Oy Hanoi!

Note: I am having trouble uploading the rest of the pictures for this post and so I'm going to post it with only one. I'll try to add them later.

Our first full day in Hanoi. Because of scheduling problems, our days in Hanoi are split up. We had one day yesterday (Tuesday, Mar. 20) and then took the train to Sapa. But just a few words about that day. Our new guide, Thien, picked us up at the airport—this has gone perfectly in each case—and delivered us to the Metropole around 5:00 the other night. Uneventful evening, but yesterday was a really fun day. No guide was scheduled—Thien would pick us up at 9:00 that night to deliver us to the train to Sapa (more about that later.) So we had all day on our own. Considering ourselves experts on the city having spent a few days here before, Mary and I played tour guide to Tom and Neil and didn’t feel the need to avail ourselves of any further professional. First, we left the hotel and secured the services of four cyclos or pedi-cabs to cycle us about town. At $2 an hour per cyclo, this is the only way to travel in the city. Tom and Neil were a little apprehensive at first (what if we get separated, etc.) but soon got into the flow and we had the best time showing our personal drivers on the map where to take us, doing our sightseeing and then returning to retrieve our patiently waiting drivers to take us to the next stop. This is truly a case where the journey is more important than the destination, because a pedi-cab ride in Hanoi is a wild kaleidoscope of sounds, smells, sights and multiple stimulations that cannot be described. The guys called it sensory overload which is the best way to convey the feeling. First you get into your cab, a one-seater, with your driver behind you chatting in pigeon English and pointing out sights; then you move right into the most intense traffic you can imagine with motorbikes and cars and buses whizzing by in all directions. When you come to an intersection, you just keep going and by some miracle the one or more vehicles that you think are going to collide with you miraculously meld around you instead and its like Moses parting the Red Sea. Sometimes they are so close you can reach out and touch them, but it’s best not to, if you want to keep your upper extremities.

And of course pedestrians are crossing the street everywhere without looking or dodging traffic and somehow they avoid getting killed as well. And no one gets mad, or yells at another for cutting them off or displays road rage or any of the things we are used to when driving at home.

But it’s not just about avoiding collisions and witnessing the traffic up close and personal. The horns honking right in your ear, people talking, lights flashing, and all the visual stimulation of the street scene passing by with its smells of food mixed with other less savory odors is just more than one can take in. Shops of all kinds, women carrying their shoulder poles loaded with merchandise, motorcycles carrying pigs, mattresses or furniture not to mention whole families, people squatting on the curbs cooking and selling stuff, and about a million other sights means that you need eyes and ears on all sides of your head to even begin to absorb it all. Any apprehension quickly melts away and believe it or not you not only feel safe, you feel in control! Like king or queen of the road.

So in case you miss my point, the highlight of our day was simply riding the pedi-cabs for a few hours around town. We stopped at the Hanoi Hilton (site of the infamous prison during the war) but it was closed, then went to Ho Chi Minh’s Tomb, also closed, and saw again the various buildings where the beloved Uncle Ho lived and worked during the last years of his life. We rode down Embassy Row and our drivers pointed out the various embassies, saw uniformed police marching in formation, passed parks and monuments, some of the small streets of the old town, the Opera House and so much more. By the time we thought to stop for lunch all the restaurants were closed and we had to wait until five which was just as well since the next adventure was to start at nine. We killed the time by going to a market and quelled our growling stomachs by buying a kilo of peanuts for a dollar and walked through the market eating peanuts and taking pictures. Dinner was at a fabulous sea food restaurant where we had cockle salad, sweet snails (not the same as the previously described ones,), and the best fish rolled in rice paper we’ve ever had. We barely made it back to the hotel to collect our overnight bags, store our larger luggage there, and head for the train.