Hanoi and Ha Long Bay

Now in a hostel in Vientiane with crappy Internet, so I’ll post this when I can. Whew, so much has happened since now and then. I’ll start with where I left off…

Day 7

I felt pretty much recovered the day I flew out to Hanoi. I had my last Banh Mi in the morning and was in Hanoi’s old quarter by 2. All the taxis will try to rip you off, but there’s a minibus that goes from the airport to the city center for 40000 dong (approximately $2), and if your hostel is close to a Hanoi bus stop, you can also get a ride for as little as 7000 dong. The hostel I stayed in Hanoi was seriously the nicest hostel I’ve ever stayed in, and I’m not just talking about being clean – the staff wanted to do everything for me, giving me cups of water every time I sat down and not even letting carry my small bag up to my room. I got the “You’re Korean!” thing again, even though I kept saying I was American but they were super friendly. I couldn’t help but be a little suspicious if they were expecting a huge tip or something, but in the end, I guess they were going after those Hostelworld ratings… Since I didn’t get there til the afternoon, I wanted to do as much as possible. First, I went to Bach Ma temple – has some really cool artifacts in the main room, and this was my first exposure to Vietnamese temples. I kept seeing those exotic bird motifs everywhere. 

Bach Ma Temple

The ever-present bird

Then I and headed out to Hoan Kiem lake to see Ngoc Son Pagoda on the little islet in the lake and the locals hanging out as well as a water puppet show at Thang Long theater. The puppet show is worth seeing for 60000 dong – it’s just small puppets maneuvering through water, an art created by Vietnamese farmers, but the traditional music was good and some of the effects were impressive.

Ngoc Son Pagoda

Water Puppet show at Thang Long Theatre

People chilling by Hoan Kiem Lake

When I got out, the sun was setting over the lake, and it’s quite beautiful. I stopped by the Ly Thai To statue to get rammed in by a kid on roller blades – it’s a popular spot for skating and B-boying.

Ly Thai To statue - can't see all the crazy skaters around, but this is a popular spot

My impression of Hanoi is that it’s a tad bit slower than HCMC (I mean, there’s a bus system that actually works on the streets! Although the roads are still bustling with motorbikes) with more cultural things like temples and pagodas. There’s still some French architecture as well.

I ended up having a quick dinner in Lotteria because I was just hungry (I know I should have tried Vietnamese food, but more to come later!). It was actually my first time trying the Rice Bulgogi burger in Lotteria and it was pretty good, although the rice kept falling apart.

Rice Bulgogi burger from Lotteria

Busy street by the lake

Day 8

I headed out to Halong Bay on a 2-day, 1-night tour booked through my hostel. I’m sure I could’ve gotten significantly cheaper if I looked around when I got to Hanoi, but I just didn’t want to deal with the hassle of wasting time to find the best deal and the price they gave me wasn’t too bad. Again, the staff was creepily nice during breakfast. I joined the other people on the tour on a 4-hour minibus ride that took us to the pier in Ha Long City to board our junk boat. I would find out that this was just a series of transfers between smaller and larger vessels that would mark the entire weekend.

Unfortunately, our guide had terrible English, but it turned out to be a pretty good trip. Most touristy thing I’ve ever done and sometimes the crowd was just plain annoying, but it was my first experience throwing myself into a group that I didn’t know at all while solo traveling. I shared a room with a guy from the Netherlands who was also alone. As expected, there were a lot of couples on the trip, but I didn’t feel too left out, as there was a good number of travelers from England as well. Almost everyone was European; I was the only American on the trip. I found this to be a common phenomenon throughout my trip in Southeast Asia – maybe the Europeans just know how to vacation better?

All the goods on a boat

One of the many caves

It's supposed to look like cockfighting

One of the many cliffs around the bay

Beautiful sunset

The boat was small, but still large enough to have a dining room with a bar, our rooms, and a sundeck on top with lawn chairs. I took advantage of the sundeck a lot since I wanted to get as much of the bay as I could. We were pretty lucky with weather – it was clear the entire first day, when we did most of our outdoor activities – getting off at an island to look through a cave, kayaking (I felt sorry for my Dutch partner because I’m sure I wasn’t putting in nearly my fair share with the paddling), and stopping at another island for going up to the top for some views and swimming if we wanted. It’s a shame that it was just filled with tourists the entire time though; I’m sure the gigantic cliff faces dotting the bay must have been even more stunning when it was completely empty 30 years ago. But how did people travel back then without wifi and a completely non-English environment?

For night activities, there was fishing (but no one had much success) and just hanging out on deck. I struck up a conversation on the sundeck with an English guy about everything from traveling to health insurance in different countries. The view of the bay was equally beautiful at night, and I think it was worth paying extra to spend the night. As with the rest of the trip, I didn’t sleep much, but the beds were comfortable and the private bathrooms surprisingly clean for a boat.

Room on the boat

The second day was pretty cloudy with significant rain coming in the second half, but we could just stay indoors as we ate our last meal. We went to another inlet area for some more pics, but I think there’s only so many things you can do in a bay. I would say 2 days is sufficient enough for a tour if you just want to have good views of the bay, maybe 3 days if you’re splurging on a luxury cruise and you enjoy that sort of thing.

We headed back on the minibus to Hanoi and the English guys invited anyone who was interested to go to a great Vietnamese restaurant they had found near their hostel. I joined in, and it was the best dinner I had in Vietnam thus far - as much as I enjoy traveling alone, there are definitely advantages to traveling in a group after all. The restaurant is packed with locals, but the waiters are super efficient and the menu is packed with various Vietnamese dishes.

Quan An Ngon Restaurant - so packed but I recommend it!

Afterwards, one of the guys and I went to the night market, where I finally succumbed to souvenir shopping – and I got the iPho shirt I’ve been wanting! My hostel warned me that this was a prime place for pickpocketing, so I kept a tight hand on my bag. Also, everyone tries to rip you off if you’re a foreigners. I had to barter down a silk scarf 50% and I still think the woman was probably ripping me off. The key is to pick places that aren’t busy and walk away when they’re not budging to fit your suggested price. Still, I wish I knew some Vietnamese because that would have helped a lot.

Hanoi night market - soon to be PACKED a couple minutes later

Day 9

It was my last day in Hanoi as I would leave on the overnight bus to Vientiane (capital of Laos) that night. I walked over to the Ho Chin Minh Mausoleum, but the lines were super long, so I decided to just visit the nearby Ho Chi Minh Museum instead. I mean, I’ve heard it’s worth looking for the creepy atmosphere, but I’m one to think the dead should be buried or cremated in peace. The museum was also really crowded (probably tour groups coming in after the mausoleum as well as schoolchildren running around) but I loved all the quirkiness. It’s basically all propaganda with the signs endlessly glorifying HCM besides artsy displays that would “interpret” his vision for Vietnam or another. It’s also got some memorabilia of the man himself (his glasses, his weights he used to exercise, etc.). My favorite was a 3-D representation of Guernica or as the sign read, “the fight against fascism”. Definitely worth a look, and probably more interesting than the mausoleum, or at least that’s what I tell myself.

Cool Guernica exhibit at HCM museum

This is supposed to be some sort of representation of nature ... not sure exactly but quirky enough for me

HCM's personal weights

HCM mausoleum

Next, I went to the famed Temple of Literature, a Confucian temple with 5 different compartments with the last being an ancient university. They’ve really done up the place, with colored hedges neatly spelling out Chinese characters and beautiful lakes in the first several compartments. Again, it was crowded, but I definitely appreciated the aesthetic of the temple.

One of the lakes in the complex

The lawn staff keeps it up here

Temple of Literature - gorgeous

Then I stopped for some pho (finally!) by the side of the temple. But remember to always check your change because the guy tried to cheat me off 100000 dong when I was paying for my meal, but good thing I thought to count that time.

It was a little hot towards midday, so I decided to try out the buses. I was clueless as to how to pay when I got on board, but I soon found out it was like Bangkok – there’s a guy on the bus who collects money by hand and issues you a ticket saying you’ve paid the fare. I reached West Lake, a larger lake than Hoan Kiem in a more residential area, with Tran Quoc Pagoda, the oldest pagoda in Hanoi, in an islet off it. Since I got there right when it opened after lunch, I got to see inside the main complex which is chock full interesting Buddha figurines and other artifacts before the many elder nuns shooed me away.

Tran Quoc Pagoda

Nuns setting up for the afternoon

I took the bus back to the hostel where they were nice enough to let me take a shower before my loooong ride. I was right about them being all about Hostelworld ratings because they reminded me to do so when I got the online prompt. But I can’t deny they were the nicest hostel staff I’ve ever met.

Now onto the hellish bus ride across the Laos-Vietnam border and to Vientiane…

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HCMC

Day 5

Woke up feeling weak and lightheaded. It seemed like a slight fever but I really wanted to see the city center so I thought I would walk around but take it easy. It was a nice, cool day (well, cool meaning low 80s and cloudy) which was a welcome break from the heat in Cambodia. I hopped on the motorbike again as my friend’s brother dropped me off in front of the Reunification Palace, the former headquarters of South Vietnam and the mark of the end of the war as the North Vietnamese army crashed into the palace during the Fall of Siagon. There are numerous meeting rooms with plush chairs, offices with military maps, and communication rooms in the basement. My favorite room was the game room, still with domino sets stacked on a table in the corner.

Like a modern palace...

Even the higher-ups still need some games every now and then.

Walking around the city center was much more manageable, although again you need to look in all directions and people will ask you at every corner if you want a ride on their motorbike. I thought maybe some food would help me feel better, so I headed over to a café and had watermelon juice (yum!) and egg over noodles for breakfast. I did feel a little better, so I kept on walking to the Ben Tranh market, again filled with everything from silk to what I now knew to be fake electronics. Then I walked to the Saigon River and looked around the Bitexco Financial Tower. You can go up to the skydeck for a view of the city but given the price ($10) and the cloudy conditions, I decided to skip it. I walked back to towards the middle of the city center on the main street lined with 5-star hotels and name brands like Gucci. I guess there’s a significant gap between the rich and poor here too.

Silk in Ben Thanh Market

Bitexco Tower

I wandered around taking pics of the French architecture (left over from being a former French colony) including the Opera House, the Post Office, City Hall, and the Notre Dame Cathedral in Saigon. I wanted to go inside the cathedral but it was closed for lunch, so I rested up in the nearby Saigon Post Office, another landmark building.

Me and Uncle Ho in front of City Hall

Notre Dame Cathedral (in Saigon)

Saigon Post Office

My last stop was the War Remnants Museum, which is something I definitely recommend to see because of the different view of the war you’ll get here. Although it’s mostly just galleries of photos, they’re pretty moving. They do sort of demonize the U.S., but they also had an exhibit of American youth protesting the war and seemed to acknowledge that a lot of American people at least were against the war. Then plenty of photos of American soldiers being pretty brutal towards Vietnamese civilians, including the effects of the chemical Agent Orange  – well, the photos are true and that’s what happened after all. I was feeling pretty weak at this point though, so I kept stopping at each floor to rest for 15 minutes – I felt like an old lady who couldn’t walk anymore. Normally, it would have taken me an hour and a half at most to go through a museum of that size, but I ended up staying there for 3 hours. After the final floor, I went outside to get some air again and look at the U.S. planes and tanks that were also on display around the museum. God, if a ginormous tank with a flamethrower rolled up in my village, I wouldn’t know what to do. 

Actually, I've been thinking about the military as a possible career choice recently (out of the many other options running through my mind), but after going to the museum, I think even the possibility of such war crimes happening now (and I'm sure they do still happen) has discouraged me a bit. 

"The above picture shows exactly what the brass want you to do in the Nam. The reason for printing this picture is not to gut down G.I.'s but rather to illustrate the fact that the Army can really fuck over your mind if you let it. / It's up to you, you can put in your time making it back in one piece or you can become a psycho like the Lifer (E-6) who really digs this kind of shit. It's your choice."

Very powerful picture

Well, this is kind of intimidating.

For dinner, I had delicious fish and thin noodles with my friend’s family (ah, I forgot the name of the dish), and although I didn’t notice a temperature difference when I felt my forehead, they insisted I had a fever. They also served me lots of fruits – mangosteen, oranges, rambutan (Malay for “hairy”, which is basically a more natural and better tasting version of lychee), but I was losing my appetite by the end of the night, so I could only eat a few. I took some Tylenol before going to bed at a very, very early 9, only to wake up at 2, blog for a bit, and go back to sleep at 5.

(Stock photo) Rambutan: It has a funny name and shape, but it's basically lychee in the wild and it's AMAZING. Trust me. 

Well, if I had to pick when to get sick, this was the best time, since I was staying with a friend and in a convenient city.  This is the first time I’ve gotten sick while traveling (besides the occasional stomach sickness from questionably hygienic foods), and it’s not a good feeling. As a hypochondriac, I Googled dengue fever, malaria, and Japanese encephalitis, all of which have similar symptoms that appear anywhere from a few days to two weeks after getting bitten by a vector mosquito, and I decided to look out for any new developments in the next few days. Yes, I know I was being paranoid, but this was my reasoning - I got a lot of bug bites in Japan a few days before I left, but the only mosquito bite I got in SE Asia was one on my finger while I was at Angkor Wat (guess you need to spray bug spray thoroughly on your hands too!). There’s a very small chance of it being malaria because I haven’t been bitten in a malaria-affected area, or Japanese encephalitis since the chances of getting that in Japan is like close to zero. Possibly dengue – if I develop a rash in the next few days, it probably is. The sad thing is, even if I know what it is, there’s no treatment for dengue fever or Japanese encephalitis. I’ll just take Tylenol like crazy and try to take it easy for the next few weeks if this fever lasts more than a day.

The #2 quality you should have while traveling after flexibility is OPTIMISM. Even though I got sick, I’m very thankful it was when I’m staying at a friend’s house, my fever wasn’t that high, and I still got to see a lot of HCMC. Also, my travel plans worked out perfectly in terms of the strenuous stuff - I definitely couldn’t have had the energy to bike around Angkor Wat like this. And when I was planning for the trip, I was about to book overnight trains to Da Nang to see Hoi An after HCMC, but at the last minute, I decided against it because there just wasn’t enough time to do each place justice. So instead, I booked a direct flight to Hanoi, which will be only 2 hours of traveling (and surprisingly cheap - almost the same price as the train) vs. the 15 or so hours to Da Nang on the train. Of course, I would still love to see places like Hoi An and Hue some day (excuse to come back to Vietnam!) but it did somehow work out perfectly. Fingers crossed that I’ll be fully recovered by Laos because that will be a bit more work.

Day 6

Felt MUCH better today, although it could have been just because of the Tylenol. I decided to stay in mostly and just rest up, since I had seen mostly everything I wanted to in the city center yesterday. My friend treated me to delicious Banh Mi at a local food stall for breakfast – the meat was so fresh and the bread was also crisp because it had just been baked. I took a picture with my phone around the area, but then my friend told me to avoid taking photos in the local streets if I could – someone had been doing the same with a fake Chinese iPhone and had gotten their hand cut off as a motorbike came by to steal the phone. All for a fake iPhone… I lounged around in the morning in a hammock watching the Vietnam television’s version of MTV and attempting to study for the GRE with little success. Vietnamese TV, at least at my friend’s house, has lots of international channels too with English, Korean, and Chinese channels (although the Korean and Chinese are often dubbed over).

Banh Mi - oh man so good. Best breakfast in a while.

For lunch, we went out again for pork sausage, a Chinese vegetable I’ve already forgotten the name of (but would like to know because it was so good!), and “broken” rice – called broken because it’s almost like a couscous quality. I also had a sweet southern Vietnamese dessert called chè with shaved ice, various beans, jellies, and coconut milk mixed into one delicious drink, as well as a sweet pastry. So full, but so satisfying :)

Chè with lots of beans and jellies :)

In the evening, we went to a massage place because my friend told me it was really cheap in the area. I’ve never gotten a professional massage before because it’s not really a thing to do back home and even when I’m traveling in places that are famous for their massages (especially Thailand), I’m a little intimidated by figuring out the best places. We were originally just going to do a foot massage for $4, but they had a special that day for 45-minute foot + 90-minute full body massage for $10. We did the foot massage first, watching the music video channel again. Vietnamese foot massages actually encompass the legs, and the guys who did it for us also added a brief shoulder massage at the end. It was a little painful, but your feet and legs after all are the parts of your body that endure the most. We tipped at the end, and I put down the same amount as my friend – but then they gave us a funny look when we gave them the tipping receipt. Oops, I guess it was too low for the place.

Next, we went up to another room where the women gave us the body massage. It wasn’t as painful as the foot one, maybe because the women were tired at the end of the day, but it still felt good. Massage is like acrobatics in a way – my masseuse had me do all sorts of stretches that I never knew existed. The best part was when they used these hot stones to rub across your body – it’s a burning sensation, but it’s not too painful and somehow your back appreciates the searing sensation. They also did a head massage at the end which felt awesome.

I gave a larger tip (30%) this time. I don’t know how my masseuse felt about it, but my friend’s masseuse asked her, “Are you sure this is (amount)?” and gave her a look afterwards. So I guess it was still low. Apparently, they sometimes get tipped the same amount as the price of the massage from generous men, so of course, anything we tipped would have been ridiculously low. But that massage place paid their own workers at least, so I didn’t feel too bad.

We ate dinner at the house – pork and lady fingers with shrimp-flavored sauce. I LOVE Asian meat because they keep all the good fatty stuff people trim off in America. Then we ate a ton of rambutan, and watched the Vietnamese version of Don’t Forget the Lyrics and the soccer match between the Vietnamese national team and the Arsenals, who they had invited to play in Hanoi. The Arsenals won 7-1, but the Vietnamese people are pretty patriotic and cheered just as loudly when they scored a goal.

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