Bonjour, Hanoi!

First off, the French influence in southeast asia is everywhere!  Russia, France, America, China they’ve all played their part in Vietnam but I think the French left the greatest influence.  Baguettes.  Dear, sweet, yummy, baguettes.  They’re everywhere! The bread all over Vietnam was so delicious and oh so cheap!  The best part were the street food carts where you could get great baguette sandwiches with cheese, veggies, all kinds of meat, and sauces for next to nothing.  Drew’s favorite baguette was the spicy lamb kebab.   This is also the first place we noticed many different kinds of ethnic restaurants with the people of that ethnicity actually making and serving the food.  Hanoi definitely held a vast array of people from all over the world.  This is also the first time we ate Indian food that blew us away.  The guy that owned the Indian joint liked us so much he gave us free dessert, something I’ll never turn down. 

The architecture all over Vietnam had a french flare to it.  That is, the buildings still standing after the war.  Bright yellows and french blues with black and white trim on all the buildings really brought the city to life!  Not to mention, the sheer amount of motor scooters!!!  At first we were intimidated by the amount of scooters and were so uneasy trying to cross the street because hundreds come at you at all once, but we soon realized that it’s actually quite easy.  All you have to do is walk slowly and look at the oncoming scooters and they’ll all manage to swerve around you.  Pretty soon we were stepping off curbs like it was nothin’!  Speaking of which, the streets in Hanoi are all pretty narrow with lots of cafes, ice cream parlours, boutique shops, art galleries, and travel agencies.  While I can’t say I dug the shopping here as much as other places, I also can’t say I looked very hard.  They did have a lot of neat bamboo bowls, vases, and serving trays that Drew and I now wish we purchased. 

We did manage to go see Ho Chi Minh though!  For a guy that’s been dead for a long time, he was lookin’ pretty good.  I don’t even want to know how they perserve the dude.  Yuck.  In the same day we went to the War Remnants Museum.  There was a lot of American propaganda in there from the Vietnam War.  It’s not so surprising since Hanoi is in the north.  Interestingly enough, the entire museum had captions in vietnamese, english, french, and I think chinese.  However, the Vietnam War photos only had captions in Vietnamese so we couldn’t read them.  I’m positive this was done on purpose.  From there we hit the Hanoi Hilton, famouse for keeping American pilots downed during the war.  Made even more famous by a certain Senator from Arizona.  They still have his flight suit on display. We also searched high and low for the right Ha Long Bay tour for us.  They range in price from $35 to $100 or so for one night, two days.  The tour consists of sleeping on the boat, all meals included (no drinks though), sea kayaking, transportation (3 hours there, 3 back on a bus), and a tour through one of Ha Long bay’s ‘most spectacular caves’.  This is definitely the biggest tourist attraction outside of Hanoi because when we got there, there were tons and tons of boats (called ‘Junk’), and even more people lined up waiting to fill the junk.  Everyone was herded like cattle onto their designated boat and while we all left the port at the same time our boats played ‘bumper boat’ and crashed into one another, on purpose mind you.  The saying “you get what you pay for” definitely sums up our Ha Long Bay experience.  We decided to opt for one of the cheaper tours because, at the time, we didn’t understand how crappy it would be.  After all, all of the tours offered the same stuff.  We thought we found a deal!  To sum it up, the mountains weren’t as nice as Yangshuo, the food was terrible, and the service on board was even worse.  The sea kayaking was probably our favorite part.  It was my first time on a kayak, which was no problem, but as most people know I’m scared of the ocean so the entire time I’m convinced Jaws is going to see our tiny boat and come racing to the top of the water, flip us over, and drag our bodies out to see.  I think I sucked it up pretty well though because we managed to kayak around one or two mountains before it was time to head back to the boat. Remember that ’most spectacular cave’ I mentioned? It was fake.  Fake. Fake. Fake.  The whole thing looked like it was sprayed down with concrete, it was spotlessly clean, and there was no moisture.  Cheesey colorful lights were also put up to make it feel more like a disney attraction.  I don’t know, I think if you go to Yangshuo, there’s no real reason to do Ha Long Bay because the mountains and all the beauty is so much  more intimate in Yangshuo.  If Ha Long Bay interests you, pay the money and get the good service. 

Do you like clothes?  I sure do.  So does Hoi An, next post…

Love Teamblew

 Check out our Vietnam photos!