Whereas Ho Chi Minh City has wide streets and wide pavements, the old quarter in Hanoi, the spiritual heart of the one party state that is modern Vietnam, is a pedestrians' nightmare. In fact, the pavements are completely taken up either with street vendors and restaurants or for moped parking. When you walk down the street here in Hanoi, you literally walk down the street. Dodging the bikes and mopeds and cars has after almost 3 weeks in Vietnam become second nature. It is all in the steady movement so that the bikes etc can swerve around you as they predict your next step.
Hanoians are a bit cooler than their southern colleagues. It is not simply because the weather is perhaps surprisingly fresh here in northern Vietnam. It is also I suspect a product of the weariness the true champions of communist Vietnam have of their more capitalist leaning fellow countryman. Hanoi is Ho Chi Minh town with a large mausoleum housing the mummified remains and museums given over to the glorious history of the nationalist leader who founded the Vietnamese Communist party and led the revolt that lead, finally, to the unified country it is now. We have found the whole place more challenging than the old Saigon. Part of it I am sure is the difficulty you have in getting round and partly because of the weather in winter.
My favourite T shirt seen on the stalls of Vietnam is one of an inverted traffic light. It says next to the green light : I can go. Next to the yellow it says the same thing. Next to the red light is what it says in the title of this post. And it is so true here. We have seen cars and buses heading down the wrong side of dual carriageways, trucks that simply pull out on to the roads and bicycles cycling against the traffic across busy intersections. Like India, we will always remember the traffic here. My runner up in the T shirt competition is a shirt that says Pho Metal Jacket.
We have been in Halong Bay the last 3 days which partly explains why there has been a gap in posting on the blog. The other reason was the first hotel we stayed at here in Hanoi before our journey down to Halong had very poor wifi. Halong Bay is a four hour trip by road from Hanoi. It is clearly one of the places to visit in Vietnam and I think both Tess and I would agree deserves its World Heritage listing. It is stunning.
The only problem with Halong Bay is that it is so popular to visit. In the high season apparently upwards of 500 boats are operating. Although this is the low season now, we were playing bumper junks with at least 60 other large vessels as we left the mainland port at lunchtime and headed into the maze of limestone outcrops. Hundreds of others joined us in large caves, climbing to the top of one of the outcrops for a great view and watching Tess, me and a family of Australians go for a swim in what would diplomatically be described as refreshing conditions. As night fell it did not matter so much that there were so many boats out until we moored next to the Halong Party boat which blared out a ribcage shaking beat into the early hours. I could put up with the large junk which had pulsating lights running along its decks like a rundown casino or massage palour. The music on the other hand spoilt the experience for hundreds. We were fortunate to have an extra day on our trip and head down much deeper into the limestone cliffs to go cycling on an island, kayak and swim. For those who spent just one night on the Bay, they were gifted a sleepless night. The signs are not good for Halong. Very large hotels are being built on the mainland, along with waterside villas just like in Florida or on the Gold Coast.
Our 17 days in Vietnam are about to end. Tomorrow we fly to Luang Prabang in Laos. We have both loved Vietnam though and the Vietnamese in particular. They work very hard and the country deserves to succeed, as I am sure it will continue to do so. This is capitalism with the foot down hard on the accelerator. I like to think FDR or Ike would have been far too smart to have got embroiled in the ultimately needless fiasco that their successors in the 60s did. Still, the people here have forgiven and are getting on. There is an awful lot to like here.
I should also note that H is the second most commonly used letter in Vietnamese after the ubiquitous N. It might also explain why every place we have visited and stayed in : Ho Chi Minh, Hoi An, Hue, Hanoi and Halong has started with H ! It is coincidentally in the bottom half of the table of letters used most frequently in English.
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