Hanoi and Halong Bay, Vietnam
When we arrived in Hanoi, the weather was overcast and misty, and that’s the way it stayed for the entire week. After a short walk through old town, we found a guesthouse that wasn’t too expensive. It seems that everything increases in price from the south to the north in Vietnam. Hanoi was definitely the most expensive city in all of Vietnam for us. The people also seemed less friendly and less willing to bargain for anything.
The old town portion of Hanoi had a great atmosphere if you can get past the constant honking of vehicles in your ear. In the past there was a tax on wide buildings and so most are built incredibly narrow and reach several stories. This meant that we had to walk up and down several flights of stairs each day. The streets are also very narrow and we always had to keep our heads up or risk being mowed over by passing motorbikes. Most of the buildings had weird graffiti painted on the walls consisting of some words in Vietnamese and then a string of numbers. Later, we learned that this was a form of advertising. “Need Bricks? Phone 9038887.” On one corner in the old town (“beer corner”) several cafe’s offer 3000 VND (less than 0.25 USD) beers, and so many tourists stopped to pass the time and heat there. One cafe was literally a couple of small stools, and a keg with a sign on top that read “cafe.”
A short walk from old town is lake Hoan Kiem which was very nice to take a walk around. The lake has a pagoda in the middle dedicated to a tortoise which we didn’t pay to enter and is lined with several expensive restaurants. We took a walk around old town and this lake the first day while trying to find a FedEx or DHL to send some gifts home. We did find the FedEx, but it turned out that the cost of sending our gifts home was more than what the gifts were actually worth. Instead, we sent our package home with a unkown, but much cheaper company called “EMS.” The tracking number on the package doesn’t work, and so we’re hoping that it makes it back home. After sending away the package, we spent the rest of the day shopping around at the tourist agencies for a Chinese visa. We were left with photocopies of our passports, and told to wait 5 working days for a Vietnam extension visa and a Chinese visa.
Our second day in Hanoi was spent organizing a trip to Halong Bay. Since we had to wait for our passports anyway, we decided to spluge on the trip and pick a slightly more expensive tour of the bay. That evening we also saw a traditional waterpuppets show. The puppets were wooden figures manipulated in a pool of water by puppeteers hidden behind some green, decorative curtains. The puppeteers themselves require a minimum of three years training in order to perform the art. There was a live band playing traditional vietnamese music, and although we couldn’t understand some of the dialog, the show was very entertaining.
The Halong Bay trip included a cruise aboard a Vietnamese ship called a “junk,” and a night on Cat Ba island in a very nice hotel. The wooden junk boats are incredibly beautiful and each has massive sails which are more for decoration. Our boat was well furnished and was big enough for 16 people, but on our trip we spent the time with only 10 other people. We were filled on gourmet Vietnamese meals for the entire three days spent in Halong Bay. Each meal consisted of at least 6 or more dishes. The food kept arriving on our table, and it was always too much for all of us to finish.
Our boat slowly cruised through the massive limestone cliffs scattered along the bay as we made our way to a popular tourist attraction, Hang Dau Go (Wooden stakes Cave). The cave was massive, and well developed for tourists with concrete stairs and interior lighting. Unfortunately, it was fairly busy when we visited, and it felt like we were in a train of tourists, but the site was still spectacular. After the tour of the cave, we were given the option to kayak, but given the weather everyone decided to wait for the following day. This first day was overcast, and unfortunately, the sun only peaked through the clouds occasionally for the other two days. That night was spent on our boat which was apparently the equivalent of a three star hotel. Our cabin had air conditioning, hot showers, and a western toilet!
The following day we had an early breakfast and were taken through the countryside to another cave known as Phu Long. We were the only tour at this particular cave. Our guide took us through to admire the “buddha” and “dragon” shaped stalagtites, stalagmites, and columns. We then headed to Cat Ba island and checked into our hotel. After checking in, we were off again to visit “monkey” island. Here we chose to kayak around the island in some fairly choppy waters. After an hour or two, we headed back to our hotel, and had the night free from the tour. Unfortunately, we only had this single night on Cat Ba island, and it was definitely beautiful enough to spend more. Another couple discovered some nice beaches around the corner of the main strip that our hotel was on. We also found a tour company called Slo Pony which does rockclimbing and kayak tours from the island. Since we only had this single night, Cat Ba felt more like a stopover for a place to sleep than an actual event of the tour; however, the hotel was very nice, and we had a terrific view of the bay.
The final day of the tour was spent puttering back through the bay to Halong Harbour and a four or five hour bus ride back to Hanoi. We said goodbye to our new found friends (three austrailian couples), and left to find some dinner. After Halong Bay, we had two or three days to kill before receiving our visas back from the embassies.
One of these days, we walked to the Ho Chi Minh complex and the temple of literature. The Ho Chi Minh complex contains the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum as well as the Ho Chi Minh Museum, his stilt house, and the presidential palace. We visited the mausoleum, but were not allowed to not go inside for viewing because we had arrived in the afternoon. Instead, we were lucky enough to see the changing of the guards at 2 pm. We also decided to spend some time at the museum which was full of weird modern art exhibits that were supposed to symbolize things we couldn’t possibly have guessed or come up with. After a quick stoll by the one-pillared pagoda, we headed over to the temple of literature.
The temple of literature was an amazing and historic compound. The temple is a rare example of traditional vietnamese archecture and was the site of the first vietnamese university in 1076 to educate the sons of mandarins. We discovered from plaques that the students had a few quizes every month, an exam every few months to qualify for regional exams, which then qualified for one annual exam chaired by the king. The king would ask questions, and rank the passing students according to their answers. The whole process seemed like it would have been pretty stressful. There are stone plaques sitting on a base carved like a turtle which were inscribed with the names of the passing doctorates.
After these visits, we walked back to old Hanoi town and relaxed. The rest of our time in Hanoi was simply killing time until tonight when we head to Sapa. Luckily, we met an austrailian/thai couple on our Halong Bay tour who own a bar in Hanoi. This made it easy to kill off the evenings sipping draft beer and wine together with great company. We received our passports back in good condition and with two new chinese visas. It will feel good to leave Hanoi after so long. We’re both tired of the incessant horn honking and gasoline fumes. After each day, our skin also felt sticky from the heat and humidity. This city was very big and busy; fun, but we spent far too long here waiting for our visas.
We have just one last stop in Sapa, Vietnam before heading to China.