John and Joanna at the Mausoleum

The Hanoi Traffic

Day 6: The Whirlwind Tour of Hanoi

By the way, I am having trouble uploading photos. Unfortunately, the internet in Vietnam is slow and difficult.

We started the day somewhat early, as we had a lot to do and some of the sights close early. We started off at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Museum. A long line of mostly locals stretched for quite a while. There was a very strict process of first dropping off your bag sans camera and cell phones, the grabbing a bag in which to place the camera and cell phones, the giving them a bag. We fortunately got to see a changing of the guard. Once inside, we were quickly ushered through and past Ho Chi Minh’s body. Very weird. The next step was a tour through Ho’s house and office. The most interesting piece was the museum. The museum described the life of Ho, focusing largly on his work in building the communist party, the war against the French and the war against the Americans. It was our first experience with the propaganda machine regarding the Vietnam War. However, it was somewhat air-conditioned.

The next step was the War Museum, a full on, propaganda machine. It was largely focused on the war with the French, but there were some pieces regarding America, including a monument of shot down American planes.

The final step of sightseeing was the temple of knowledge. A place where many people came to study Confucius. While it is beautiful and would have been nice surroundings to study, I think it would have been too darn hot to learn anything. Exhausted, thirsty and a bit hungry, we headed to a café for lunch.

We ate at the KOTO café; KOTO stands for Know One Teach One and they take kids of the street and teach them the culinary arts. Bill Clinton even stopped by when he visited. We were hot, sweaty and tired when we arrived and initially disappointed when it looked as if they were full. But, fortunately, they gave us each a foot high stool to sit on, a cold, wet rag and a drink menu. We were able to refresh ourselves with a cold drink while we awaited a seat. The food wasn’t bad and the service was very friendly. We definitely took our time before we headed out for our walking tour.

During the walking tour, we took in the Hanoi experience: shops and food stands, walking across a busy intersection as mopeds and motorcycles zip past (you can’t run or stop, otherwise they will hit you, you just have to walk and know they will avoid you), constant bombardment from people wanting to give us rides (they must have thought us crazy for walking). One of the things we noticed was how different categories of merchandise are allocated to different streets; a street for hardware, a street for auto parts and repair, a street for baby supplies, etc. We even found a few places for shopping the next day. One purse store gave all the guys seats and told Ryan that he was handsome. We ended the day booking a day trip through An Tours to Halong Bay. They’ve been so great to deal with through the Visas that we felt good using them for our trip to Halong Bay. While we’re all not big fans of using guided tours, it seemed to make sense for something like Halong Bay. Our contact also got us a good deal on tickets to Hue.

We met up for dinner at Indochine with another friend from school and her friend. Indochine came highly recommended and was fantastic. We ate a lot of great food for pretty cheap (thanks Neil!). After dinner we headed over to Apocalypse Now, because I thought it was supposed to be good. I’m sure on the right night it would be great, but we just weren’t in the mood for loud ridiculously thumping techno music. Without even having a drink, we headed over to Bobby Chins. A cool chill atmosphere with Hookas. We lounged in the back for a beer and a Martini.