Falling in love with Hanoi

We love Hanoi.

This place rocks. It has all the modern conveniences we're used to (multiple constantly functioning outlets in the hotel, no power outages, I haven't squatted once to use a public bathroom yet!) and the weather has been completely clear since we arrived. So, we begin when Seth and I got off a red-eye flight into Hanoi with a stopover in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. When you look at the map, it seems we took a bit of a roundabout way of getting there, but whatever. Also, sidenote: Air Asia, I hate you. Since we were flying through and into Southeat Asia, and we hadn't needed a jacket since we were near the Himalayas, we didn't think to bring a jacket on the flight. We got on and some people were wearing their heaviest down coat. Seth was in a tank top, and I a very thin cotton shirt. Neither of us was wearing long pants. And unlike most airlines which come with a complimentary pillow and blanket, with Air Asia, you buy a blanket. On the flight out of Kuala Lumpur, we broke down and bought the stinking $12 blanket, complete with a blow-up travel pillow and a sleeping mask. The flight attendant wouldn't take our $20 bill that wasn't crisp and new (i.e.- 2004 issue or newer), which happened to us also once in Hanoi (that one was ripped a little in the corner) with the local currency, I mean jeez people, and then she gave us our change in Malaysian ringgot (their currency which kinda sounds like an unfortunate parasite you would call in sick to work with, right?) And we still haven't been able to exchange it.

But I digress. Immediately upon checking into our hotel in the Old Quarter of the city, with about 2.5 hours of sleep under our belts, we set out to explore. The sun was shining and we were not about to waste it! We had a tourist map which told us that the nearest attraction was Hoan Kiem Lake, so we walked that way. About five minutes in, a woman selling bananas and pineapple off an enormous old scale which she balanced on her shoulder came up to us and put her hat on me. Then she put the scale on my shoulder. I posed for a picture, then she did the same with Seth and put his hat on her head, posed for a picture and told him he needed bananas so she gave him a plastic bag of them. Then she wanted $10. This time though, I was prepared! I gave her $5. Which still was too much, but at least it wasn't the $60 the Indian guy in Kathmandu got out of us, which still makes me kinda sick. The bananas, on the other hand, were decent but not the tiny explosions of flavor we have experienced elsewhere. Also this is a scam to watch out for, and we've seen it happening about 3 times since. All the women selling *specifically* bananas and pineapple do it, and they're not the only ones with the big scales (I'm sorry but that's the fastest way I can describe it. I'll include a picture). Anyway we kept going, pretty unphased since we at least got some bananas out of the deal. We found the lake and hung out at the temple in the middle, which had a $1 entrance fee. This is something else really great about Hanoi: no exorbitant white person tax so far, with the exception of the $45 visa on arrival. Ngok San Temple is otherwise known as the Temple of Jade Mountain, and it's dedicated to Confucian and Taoist philosophers, as well as war hero Tran Hung Dao, who " commanded the Đại Việt armies that repelled three major Mongol invasions in the 13th century" (Wikipedia). According to the legend, he was granted a sword by the gods, and after his victories he was hanging out by the lake when a turtle God appeared to take the sword back. Naturally there's also an enormous 450lb. stuffed turtle encased at the temple. 

OK so next we ate our first authentic pho bo. Everybody said: don't eat at the nice restaurants, go to the little holes in the wall. So, we found one that was crowded and went for it. The foodies will like this part. When  you eat pho bo, you get a big plate of sticky white rice noodles and a separate bowl of soup. The broth is a yellow, kinda sweet tamarind broth, usually made with honey and fish sauce. Inside the broth you will find pieces of barbequed pork, but not Southern US style -- we're talkin generous brown fatty slabs of meat, which progressively melt more and more into the broth as your meal goes by. The pork lady, whose job appears to be solely cooking the meat, also grinds up the pork and makes it into little succulent patties, which the cook adds to the broth. There are a few more leafy vegetables in the broth as well as pieces of green papaya (adding a crisp freshness to every bite), and at every table there is some sliced mildly-pickled ginger in clear vinegar for you to spoon out and add to the flavor, along with the red chili sauce. You just put the rice noodles into the soup and grab them (and some meat) with your chopsticks, put it all on the spoon, add some fresh mint and other leafy herbs from the 3rd plate provided, and stick it in your mouth. We got two orders of pho bo and two delightful Vietnamese spring rolls, all for a whopping price of $5. It was unreal.

Walking around the city, trying to find the Hanoi Cathedral for about an hour, we did our usual quiet absorbing of a city. One thing we noticed immediately about Hanoi is that it has sidewalks! But the sidewalks are mostly used for motorcycles and mopeds. The mopeds are a force to be reckoned with here, and must make up about 70% of all the traffic in the city. So, you can technically walk on the sidewalk, but you just have to dodge the occasional moving moped, walk around the parked ones (many of which are for rent so there are also men asking if you want one), and walk around the people eating outside cafes, the people chilling outside their stores, the stores outside of the stores, etc. There is car exhaust in the air which makes you stop breathing one second, but then you smell the delicious pho bo, or other grilled meat, or exotic fruit, spices and incense so keep sniffing like a baset hound ignoring the car exhaust! But then a moped revs its engine next to you and you have to hold your breath again. On one street, you might find a lot of hole-in-the-wall restaurants (of which we have officially frequented many at this point) which all have tiny plastic stools about a foot off the ground onto which people sit while eating something with chopsticks from a stool about two feet off the ground. All on the sidewalk mind you. On another street, maybe there are a lot of cafes, or bars, or fruit stands, or on another, people will be people selling shoes and working on them right outside the store -- I saw a guy sawing down a woman's stiletto, right on the edge of the sidewalk with a loud, round saw thingy. There are different streets dedicated to selling different things. Besides the whirring of power tools, buzzing of mopeds, and car engines, there are people constantly honking and announcers trying to sell things, random bells from all directions, and people speaking in every language all around you. This city is so alive, but also very pleasant: people ask us if we want to buy their service, but usually after we say no, they leave us alone. It's so laid back. We really like Hanoi.

We stopped by a cafe and I got some "hazelnut jelly freeze coffee" which is basically a hazelnut frapuccino with sweet hazelnut-flavored jello blocks. I bought it out of intrigue, and was a little disappointed to find out it was exactly what it sounded like and not so delicious so I don't really recommend it to anyone unless they're REALLY big fans of both of those things, and even then proceed with caution. We went to an army museum where we learned about the Vietnamese resistance to the French and American forces in Vietnam for the majority of the 20th century. It made me feel happy for the Vietnamese people that they finally gained independence after about 60 nonstop years of fighting, but also a little uncomfortable as an American. There was a courtyard with some of their military conquests on display, i.e. American army cars and planes. There was a MIG fighter jet, a Huey helicopter, and surface-to-air balistic missile used for shooting down B52 bomber planes, and American bombshells that had been harvested for their explosive material to make bombs for the Northern Vietnamese troops. There were also several artilery and anti-aircraft pieces, because a lot of the war was Vietnam trying to shoot down American planes. We watched (OK Seth watched; I slept through) a 10-minute video about the war in Dien Bien Phu, which is a city in a valley and the Vietnamese won and it was hard. I WAS TIRED. But Seth says I have to tell you: Dien Bien Phu was the decisive battle that meant the permanent end to French occupation and colonialization of Vietnam. Impressive factoid (says Seth): the Vietnamese troops hauled artilery pieces by hand, with lots of elbow grease, to the tops of the mountains surrounding Dien Bien Phu, AND created a massive tunnel system that encircled the entire city. So between shooting really big guns from the tops of mountains onto the French troops and having so many fortifications around the city that nothing could make the Vietnamese troops retreat, it was a pretty decisive battle.

We took a stoll over to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and had to walk through the enormous Hanoi Botanical Gardens to get there (a whopping cost of 5 cents per person, and a really delightful experience with people playing and exercising outside, peacocks, doves, friendly children saying hello, and a big beautiful pond with a fountain). At the mausoleum, President Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969) is usually on display there, but wait! He wasn't this week. He won't be until December. But wait, you might say. There's a bigger "but wait." "Patrice, don't those years in the parentheses mean he died 55 years ago?? Patrice, you're a fool." No, I'm not a fool. Ho Chi Minh's embalmed body is always on display glass coffin in his mausoleum. I'm completely serious. And when you go visit the 55-year-old corpse, according to Wikipedia: "Rules regarding dress and behaviour are strictly enforced by staff and guards. Legs must be covered (no shorts or miniskirts). Visitors must be silent, and walk in two lines. Hands must not be in pockets, nor arms crossed. Smoking, drinking, eating, photography and video taping are also not permitted anywhere inside the mausoleum." But alas, Minh was not in his box when we tried to go. In fact, there were armed guards around the perimiter who (very kindly) informed us that the Mausoleum is closed until December, because, and I'm not making this up, he occasionally goes to RUSSIA to go through a renewed embalming process in order to slow down the decaying of his body. Luckily the museum was open for another ten minutes that day so we ran through with a guard behind us, making up facts about the items we saw on the spot since we didn't have time to read the placards. They didn't make us pay the $1 entrance fee to run through the museum so I guess they could rush us out all they wanted.

We looked for a 5-story pagoda on the nearby Thuy Khue Lake to watch the sunset, but we couldn't find it (it's a really big lake!) and instead just watched the sunset, which was really beautiful anyway. We hit the sack by 8:30, completely exhausted. The next day we woke up and got ready for a street food tour of Hanoi at 11. I could lie to you and say I was grossed out and it was all super unsanitary and not worth hanging out with a woman I didn't know and hardly understood, but why would I tell such a terrible lie? Maybe to talk down my experience. The truth is we were completely blown away by everything we consumed, and in the end each gained at least five pounds. Before we came, we were determined to treat Vietnam as a buffet. We ate lots of dishes I will never be able to pronounce the names of, much less remember, but a few that stood out:
- a dash of coffee, crushed ice, and on top a layer of whipped egg whites and honey. It's called "egg coffee."
- hoa qua dam: fruit (jack fruit, watermelon, avocado, melon, lichi, dragonfruit, banana) plus sweet coconut milk plus crushed ice. Wow.
- pig heart. Not my favorite.
- beer.
- mushrooms and ground pork in a thin rice "pancake" dipped in the tamarind/fish sauce/lime juice/honey broth, plus garnishing
- spring rolls with green papaya and sea crab
Our tour guide was one of the happiest, most delightful people I've ever met. She was 24 and always referred to herself in the 3rd person as "Ms. Moon" and called me "LADY." Everytime we needed to cross a street together, she would say, "Sticky RIIIIICE" as in, stay together and nobody will get hit by a moped. Obviously, Seth and I have absorbed that into our lives and will forever anounce "sticky RIIIIIICE" whenever we need to cross a street together.

We vowed not to eat after the street food tour, but had expanded our stomachs and inevitably went back for more hoa qua dam (FRUIT) and I found people selling rambutan on the side of the road so I bought half a kilo and ate it. THAT'S INCLUDING THE STICKS AND LEAVES AND SHELL AND PITS SO I'M SURE I DIDN'T EAT HALF A KILO OF ACTUAL RAMBUTAN FRUIT. Oh god I can't believe I'm coming home right as the holiday season starts. Afterward we walked across a 115-year-old concrete and iron Long Bien Bridge, a famous spot in Hanoi that was bombed some during the war in the '70s but is still in pretty good shape considering its age. It stretches 1.5 miles long and goes over what looked like a banana plantation as well as the Red River.

Oh yeah! Then we saw the Thang Long Water Puppet Show! This puppet technique was developed by farmers who worked in the rice paddies. From behind a curtain, puppeteers control puppets with long poles while the puppets dance around on the water. It's a traditional, unique form of puppets and was accompanied by beautiful live music.

On day three we had a museum day. A short summary because I need to go to bed but I also want to finish this post:
- At the History museum, we learned about how the Vietnamese were basically occupied from about 1890 to 1975 by the French, Japanese and then the US, and they fought constantly from about 1910 to 1975. This is a nation to be reckoned with. They fought hard for their independence and what a country they have become after all that work! Makes you wonder how all that fighting and influence effected their culture. But one thing I thank the French for: making the Vietnamese switch from Chinese characters to the Western alphabet (minus the tonal markings) so we can at least read things here. That's pretty great. But still, occupation bad.
- At Hoa Lo prison, we learned about how poorly Vietnamese prisoners were treated when the French occupied Hanoi, which was terrible and included famine and executions, overpopulation and disease. Interestingly, we also learned about how well American POWs were treated at Hoa Lo, which I'm not positive wasn't a bit of Vietnamese propaganda (sorry for the double negative: it was propaganda). There was a picture of John McCain getting treatment for illness, POWs playing all kinds of games and celebrating holidays, and getting souvenirs when they were released. I'm no huge fan of John McCain, but I thought it was because of torture in Vietnam that he can lift his arms about the same amount as a turtle can lift his front legs. But whatever, everybody does propaganda. Overall the museum was really interesting and well done!
- At the Ethnology Museum, we really tried to read everything but at this point we were completely museumed-out. Basically all I can tell you is that there are 54 different ethnic groups in Vietnam, 70-80% of which is the Viet. The remaining populace is a bunch of different groups with there own languages, lifestyles and religions. A lot has changed in the last 25 years and these people are becoming more modernized (like less elephant riding or breast-bearing and more English speaking) but they still retain their heritage. Ok, duh Patrice. You get it, they're still unique. Behind the museum are about 10 to-scale replicas of (or in some cases relocated) houses. Each house is associated with a different kind of ethnic group. They're made for visitors to be able to walk inside and see how the people live. A few of them are on stilts (accessible by steps carved into long logs), and many have cool bamboo flooring that's a little scary to walk on. First, I thought it would be cool to have in my own house, then I thought I'd probably trip over it and/or fall through a hole I accidentally created while tripping over it, so I'll let the Tay people keep their bamboo bark flooring.

OK! Well, if you made it this far, congratulations!! You must have had a lot of time to kill. I'm off to bed. Halong bay cruise tomorrow, then Hoi An\ on Sunday. Have a fantastic weekend everybody.