I arrived in Hanoi in the morning and was met by my airport pickup for the Prince Hotel No.8. The man battled out road rage before he turned to chat with me. “What your name?” “Where you from?”, he giggled. He continued on with ridiculous questions such as: “You have a boyfriend? You have a boyfriend in Australia and a boyfriend here. Yea you do…oh yes you do.” This was getting ridiculous and I didn’t feel like explaining my confused status in Australia and I certainly had no one in Asia but he just went on and on so I let him be. We drove past rice fields which eventually evolved into French style building. The city was lovely and most of the buildings were a yellowish colour.
I was on the top floor of the hotel and as usual there were no elevators. After I made my way to the top floor I was sweaty, tired and hungry. I showered quickly and ventured out with my guidebook and camera. I stopped at a café along the Hoan Kiem Lake and ordered a café sooda. To my disappointment it was not as delicious as the ones served in the south. It was also quite over-priced (by a dollar). I searched the menu for decent Vietnamese food but it was all quite expensive so I chose a Western pizza instead. I sat staring at the lake while the cool breeze ripped past me. I was a My Tho snob, I concluded. Hanoi was gorgeous but it was already lacking what I loved about My Tho. I was already waiting too long for my food. My food would have been served in under five minutes in My Tho. I waited a good 20 minutes here. I missed the cheapness and the fresh food. I missed the fact that it wasn’t Western what so ever. I missed it’s dirty appeal and the delicious hole in the wall restaurants. I was already in culture shock of the West and I was still in a country that wasn’t Western at all! What did that mean for my journey home?
After eating and coming to terms that I was no longer in a different world, I began to walk around the lake. It was beautiful. I went to the Ngoc Son Temple. There was a man who was suffering the effects of Agent Orange outside of it playing a rather touching tune on his flute. A happy newly wedded couple were posing for a professional photographer on the famous red bridge.
After my exploration of the lake I decided to check out the Thang Long Water Puppet Theater. I chose to by the high class ticket for $5 and paid an extra quarter to be allowed to photograph. The show was absolutely amazing! It sent chills down my spine! The orchestra were dressed in traditional attire and played traditional instruments. The music was very chilling and beautiful. The puppets were beautifully painted and as they danced in the water they told stories of Vietnam’s culture. There were dragons and the rice field buffalos. There was conflict and there was unity. At the end, the puppeteers came out of hiding and they too were in traditional dress. They were holding a large dragon puppet. I would recommend the show to anyone!
If you do research on water puppets you could only imagine the hard work that the puppeteers go through. The puppets need to be replaced quite often which creates lots of jobs for the minorities in the North. Back in the day, many puppeteers suffered water borne diseases from the murky liquid they stood in everyday, a few times a day to please the crowd. A puppeteer must also be trained for 3 years.
After the puppets, I hopped in a cab and headed on over to the Temple of Literature. That was enormous and I actually felt like I was in China for a moment since it was highly influenced by the Chinese. It was beautiful. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum and the One Pillar Pagoda and they were closed on Fridays. I will have to check those out when I make my way back to Vietnam.
I hopped back into a cab and went to San Ho Restaurant which was recommended as the best seafood restaurant in Hanoi by the Lonely Planet. This status of course made the food considerably more expensive and unfortunately lobster was still out of my league. I ordered grilled scallops in a Vietnamese seafood sauce, lemongrass and chilli cuttlefish, and garlic morning glory ( a green vegetable) and green rice. It was quite a fantastic meal served with a beautiful pink lilly on the plates. The meal was about $20. I could see why it was rated so well. I felt a little out of place as business men kept piling in to their reserved tables while there was a sweaty haggard looking girl sitting in the corner by herself with only her book and camera. I pretended I was a travel photographer as I snapped photos of the food with my fancy camera. Hey, it wasn’t really a lie. The owner of the restaurant kept coming over and chatting with me. He was really nice and he was very smooth to talk to.
I arrived back at my hotel before dark and decided that I wanted a massage. So I went to the S&F spa which was also recommended by Lonely Planet and the hotel. The hotel owner had one of his men take me to the spa on their motorbike instead of calling me a cab. The spa was so fancy! As soon as you walked in you were greeted and given spa sandals and green tea. I walked over the stepping stones and sat in a room surrounded by running water and flowers. I was soon summoned to my massage. I chose to get the Dead Sea Scrub body massage for $25. This day was a day of splurging but what the hell. This was by far the best massage I will probably ever have! First you are given a body massage, then the dead sea salt is massaged all over your body which feels amazing. Then you shower and come back to have another massage followed by a lotion massage. 75 minutes of bliss that’s what it is!
I came back to my room and slept so well that night, excited for Halong Bay!
I ate my free breakfast at the hotel (eggs and baguette) while one of the hotel staff kept smiling at me and winking. Ok buddy I know you like me but you are being borderline creepy, I thought. I sat in the lounge and waited for my tour to pick me up. A young Vietnamese girl walked into the lobby and to my shock she was the tour guide! She was wearing a short skirt and a low cut tank top. I was stressing out all morning over what to wear because I read that you should stick with conservative dress to this location. Luckily I packed a sundress just in case. If she was wearing that I was certainly wearing my dress. Her name was Lisa. Call me Lovely Lisa, she said. We walked to a very nice new black four wheel drive with leather seats. Fancier than I thought for my $56 tour. The truth is I was quite nervous about this tour originally because everyone told me that I should splurge and go the expensive route on Halong Bay. Many who have taken the cheap route have ended up with cockroaches, shitty food and rats on their tour. I was expecting an old van at least. I hopped in the car and sat next to a young Vietnamese man. “Xin Chao”, he said. “Hello”, said an excited other voice. I turned around and saw a blonde man who was all smiles. Lisa was sitting next to him. “You are the only two on the tour today,” Lisa said. “Hell yea! Private tour anyone?” said the guy. I thought in my head, hell yea a private tour with a gay man! How lucky am I?!”.
His name was Teri and he was on vacation and had only been in Vietnam for a few days. He works for American Express and now lives in Kuala Lumpur and basically has the coolest job in the world. He explained that he loves traveling. He is 41 and he is never going to stop. He said who cares about age, age doesn’t matter anyone can do it. Most people make excuses that they are too old or can’t afford it. He is also American and confirmed that Americans have this fear of traveling. He mentioned about returning to his home town or the office in NYC and that most people don’t care to hear about adventures or make snooty and ignorant comments about his travels. I told him that I know that all too well. He summed it up by theorising that people are like that because they don’t have the guts to do it which I completely agree with him. Most people are afraid to leave their comfort zone and can’t understand the people who have the guts to do it. He also made a great point about how the world seems much smaller now after traveling. “You begin to run out of new places to go and to explore,” he said. We also talked about the western world and how we love places like Vietnam because they still have that authentic traditional culture. He explained how he used to live in Paris 20 years ago and now it is completely different. We wondered what Vietnam would be like in 10 years and I was happy that I am seeing these places now before they too become a product of the Western world, globalisation and capitalism.
We were quite chatty and Lisa had to break in and give us some history. We drove through a few provinces: rural, coal, and the bay. We drove past endless rice fields and watched the farmers perform their daily maintenance. Many of the rice fields have the traditional mausoleums tomb stones. Lisa explained that the dead in Vietnam are buried for 3 years. On the third year their bones are dug up, cleaned and then placed in the beautiful mausoleums. Interesting tradition.
We stopped at a tourist rest stop in Bat Trang on the way and looked at all of the handmade products. I bought a bag of jackfruit chips (another favourite of mine) and the lady tried really hard to swindle me. She tried to make me pay 3 dollars for them when I knew they were maybe a dollar at most. I won of course. I was getting good at this now. We continued to drive by parades of school children on their way home for their afternoon breaks. Once we arrived to Halong Bay we realised that we had the entire boat to ourselves. It was just the three of us and the boat crew! The old junk was pretty big. Teri and I were quite excited! We were practically on a private tour! How lucky!
Lisa explained that their company doesn’t join boats with other tourists from other companies. They make sure that the tours stay smaller. They aim to offer a cheaper price with better quality. Teri and I climbed the ladder to the deck and stood like we were on top of the world. I was in yet another World Heritage site (have managed to visit quite a few on my travels) and one of the natural wonders of the world!!! It was so surreal. The limestone islands were just as described: mystical and mysterious.
We went to one of the islands and explored inside the cave. It was another reserved site. Lisa told us that tradition goes that the islands (2000 or more) were formed by a dragon. As for the cave, legend goes that a couple came here to stay in love and married in the cave. They held their after party there too. As we walked through the cave we had fun pointing out what different rocks looked like. At the very end, Lisa pointed to two rocks. The one I thought looked like a cupcake. She said: “These rocks represent the couple. That one is a woman’s breast and the other is a man’s…” and she giggled. She was already the best tour guide ever. We walked down steep rocky steps, back to the dock and stood on old chairs to climb back on the old wooden boat.
It was time for lunch! Teri and I were both vegetarian and we had a mixture of vegetarian dishes and seafood. The fish was amazing along with the green pumpkin! We ate so much and were quite full as we chatted and watched the islands, some with little offerings in their crevices, float on by. Lisa began to chat about love and how she thought it was time to settle. She refuses to date Vietnamese men because they tell her she is fat (she is bigger than most of the girls but not fat!) so she only dates Americans, Canadians and Australians. She told us a story about how she fell in love with an Australian in Hanoi and he wanted to marry her. She told him no! She never saw him again and regrets it every day. “I wasn’t ready yet,” she sighed. She changed the subject and showed us a rock formation that was called the kissing rock. She showed us another call the cock rock. Yes it actually looks like a rooster. She kept yelling about the cock rock and we couldn’t stop laughing. Then she continued on about her relationship issues and told us that she went on a date the night before and had a few more lined up from Vietnam Cupid, the online dating site. It was hard not to laugh at that one.
When we got back to the harbour, one of the women on the boat showed off her real pearls for sale. I bought a pretty bracelet for $10. I got it down from $30. The boat crew waved to us and blew kisses until we were out of site. On the way home, Lisa sang to us. Then we all had a sing along to Teri’s IPod. The driver stopped for us to take photos of the dusk rice pickers in the fields. It was a beautiful day. We all exchanged contacts and I walked back into my hotel wondering how I got so lucky with that tour.
I freshened up and then hopped back into a cab and went to Fanny’s Ice Cream which was recommended by Lonely Planet. I had com ice cream (rice ice cream) which was recommended and was amazing! Then I had green tea, chocolate and coconut ice cream. Suddenly, I was still hungry so I consulted my guide book on where to head to dinner. I ended up going to Quan An Ngon. It was so crowded! I soon learned why. It was excellent and cheap authentic Vietnamese street food served in style. So for my last night in Vietnam I ordered mashed shrimp cooked around sugar cane. That was served with rice papers, a plate of delicious greens, green bananas and fish sauce. The server cut the mashed shrimp off of the sugar cane for me and soon I was rolling up my fresh spring rolls and biting into heaven. I ordered a Vietnamese sweet soup for dessert. The sweet soup I chose was steamed banana and coconut milk. AMAZING. The meal cost me less than $5. I went to bed so happy and full.
The next day I packed and took a walk around the Old Quarter, which is right where I was staying. I walked along a herbal medicine street that smelled wonderful. There were all sorts of herbs, mushrooms and little bottles containing magical cures I’m sure. I walked down a lane of clothing shops and bought a pretty dress and a shirt for less than $12. Then I walked along a street with beautiful handmade home items and I spent a few dollars here buying beautiful things for my bed and my room. My miniature hand painted tea set is my favourite purchase.
Soon it was time to grab my bags at the hotel and check out. The woman behind the desk tried so hard to swindle me and get more money out of me but unfortunately for her I recognised Vietnamese words, was in the country long enough to understand how things work and the man who had checked me in didn’t decide to play along when she called him. I walked out victorious. I ate my last bag of jackfruit chips in the airport and sadly said goodbye to my home for one month as I was ushered off of the shuttle bus that piles the airplane passengers on like sardines until it stops in front of the plane. I would have a stopover that night at Kuala Lumpur and then make it back to Brisbane the following Saturday night.
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