8th Feb 2010: Crazy, Crazy Hanoi

The following day we started early to make the most of our short stay in Hanoi and headed down for our free breakfast in anticipation. Sadly there was no buffet consisting of a selection of pastries, an egg station or fried noodles; instead our host Mr Jimmy sat us down and his staff presented us with 4 fried eggs (we didn’t ask for these but the gesture was kind enough), a plate piled up high with bread which was equivalent to a whole loaf, as well as some spread and a huge jar of jam which was a suspiciously bright shade of pink and tasted of sugar and not so much of strawberry.
After forcing ourselves to eat as much as possible (it was free after all), we were then subjected to a 20 minute-long lecture by Mr Jimmy outlining what we should do with our 4 weeks in Vietnam! However, he was really just trying to help us out and also sell as many of his own tours as possible, which is the norm in Vietnam, so with polite nods and uhmmings of ‘we’ll go away and have a think about it’, Leon and I made a dash for it and headed down on foot to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.

Now by this time we were well into the later part of the morning which meant one thing: it was absolutely boiling outside. Not wanting to spend money unnecessarily, we braved the heat and the deadly traffic and walked for about half an hour until we made it eventually to the Mausoleum and Museum complex. Unfortunately we didn’t read the small print in the Lonely Planet which tells you that the Mausoleum is closed at lunchtime on Mondays. And what day was it? Correct. Monday. Instead we headed into the Museum which was fairly interesting, outlining the events that lead up to Vietnam War and HCM’s role as leader, but again lady luck was not on our side and we were promptly kicked out of the Museum after 40 minutes for them to close it down for the lunchbreak again.
Given that there was nothing in the vicinity for us to see or do, we decided to venture into town (which was another 30 mins in the direction we had just come from) to the Old Quarter to book our boat trip to Halong Bay. I’d highly discourage anyone from walking in the midday sun in Vietnam or anywhere for that fact, as we were both very flustered and just a bit irritable after what felt like a morning of walking for no reason! We made it to a tour agency which seemed legit (we’ll come to that later) and booked our trip for the following day, as well as our train ticket and open bus tickets for the rest of the journey. Feeling rather pleased with ourselves for getting the transport sorted, we did a little more venturing to get some much needed food down us, which consisted of more pho and fried noodles, and some local beer to wash those worries away... Refuelled and energetic, we made it back to the hotel and had a quick rest before heading out a little later for dinner. Wanting to keep the cost down, we found a food court in a shopping mall close to the main lake in the middle of Hanoi where we shared a rather large steamboat whilst listening to crazy Chipmunk music in the background. We also learned how to cross the road the Hanoi way by a lady who felt sorry for us, having stood by the roadside for about 5 minutes as the traffic was just too horrific! In Hanoi and elsewhere in Vietnam it's all about just walking at a steady pace across the road. This way the motorcyclists can just dodge around you as you walk on by! All in all, Hanoi was a city on speed and once you get used to the hustle and bustle, it's actually starts to grow on you a little. Not one for the faint hearted though, that's for sure.