Links to other Vietnam pages  Hue  Hoi An  Nha Trang  Sapa  Halong Bay

The train for Hanoi left at 7.30am, so I had an early start and then a cyclo ride that I was too tired to be scared by. I had booked a sleeper compartment and found myself sharing with two soldiers who I assume had been on duty at the parades in Ho Chi Minh the day before. They didn't speak any English, so I never found out if this was the case. They weren't squadies either - one had 3 pips on his shoulder, the other only one. The bunks stayed out all the time, and they had already grabbed the bottom ones, so I had one of the top ones. As this was above the window, I couldn't see much, but fortunately they were very friendly and quite happy for me to join them on the bottom, at least when they didn't want to sleep. The train would take around 36 hours, so I spent my time alternatively reading or taking in the view. From time to time we would get served a meal. Even though my tourist ticket cost ten times that of a Vietnamese ticket I still got the same food. This consisted of a small amount of some kind of meat, cabbage and cabbage soup. The soldiers had obviously done this before, because one of them had a jug with him and got the conductor to give him extra soup.

When the train reached Hue we had about a half hour stop. The soldiers disappeared somewhere, and I bought some junk food (but western junk food) from one of the stalls. The soldiers came back with some food - eggs and what looked like chicken wings. They offered me some, but I declined. One of them reached into his bag and brought out a bottle of clear liquid. He pointed at the bottle, then at me, asking if I wanted some. One of the things that's repeated over and over in various guide books is that if you want to remain on friendly terms with the contents of your wallet, you should never take a drink off a stranger. So I said yes, and nodded. We had some glasses which we'd been drinking water out of, so he poured us three measures in these. We raised out glasses to each other and drank. When he saw that I was drinking and not grimacing (hey I can do Austrian Schnapps without grimacing, mostly), he offered me some more, which I gladly accepted. Then he offered me an egg. I thought, boiled egg, that would be nice, so I nodded. I cracked the egg on the table, peeled it back and there, where the white should have been was a foetus. Fortunately I have a strong stomach, but even so I couldn't eat it, so I had to shake my head and put it down. They saw the funny side, I hope.

We got woken early to be given breakfast, which was exactly the same as all the other meals. Shortly afterwards, the train stopped again and two Vietnamese girls got on, probably both in their late teens. One of them was talkative, the other shy, but both were obviously in awe of the soldiers, their eyes shining as they asked and answered questions.

Around 3pm we arrived in Hanoi and bedlam. I knew roughly which hotel I wanted to go to, but as I made my way to the station exit, I was accosted by a tout who had a hotel in the right area at a good price, so I said I'd go with him. Except that he was on a motorbike, and with three bags there was no way that I wanted to do that. So he tried to get a cyclo and after a few false starts he found one and told me it would cost 5,000 dong. So off we went. The cyclo driver obviously didn't know where he was going, because he made several stops to consult my map or other cyclo drivers. Eventually he stopped at the wrong end of a one way street and told me the hotel was at the other end. I gave him 5,000 dong and he nearly threw it back at me. A passerby acted as interpreter and it was clear he was expecting 15,000 dong. We were both getting irate - I was insisting the fare was 5,000, he was insisting it was 15,000. I quickly got fed up with this, held out the 5,000 and said take it or leave it. He took it and I walked off.

Hoan Kiem lake

The hotel was full, but it had a small boy in residence who said he would take me to a different hotel. In fact he took me to about half a dozen before I found one that had a room available at a reasonable price. I showered and changed and then went to check my email. I had previously emailed Welsh Jon to see when he would be in Hanoi, and he'd sent me a reply, with the name of his hotel. This turned out to be the one next to mine. It was quite late by this time, so I walked around the lake, looked around the tour operators area and then went back to the hotel. Jon was in residence, so we met up that evening and had some food and a few beers around Hanoi.

I now had a dilemma. Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum was only open until 11am. So was the bank. Had I realised that my Swiss cash card would work in the bank's cash machine I would have gone off to see uncle Ho. Instead I went to the bank.

A temple by the West Lake

Even though I couldn't see the corpse I decided to head to the north of Hanoi, have lunch near the West Lake and go to the Ho Chi Minh museum. This plan fell apart when I couldn't find anywhere open near the lake, so I stopped for a sandwich in a little shop on the way to the museum. The woman who ran the shop was watching the karaoke channel on television, and even more alarming, was occasionally singing along to it.

Ho Chi Minh's masoleum

The museum itself was interesting, in a selective truth kind of way. It is organised chronologically, and begins by telling the story of Nguyen Tat Thanh, which is Ho's real name, or maybe they used another of his aliases/ At this point I didn't have any idea who they were talking about, so I wondered why they were spending so much time on this guy. It is never actually mentioned that Ho changed his name, except in an aside in a letter from an English lawyer. His life story is told at length, if not entirely objectively. He is frequently referred to as Uncle Ho and shown befriending small children, the inference being that although he was single and childless, he was the father of the nation.

Gargoyles

Ho died in 1969, but the museum continues the story of the American war until the fall of Saigon. Then there is a gap until 1998 for which there are photos of and speeches from the Vietnamese parliament. As an attempt to ignore embarrassing history, it wasn't very subtle.

On my way out I was accosted by a woman who asked me if I'd like to see a performance of local music. I said yes, and was shown into a small room where there were about 6 female musicians, and a few rows of chairs. All empty. I was to get a private performance, at least at first. Fortunately I was joined by a Japanese family, about half way through. The music was interesting as well. Not necessarily pleasant, just interesting.

The Temple of Literature

I left the museum and went off to the temple of Literature (left). I thought this might be quite quiet, but no, it was invaded by a bus load of French tourists just after I arrived. On the way I passed several residents engaged in a typical afternoon pastime - combing for nits (below right).

Combing for nits

I needed to book my trips to Sapa and Halong Bay, so I headed for a travel shop. The girl in the shop sorted out the booking and then asked me if I was English. When I said I was, she got out her college homework and asked me if I could correct it. I said yes and set about it. But rather than stay and watch, she had gone back to her job, taking bookings. Cheeky.

Another part of the Temple of Literature

Near the travel shop was a bia hoi hall. Bia Hoi is cheap Vietnamese lager. It costs about 20p per pint, has only about 3% alcohol and varies from disgusting to tolerable. But at that price it is always worth a try. In this hall it was tolerable. There were around 50 small tables, nearly all of them full. All the patrons were men, the only women were serving.

Bright and early I went off to Sapa for a four day trip.

When I arrived back in Hanoi I couldn't believe how noisy it was. I hadn't really noticed it before, but after a few days in the middle of nowhere, the noise, traffic, people and smells of the big city were really in-yer-face. I only stayed one night before going off on a trip to Halong Bay.

Temple in central Hanoi

Back in Hanoi, I went down to the lake, where I was accosted by a postcard boy. As I was in a good mood, I chatted to him for a while. He had a sad, but I suspect typical, story. He wanted to go to college, but there was no way he could afford to unless he worked first, so he was selling postcards to save some money. It was going to take a long time. He didn't seem to be angling for money, just saying it like it was. He asked me how much I earned, and I was too embarrassed to tell him.

Street merchants

On the way back to the hotel I ran into Savannakhet Andy and friends, who had just got back from Sapa. So I went out with them for a meal and a few beers and a game of snooker on possibly the worst snooker table I have ever played on (I use played loosely of course).

Back at my hotel, I discovered that the fan had exploded while I was out. Bits of plastic lay all over the bed - if I'd been there when it happened, I would have been hurt, possibly badly. The manager was still up, so I called him and he quickly moved me to another room. If this had been a Western hotel I would have had grounds for legal action, but in Vietnam? - I didn't even consider it.

I was supposed to get a pick up from the hotel to the airport bus stop, but this never arrived. So I got the hotel to call the office and eventually a man turned up to take me. But he only had a moped, so with my Nike bag balanced on the handlebars, my rucksack on my back and my day pack on my front we made a precarious journey through the early morning Hanoi Traffic.

We got to the airport in plenty of time, I paid my airport tax in dollars (near a sign insisting that the only legal currency in Vietnam was the dong) and went for a coffee. Dong are entirely worthless outside Vietnam, so I spent some and put the rest in the charity box.

Except for a sweltering night in Bangkok, my South East Asian trip was now over. Tomorrow I would be in Japan.

Links to other Vietnam pages  Hue  Hoi An  Nha Trang  Sapa  Halong Bay

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Last modified on 22nd December 2007 3:31 PM EST

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