Friday, November 8 - Hanoi

The best-laid plans...

As we were in the taxi headed to the airport during our aborted departure last night, I remarked about the fact that, though I didn't find Hanoi "attractive" in any normal sense, I was going to miss it.   Thanks to super typhoon Haiyan, which is currently devastating the Philippines and barreling toward central Vietnam with no diminution of strength, we have once again changed our plans.  We were supposed to have been in Hue two nights and then moved down the coast a bit to Hoi An for two more.  Those two cities are directly in the path of Haiyan, which is expected to strike the coast late this weekend.  Given the fact that we were to fly out of that area, from Danang to Saigon on Sunday, we decided this morning to forgo Hue and Hoi An entirely, stay here in Hanoi one more day, and head to Saigon tomorrow.  Accordingly, we contacted our Vietnamese travel agent again this morning and asked her to work on the necessary arrangements.  While we are very disappointed that we'll be missing two places we very much wanted to see, we'd rather live to finish this trip and plan a possible return!  I guess the bottom line is, we weren't dying to get there!

So, we were on our own today, and it was spent as we typically travel on our own.  We chose a few things we wanted to see, a couple of directions to wander, and we were off!  First off, we went around the corner to the Catholic Cathedral, which we'd been unable to enter a couple of days ago.  This morning after wading through joyously, boisterously happy preschoolers at play (eager to say "hello," they swarmed around us), we found the back door and paid a visit.  Then, it was on to the Buddhist pagoda down the block, the same place we'd witnessed an evening service a couple of nights ago.

Through the chaotic streets of the Old Town and beyond, we wandered.  At one point, along Embassy Row, we were stunned to reach an intersection of several streets where all traffic was stopped and the usual cacophony of Hanoi streets totally ceased; it was absolutely, totally silent!  There were police stationed  multiple points to ensure that no one moved, revved their engines, or thought subversive thoughts as a caravan of government vehicles (identifiable by blue, rather than white license plates) proceeded along Dien Bien Phu Avenue.  Once the signal was given, the uproar resumed -- amazing!

After a rest in a park dominated by a statue of Lenin, we began to wander with a purpose -- lunch!  We came upon a place that I'd read about a couple of nights ago, but decided was too chancy for our stomachs.  I guess we've grown up, because we plunged right in.  The sight of Tom on a toddler-sized stool, at a midget-height table, under a ceiling that was almost too low for Mary Ellen, with used napkins and discarded green leaf food wrappers strewn on the floor was priceless!  Lunch was great, cheap and, so far, our GI systems haven't batted an eye.

After lunch, we headed to the former An Loc prison, now a museum.  The prison was first used by the occupying French, Japanese, and French again to punish Vietnamese political prisoners.  It came to notoriety for Americans during our war here as the "Hanoi Hilton," where captured US pilots ("shot down by the Vietnamese people") were held.  The propaganda is heavy-handed, with much space and description given to the brutal treatment of Vietnamese by their occupiers -- horrific, to be sure.  But, when it came to the treatment of American pilots, though, there was evidently nothing but the most humane treatment.  The photographic displays and written descriptions left no doubt that this was the happiest group of guys to be found outside a frat house; given the recreational opportunities, the Christmas celebrations, the health care, the bonds formed with their captors, one can only imagine how difficult it was for them to leave it all and return home! 

Back to the streets for a dose of reality, and we headed back to the Old Town in search of the Memorial House, a museum dedicated to a traditional Hanoi house.  It's being gutted and renovated, but we did happen upon a traditional communal house, once the center of silver craftsmen, and now preserved as an example of historical Hanoi commerce, domestic, and religious courtyard structures. 

We used our Trip Advisor app, as we have each night here, to find a place close to our hotel for dinner.  Each time, we've been pleased to find ourselves in a small, authentic (or so it's seemed), CHEAP restaurant with good Vietnamese dishes.  (Tonight’s was not the best-Tom)

Some thoughts on Hanoi:

                                    -Life is lived on the streets.  Food is cooked and eaten.  Old ladies sit and watch the passing scene.  Shops display their wares.  Little children play.  Happy hour goes on all day.

                                    -Motorcycles rule.  They rush like a river through the streets.  The sidewalks are largely set aside as parking areas for them, driving pedestrians out into the streets to do battle with them there. (The streets have three contending participants, the cars, the motorbikes/cycles and the people. There is little room to walk on sidewalks because of parked motorcycles and businesses so you end up walking in the street but unlike the others, you don’t have a horn. It tends to get the blood pumping.-Tom)

                                    -Despite first appearances, the Old Town is quite organized.  The original historic system of designated streets for each craft guild has evolved into concentrated blocks of like shops.  Metal, silk, toys, tools, shoes, bamboo, glass, paint, party goods, sunglasses, locks, tropical fish, clothes, leather goods, flowers, spices, safes, bathroom fixtures -- you name it, it has its own conglomeration of open-air storefronts, some of them also home to the craftsmen who create the goods, on the street, of course!

                                    -There's a temple or pagoda on every block, or so it seems.  They're often tucked away behind a gated wall and they offer a series of oases steps away from the crush of the city.

Spending an unplanned extra day here turned out to be a good thing!

Thursday, November 7 - Halong Bay to Hanoi

Going with the Flow!

We were all alone on the upper deck by 5:30 this morning.  We were in a very quiet bay, surrounded by the rounded limestone karsts characteristic of Halong.  They made the sunrise difficult to photograph, but the quiet, the mists, and the gradually lightening skies were just magical.  As the ship began to come to life, there was pre-breakfast tai chi on the deck.

Then, it was off to visit a floating fishing village sheltered among a series of karsts.  Three hundred fifty people live on a series of floating houses, sell their fish to a distributor each day, and farm pearls.  We toured the village in a sampan rowed by a dainty woman, passed the floating school, and saw a young woman prying open oysters to implant the foreign objects that will eventually become  pearls. 

Back on board the Treasure Junk, we checked out of our room and enjoyed brunch while cruising back to port.  Once on land, we rode by bus back to Hanoi, where we reclaimed our luggage at our hotel and waited for our driver to take us to the airport for our evening flight to Hue.

No sooner had we arrived at our gate then all flights to Hue were cancelled, due to bad weather there.  (We've been watching reports of approaching typhoons ever since we arrived earlier this week.)  We joined hundreds of other passengers, all trying to get information, reclaim checked bags, and re-book flights. We were also in communication with our Vietnamese travel company.  They sent a car for us, re-booked our hotel in Hanoi, dealt with the hotel in Hue, but were unable to get a flight out tomorrow before the 2:00 departure the airlines had already reserved for us.  They'll continue to work on that. 

So, we're back in Hanoi, tired but comfortably situated, and we'll see what tomorrow brings. 

Wednesday, November 6 - Halong Bay

After checking out of our hotel and storing our luggage there, we were met by a guide who took us by taxi through the busy streets, lined with all manner of activity, most notably innumerable people breakfasting on pho on tiny plastic stools on the sidewalk at hundreds of street restaurants. We arrived at the business office of our Halong Bay cruise operator and boarded a van there for the morning-long trip to the coast.

Enroute, we traveled through village after village lined with garage-like commercial establishments that typically were the ground floor of a residential structure of several narrow storeys with decorative facades in varying states of repair and topped by an open-air covered rooftop living space.  Roads, buildings, everything seemed to be under construction or restoration and dust hung heavily in the air and on every surface.  There's a reason for all those facemasks!  Here, as elsewhere in the countryside, in the middle of some sorry looking surroundings, we'd see a spectacular, over-the-top, extravagant-by-any-measure villa.  The "Location, Location, Location" real estate mantra obviously does not hold here!  Despite the roadside free-for-all that we're still not used to, we made it in one piece to the harbor at Halong Bay, a very popular and prosperous-looking tourist center, where we boarded the Treasure Junk shortly after noon.

As we enjoyed a multi-course seafood lunch, we began to cruise through the dramatic limestone karst formations that dot the large bay.  The scenery is very dramatic, much like that along the Li River in Guilin, China, with hundreds of small, rounded islands for our boat to thread through. Even though this day held more clouds than sun, the beauty is breathtaking.  Some of our fellow passengers kayaked around a large island, some of us took our ship's tender to a small beach and some of us (guess who?!?) stayed on board to set up his tripod for sunset photos.  One of us can report that the water at the beach was warm and the corals and shells lovely!

After enjoying the darkening skies and the crescent moon on the upper deck with some new friends from New Zealand, we enjoyed happy hour with our smuggled wine (thanks for the tip, Eileen) in our cabin.

Tom tried squid fishing after dinner while Mel enjoyed the darkness and quiet of the upper deck.  We caught an equal number of fish!

Tuesday, November 5 - Hanoi

Our guide, Hio, and our driver picked us up at the hotel and, after a drive along Dien Bien Phu, Embassy Row, our first stop was Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum.  Because the building was closed for maintenance, we didn't get to see the father of the country under glass. We did get to witness the changing of the guard and learn in some detail from Hio the story of Ho's  background, political formation and determination to break France's colonial grip on Vietnam.  We also talked about the American War and the fact that, given the destruction and death (if not defeat) it caused here, American tourists are welcome here now.  Nearby was the One Pillar Pagoda, symbol of Hanoi, and a temple complex.

At the Museum of Ethnography, we learned about the many ethnic minorities that compose this country through displays devoted to their homes, tools, rituals, dress, crafts, and work. 

After lunch, we stopped at the Tran Quoc Pagoda, the oldest in the country, on the shores of Lake West.  Hio explained some of the characteristics of Vietnamese Buddhism and the difference between temples, which honor kings or national heroes, and pagodas, built for religious purposes. 

Temple of Literature honors Confucius and became the site of Vietnam's first university.  Though it is no longer a university, it is a mecca for students who come, dressed in traditional garb, to pray for academic success.  We also witnessed the celebrations of many students who had come from their campuses to mark their graduations.

We bid our driver farewell at the Jade Temple in Hoan Kiem Lake and, after visiting the temple to the country's first great general, we walked around the shops of Old Town Hanoi before returning to the hotel and saying goodbye to Hio. 

After another very inexpensive dinner steps away from last night's "find," we headed back to the hotel, stopping briefly at a Buddhist temple where we were drawn by a beautiful chant, to prepare for tomorrow morning's departure to Halong Bay. 

Hanoi is a crowded, very busy, city where the chaos of the streets easily distracts from the charm of the bordering colonial architecture, where much of life (including cooking, eating on low plastic stools, and washing the dishes afterwards) is lived right on the sidewalks, where tourists are welcomed and where crossing the street is an act of courage!

Because we'll be spending tomorrow night in a junk on Halong Bay, tomorrow's post probably won't be uploaded until Thursday.

Monday, November 4 - Hanoi, Ninh Binh Province

Our driver and our guide, Hio, met picked us up at the hotel this morning for our day in the countryside outside Hanoi.  The morning traffic was chaotic, and it was hard to decide whether to look at what our driver was dealing with or focus our attention on other sights as we rode out beyond the city and its suburbs.  It took more than two hours to travel the 60 miles to our destination over roads that ranged from congested city streets to limited access highways and a barely passable road under construction.  Construction and re-construction were definitely the order of the day everywhere we traveled and the projects ranged from modern high rises to buildings destroyed during the war.  Cement dust was heavy in the air in some places, exacerbating poor air quality generally.  Many people in the city and beyond wear neckerchiefs or face masks to cover their noses and mouths.  Like helmets, the face masks are, for some, a fashion accessory; they come in a variety of colors and patterns.

Our journey today was through rural agricultural areas to mountainous countryside.  The Hoa Lu temples are surrounded by rocky mountains at the site of the original Vietnamese dynasties, established after independence from China in the tenth century, and they were built to honor the country's first two kings.  We were struck by the offerings left by visitors there; in addition to traditional flowers and incense, they included cans of Coke, bottled water, wine, and packaged cakes!  

Then, it was on to Tam Coc, riding on back roads through small villages.   This seemingly remote area is highly touristed and, after lunch, we joined a parade of scores of sampans (aluminum, not bamboo) to for a two-hour trip that took us through three large caves.  Did I mention that the sampans were rowed by boatmen/women USING THEIR FEET?!?  The scenery was spectacular, with mountains resembling those in Guilin, China.  Along the way, we passed fishermen/women, riverside cemeteries and memorial shrines, isolated homes and temples.  One fisherman had a special catch in his floating cooler: a bamboo bong from which our boatman took a hit of some unidentified substance!  On this placid river trip, we made for a captive audience when our boatman pulled out his selection of souvenirs.  While we were prepared to buy something, he was a persistent salesman, intent on getting us to purchase more than we wanted and/or pay more than we'd planned.  If LBJ and Robert McNamara had taken a trip with him, we'd never have gone to war; it would have been patently obvious that our chances of winning were nil!

Back on shore, we met our guide and driver and headed back to Hanoi, getting a good taste of the evening rush hour -- no regard for lanes, traffic lights, or pedestrians.  It also seems that the locals haven't had to choose whether to drive on the right- or the left-hand side of the road; they do both, as well as on the diagonal!

We walked to a small restaurant down a narrow street nearby and had a great, unbelievably cheap, dinner.  Then, a short walk through the lively neighborhood, and back to the hotel.

Sunday, November 3, 2013 Hanoi

Friday morning's shooting incident at LAX did not delay our evening departure from Phoenix, but our quick flight there was extended by almost two and a half hours sitting on the tarmac waiting for an available gate once we arrived.  We wound up being grateful for our five-hour layover, after all!  Our 13-hour flight to Taipei was uneventful and, I'm starting to write this as we await the last leg of this trip, the three-hour flight to Hanoi.  It's Sunday morning and, somewhere along the way, we've misplaced Saturday; we'll look for it on our return trip! 

We arrived in Hanoi, obtained our pre-approved visas (payable only in US dollars!) and were met by our driver.  We were no sooner out of the parking lot when we got our first taste of driving mores in the capital city an oncoming truck, heading toward us IN OUR LANE!  The highway was filled with bikes, motorcycles, cars, and the occasional pedestrian, frequently trying to occupy the same space.  Motorcyclists all seemed to wear helmets, many likely chosen for color or style, and I wondered if drivers and passengers in cars might do well to wear them, too!

After checking in to our hotel, which is right in the thick of things in the center city, we walked around nearby Hoan Kiem Lake, which is a focal point for natives and visitors alike.  The shoreline path was shady, welcome on this warm and humid afternoon, and full of people of all ages enjoying this Sunday afternoon, including many young couples (newlyweds?), the women in traditional dress and carrying flowers, who were having their photos taken.

From the tranquil oasis of the lake, we plunged into the chaos of Hanoi's Old Town.  The narrow streets are jam-packed with shops whose wares spill out to the sidewalks, where they meet the motorcycles parked on the sidewalks and the small fires used for cooking, or simply to burn bits of paper.  Narrow passages and temples with quiet, incense-scented courtyards also punctuated the scene.  Action-filled as all this was, it paled beside what was going on in the streets themselves.  Bikes, motorcycles, tiny women balancing poles with laden baskets on their shoulders, cars, and pedestrians all seemed to be engaged in multi-sided games of chicken!  Traffic lights are a rarity, and regularly ignored.  Lanes are non-existent and crossing the street should probably require a special rider on life insurance policies!  It makes the traffic in Naples seem like childsplay!

We inched our way through the covered market, where the aisles were about one foot wide and bins and bales overflowed with everything from cheap plastic toys to shoes, clothes, dried fish, kitchen items, and an innumerable number of unidentified nuts, herbs, spices and???  In comparison, Istanbul's Grand Bazaar more closely resembles Neiman Marcus than Hanoi's Dong Xuan Market!

Our long journey (including the missing day), the humidity, and the sensory overload of Hanoi's streets finally led us to find some cold beer and repair to our hotel to recharge.