I love Vietnam . Frankly, I have a lot of respect for her people. I see myself being similar to them in some aspects. They are Asians. So am I. They work hard. So do I (I think). They love their pho bo and pho ga (soup noodles). So do I (but then again I love all kinds of food). They were fucked over by the French and Americans. I was… ahem, never mind that. I also see myself being different from the Vietnamese in some aspects. The men are skinny (looking almost malnourished if I may say). I am not. They speak Vietnamese. I do not. They have lived a very tough life. I have not (unless you count paying expensive rent and putting up with the closet apartment space as one).
After visiting Ho Chi Minh City last year, I decided to make a trip to the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi in early July this year. Much like the Chinese government, The Vietnamese government no longer enforces traditional communism on its people. In fact, it is now a free communist country. Nevertheless, you can still witness traces of communism in the country especially in northern cities, such as Hanoi . This is the very city where the much revered late leader/father of Vietnam Ho Chi Minh (also known as “Uncle Ho”) was buried. The name Hanoi is similar to the mandarin pronunciation that means ‘inside the river’. Hanoi, which is also the capital of Vietnam, is located in a bend of the Red River .
There are a few sightseeing spots not to be missed in Hanoi . Honestly you only need a full day to cover all these spots. Because I had my folks with me and the weather was exceptionally hot and humid, I hired a tour guide to take us on a city tour in a private car. The cost was very reasonable, only USD35 per person including lunch (but not drinks or tips, as stated on the invoice in bold text as if you would accidentally forget about that). We checked out Uncle Ho’s embalmed corpse at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex. Frankly, at the risk of sounding disrespectful to Uncle Ho, he looked more like a wax figure at Madame Tussaud’s Museum. We also visited The One Pillar Pagoda, The Temple of Literature , Vietnam Museum of Ethnology and the famous Hoan Kiem Lake. The highlight of our day was the “cyclo” ride. It’s a pretty fun activity if you don’t mind risking your life by inhaling the bad air and having the crazy locals drive their $200 Chinese made motorcycles into your cyclo. We ended our first day by attending the much celebrated water puppet performance at the Municipal Water Puppet Theater.
The Vietnamese worshipping culture is a tad different than the rest of Asia . Besides worshipping the different deities, they also worship their late kings and emperors. Vietnamese house and worship the statue of their deities in pagodas but do the same with the statue of their late kings and emperors in temples.
Our city day tour came with an English speaking tour guide, a local named Hoang Long. He was funny, caring and really knew his stuff. We liked him so much that we hired him to take us to Halong Bay the following day. I would recommend using him if you visit Hanoi in future. His email address is longtakraw186@yahoo.com
So after a much needed rest and cooling off in our air-conditioned hotel room following a full day of touring the city, we went to Halong Bay the following day. Designated as Vietnam’s second world heritage site, Halong Bay is simply magnificent and offers such spectacular sights. Picture 3000 plus lime-stone islands rising from the water of the Gulf of Tonkin ! I wanted to go there as soon as I saw the pictures of Halong Bay on my guidebook. It reminded me of Guilin, China . We purchased a package through our hotel (using the same tour guide as the one for our city day tour). It was USD75 a person. The package included our own mini-van, boat and a seafood lunch served on the boat (again, drinks and tips not included, as stated in bold text on the invoice). The drive was three-hours each way and the cruise was about four-hours long. There was also an added bonus with the tour which came in the form of hair-raising thrills offered by our driver. The freeway, if you can call it that, for most of the journey to Halong Bay was a single lane road and we faced countless slow moving trucks en route. Drivers of smaller and faster vehicles, such as ours, would get impatient and attempt to get ahead of these trucks. Doing this occasionally is acceptable, but our driver did this for 90% of the journey. Often a time the oncoming vehicle was only within inches away. It got so bad at one point that I started praying to Buddha for our safety (as a fail safe plan, I also prayed to Jesus and Allah). Our driver, on the other hand, chatted on his cell phone and wore no seat belts. Doing this was apparently part of his daily routine.
If there is one thing about Vietnam that aggravates me, it is the way the locals drive their motorcycles and cross the streets. Cabbies honk their horns every two seconds (believe me, it’s worse than the ones in New York City ). They have to do this because the motorcycles, and there were tons of them here, would come out in the middle of nowhere and ignore the cars. The pedestrians are as bad as those riding the motorcycles. They would cross the roads or even the freeways by holding out their hands infront of the cars and expecting the traffic to stop. I am sure there are a lot of accidents involving motorcycles or pedestrians here. Unfortunately we witnessed a couple of them during our stay here.
As for the food, Vietnamese food is delicious as usual. Pho (noodles) is a must to get, as well as the appetizing salad made with lotus roots and peanuts. I did discover that there were a lot of demands for dog and cat meats here in the city which is disturbing to say the least. Because our stay in Hanoi was short, we did not get to visit many restaurants, but we did go to a few notable ones:
Indochine,
16 Nam Ngu St
, Hoan Kiem District, Tel. 9422097 ( Set in a beautifully restored colonial home; Food tuned down for foreign palate, but done well; Hard to find, located on a small alley).
Pho 24, multiple locations (Serves great chicken and beef broth noodles; Cheap, only a couple of dollars per bowl)
Brother’s Café,
26 Nguyen Thai Hoc St, Tel 7333866 (Offers Lunch/dinner buffet featuring typical Vietnamese dishes at a very reasonable cost (USD6 for lunch and USD12 for dinner, excluding beverages); Set in a courtyard of a beautifully restored 250-year old Buddhist temple).
All in all, this was an enjoyable, albeit sweaty, trip. I am glad I got to spend some quality time with my mom and dad. Although not as popular as Thailand, Vietnam definitely has a lot to offer to tourists. You will appreciate the reasonable prices, spectacular sights, great foods and rich culture here. Like any Southeast Asian country, Vietnam is hot, humid and rainy during summer. I have a lot of praises for Vietnam , but I have visited this country twice so I think it will be a while before I make another trip here, despite my affection for the country and my admiration for her hard-working and resilient people. Now I just need to convince some of my Vietnamese American friends that have never been to Vietnam to pay their mother country a visit. It’s well worth the 14-17 hours flight.
