how I imagined Hanoi would be, and the French Quarter fulfilling my image of old French Hanoi.
We passed through some lovely areas, including Phố Sách Hà Nội (Book Street), which is a delightful little pedestrian street market, lined mostly with bookstores, as well as other shops and eateries.
The heat and humidity, although not too bad, was nevertheless starting to get to Laurence, but although we had to rest regularly, he was otherwise doing okay, and we wound up visiting what is now the Hỏa Lò Prison Museum. During the Vietnam war era, this was the prison known by U.S. soldiers as the Hanoi Hilton, which is where captured POWs, such as John McCain, were held. Prior to that, it was a French prison dating back to 896, with a long and terrible history of mistreatment, torture, and execution of Vietnamese men and women. Laurence visited the museum, which he found very interesting, while I waited outside, just enjoying the scenery and watching local life go by, including whole families, from very young children to elderly women, get onto the passenger seats of these small engine mopeds, and take off in small family convoys.
And talking of mopeds and small engine motorcycles and scooters, they really are everywhere, with very few larger motorcycles to be seen, and virtually no bicyclists (unlike Okinawa, Kyoto, in Japan, where bicycling is very much the norm). Mopeds and scooters not only fill the roads, but parked motorbikes often also fill the sidewalks, making it difficult to walk on the sidewalks – when there are sidewalks. Much of the time, you have to walk in the road, risking getting hit or clipped by a car or motorbike, sometimes because the sidewalk is full of motorbikes and scooters, and at other times because there is no sidewalk, or it is very limited. This really is not a pedestrian friendly city.
Another not so healthy feature of the city, smoking is still very much is style here. Whereas in Japan smoking is banned on the streets of many cities, like Tokyo and Kyoto, or at least considered impolite, in Hanoi It is common to see locals smoking. Here, the habit thrives.
After visiting the Hanoi Hilton, we headed back to the hotel, back into the Old Quarter, passing several temples along the way. We haven’t seen too many of these, and they seem to blend more into the street environment than was the case for most temples and shrines in Japan.
Laurence was really feeling the heat and humidity, and ready for some air conditioning and a rest, by now not feeling so well. He is thinking again of maybe heading home early, from Hanoi, and will make that decision tomorrow.
After some down time, and some cooling down time, in our hotel room, now around 6 pm, we once again meandered into the streets, looking for dinner.
We wanted to find some purely local or street food, but although there are few vendors of street food, there are many small eateries where locals eat, and sometimes whole families from what we could tell, and we took a chance and stopped in a small eatery. We were ready to order, when we realized/learned that the place wasn’t just called Frog Hotpots for fun reasons, but because every dish served was frog. We opted out, to the amusement of a couple of locals enjoying their evening meal there. We instead took a chance at another small eatery in the area that served chicken dishes (as well as frog), but although our meals were plentiful, they were somewhat bland, and unlike the delicious meals we’ve become used to, our dinner was disappointing. Oh well, you can’t win them all, and we did want to go really local.
A short walk back to our hotel, passing through a small local park, where a small group of women were exercising to music and children were playing in the multi-colored lighted fountains of a water garden, and Laurence got ready to go the sleep for the night and I wrote my blog for the day.
I’m hoping Laurence will feel better in the morning (so is he), and decide to stay on, but it’s a decision for him to make, which I fully support. When his health is making him feel miserable, it’s no fun and difficult for him to be here. He has even booked his return air fare for Wednesday morning, but can cancel tomorrow if he decides to stay on (fingers crossed). Either way, we plan to make the most of the next couple of days here, and will hopefully take a guided street walk tomorrow.
For now, goodnight.