Good Morning Vietnam (Part 1)

After spending most of the past few years close to home, we are finally beginning to travel again with a full, but fun, ten days exploring Vietnam. After an 8 hour flight overnight from Brisbane to Ho Chi Minh, we hopped on another plane and flew another 2 or so hours north to Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi. When we arrived at our hotel, we immediately headed out to explore.

About 8.5 million people live in Hanoi, which is about a third of all the population in Australia. I think there must be at least 5 million scooters here too. As we started to wander, there were scooters everywhere and a whole lot of beeping. The interesting thing though, was that the beeping didn’t seem to be people telling each other off, but rather people communicating a specific message. Here’s a little video:

Just a block or two from our hotel, we discovered Train Street. Train Street is very narrow, with houses and cafes lining both sides of tracks, which a train travels down every few hours. You can see in the pictures below just how close the tables and chairs are to the tracks.

A few minutes before the train comes through, a bell sounds and everyone sitting at the cafes need to make sure their table, chairs, and body parts are not sticking out beyond the tile edge. I was expecting that the train would travel through slowly, as though it were inching up to a station, but that wasn’t the case at all. Check out this video that shows the train travelling through at high speed:

After the long night/day of travel, we called it a night pretty early so we’d be ready for our full day Hanoi city tour the next day. The tour started with a visit to the Tran Quoc pagoda. Pagodas are considered both spiritual and cultural places and they have the most interesting architecture! Our tour guide told us that despite the presence of Buddhist statues in the various locations we visited across the day, the majority of Vietnamese describe themselves as atheist. However, many will still participate in the spiritual traditions that are part of Buddhism.

There were a number of these ‘Law of Karma’ illustrations posted along the edges of the garden that lined the pagoda. I was fascinated by them, and took quite a bit of time reading and reflecting on the different laws, many of which seemed quite logical…that is until I reached the one about dressing scantily. I wasn’t quite sure the effect was actually a deterrent.

Our next stop on the tour was Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. Ho Chi Minh led the communist party of North Vietnam and served as prime minister and/or president in Vietnam for nearly 25 years. He is widely revered for leading Vietnam through multiple occupations to make them an independent nation, and working to unite North and South Vietnam (which happened shortly after he died). The mausoleum was certainly impressive to see.

Just behind the mausoleum was a park which included the (very modest) home Ho Chi Minh had lived in. The park was beautifully kempt with beautiful buildings, gardens, and ponds.

And if you found yourself thirsty while wandering through the grounds in the heat and humidity but were caught without a water bottle, not to worry, the palace park had you covered.

After a bit of lunch, we carried on to our next stop of the tour, the Museum of Ethnology which provides information on all the different ethnic groups in Vietnam – 54 in total! Inside the museum, you can view models of the various styles of buildings typical of the main groups or you could go outside and explore the life size versions instead. We chose the life size versions of course. There were 10 in total and each quite unique from the next one. This communal house was 19 meters in height!

We next visited the Temple of Literature which became Vietnam’s first university. The Temple of Literature was surrounded by gorgeous gardens and included the Stelae of Doctors. Names of people who had achieved doctorates at the temple were carved into stelae, which were stones that sat atop a turtle, one of Vietnam’s four holy creatures. The turtle is meant to represent both wisdom and longevity. No wonder I’ve always liked them so much. Another of the four holy creatures, the dragon, sits a top the roof of the temple. Though not a holy creature, there are also two bronze statues of a crane sitting a top a turtle which is also meant to bring longevity. It was all really ornate.

Just one more stop for the day, and it was a sobering one to say the least – the Hoa Lo Prison. The prison, which sits right in the heart of the city, was used by the French during their time of occupation and later by the North Vietnamese to house political prisoners in absolutely brutal conditions. The prison was also used during the Vietnam war for American POWs but there were treated differently to the political prisoners, not amazing of course, but certainly with much more respect and dignity than the Vietnamese prisoners. John McCain was actually held in this prison during his time as a POW.

After a very full day, we were happy to find a roof top bar near our hotel. Watching the traffic was absolutely fascinating. We couldn’t resist taking another video. Keep your eye on the traffic circle in the middle and how minimal purpose it serves. Watching the mob of people try to cross the street is also pretty interesting.

On Day 3, we travelled about 120km outside of Hanoi to Ninh Binh which used to be the capital of Vietnam. After arriving in the area, we started the day with a bicycle ride to a set of temples that were built to honour two kings. Once again, this sacred spot was surrounded with water and beautiful gardens. The temples are more than 10 000 years old and it was interesting to see the moss darkening the stone on all the buildings and gates there.

We then jumped back on our bicycles to ride to our lunch location. The ride was so peaceful and we passed many beautiful sites along the way. I would have loved to ride a bit further, despite the heat and humidity.

While we were indoors enjoying lunch and cooling down in the air conditioning, Ninh Binh decided to share some rain with us. Our trip was on the edge of rain season, so we were expecting that we would get rained on a few times (this ended up being the only day). Fortunately, the plans for the afternoon included a boat ride so were able to proceed despite the weather. Our tour guide even gave us all raincoats. It brought back memories of all those see-through yellow ponchos that fill the walkways along Niagara Falls in summer. It rained pretty hard when we first arrived, but it stopped almost as soon as we got into the boats. I think the rainy, cloudy day made the scenery even more magical.

One of the most interesting things about this experience was the way in which the rowers rowed the boats – with their feet! No wonder they had the rule that they could only take two white people per boat (compared to four or five people of Asian descent).

When we arrived, I was expecting that the boat ride would be 10 or 15 minutes – it was nearly an hour. That’s a lot of rowing! The ride brought us through a number of different caves and along a river filled with these gorgeous green cliffs. It was pretty spectacular.

The following day, we said goodbye to Hanoi and travelled to Ha Long Bay which is famous for limestone mountains that rise up out of the water. Rob had arranged another boat tour for us, but this time we would be staying overnight on the boat in the middle of the bay. You get on a smallish boat at the harbour and they drive you out to the boat you will be staying on. That boat then stays connected to the cruiser so it can bring you back to the harbour in the morning. When I found out we were staying in the middle of the bay, I was feeling a bit relieved because I thought it meant we would be getting a break from all the hawkers we experienced in the city. Nope…they just pull up alongside your boat and sell their wares from the water. You have to admire the ingenuity and perseverance!

Every angle of the bay looks different as you travel through it. At night, while anchored, we were able to enjoy a beautiful sunset while enjoying some wine on top deck. It was a perfect evening!

And the sights didn’t end there. In the morning, we were able to watch the sun try to peek its way through the darkened clouds and then headed over to a little cove for another boat experience. This type of boat and rowing style was different to what we had seen in Ninh Binh with rowing done from a standing position. The cave was also quite different in its formation.

Well, I think I’ve probably overwhelmed you with way too many pictures for one post! I’ll post Part 2 soon with tales of our adventures in Hoi An, the city of lanterns, and Ho Chi Minh City, which used to be known as Saigon.

Until then…