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Date: 18 May 2011 09:17:54
Title: Hanoi Again - Hanoi, Vietnam
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21:02.187N  105:50.830E
 
May 1, 2011 - May 4, 2011
 
When we returned to the Charming II Hotel in Hanoi at 4:30 am after spending the night on the train from Sapa wrapped in clammy sheets and attempting to sleep on concrete mattresses, it was a little like coming home.  The door was opened for us by a sleepy bellboy, and as we skirted around the three motorcycles parked inside the door and climbed up the tube house steps to the lobby level, we noticed the manager and one of the other hotel workers fast asleep wrapped in sheets spread out on the marble lobby floor.  At first we thought, wow the hotel must be full and that's why they are sleeping on the lobby floor, but later we learned they sleep on the lobby floor every night.  It's their home, just like Hanoi's sidewalks are considered part of the home for most of Hanoi's 6.3 million residents.  After telling Jan and Dave from boat Baraka about our lobby sleeping hotel workers, they said it was exactly the same at their Hanoi hotel.  We surmised it must be the norm for some hotel workers to permanently camp out on Hanoi hotel lobby floors.  Geez and we thought our concrete soft sleeper train mattresses were hard.  Hanoi citizens are hearty.  And hard workers beyond belief.  The Charming II staff got up every day at 5:30 or 6 (unless returning guests woke them earlier) to prepare breakfast and as far as we could tell, the same staff continued working throughout the day and night until all guests were accounted for, around midnight.  On top of that, they catered to our every need, completely sincere in their desire to help.  They made us coffee and tea when we arrived at 4:30 in the morning.  They took us shopping for a local cell phone sim card.  They arranged our Lao Cai/Sapa train tickets, provided fresh fruit every day, took care of our laundry, and took time to strike up a conversation every time we walked through the tiny lobby.  Man, we could get used to this. 
 
We spent the next two days wandering the streets of Hanoi.  Below are pictures.
 
Hanoi is not a beautiful city.  It has more character than beauty.  However, there are a few spots where some beautification effort has been made.  Hoan Kiam Lake (pictured in the background here), is Hanoi's answer to New York's Central Park.  It's about 1/1,000th the size of Central Park, slightly barren and the lake water polluted, but the idea is the same.  People flock to Hoan Kiam Lake and its surrounding promenade with their kids to enjoy the water and take in the sights (like these rather large cherry blossom sculptures).
 
 
Don was feeling under the weather (picked up a cold in Sapa), so we opted for a couple of cyclo rides through the Old and French Quarters of Hanoi instead of walking.  Our first driver/peddler (pictured in the middle above) struggled to get the momentum going with both of us seated in the cyclo.  The slightest incline caused him to strain mightily on the peddles.  At the finish of our hour long ride, we tipped him well to make up for it his pain.  He smiled.
 
 
In Hanoi, there is no need for cars, buses or trucks to transport stuff when it can just as easily be moved on a motorcycle.  Like this painting.  Our only question:  where exactly is the driver?
 
 
Need a fan anyone?
 
 
You can tell by the flags that it's Liberation/Labor Day weekend in Hanoi.  Also, this is more evidence of the sidewalk's role in Hanoi society.
 
 
The Opera House (left) and the Hanoi Hilton (right).  Situated in the more spacious French Quarter, we decided this Hanoi Hilton isn't quite the same as the one mentioned in all those war stories.
 
 
Uh-oh, trouble with the pineapple lady.  The trick is, put your conical hat on the foreigner and make him hoist your baskets of fruit on his shoulder, then tell the foreigner's wife to take a picture.  Once done, insist vehemently that they now owe you and must buy some pineapple.  If the foreigner protests, keep insisting louder and more vigorously until the foreigners break down and pay triple the going price for a few bananas.
 
 
We spent our last day in Vietnam on a small group tour.  A two hour minibus ride took us to Hoa Lu, the site of the 10th century capital of a Vietnamese Kingdom where we saw two small temples built to honor two kings who ruled during that short dynasty.  After viewing the temples (which paled in a big way vs the grandeur and opulence of Thailand's Buddhist temples), we rented bikes and cycled an hour through the valley pictured above.  The limestone formations are so similar to those of Thailand's Phang Nga Bay we felt we belonged there even though we were on wheels and not floating.
 
 
After the bicycle ride, we took a ride in a sampan (ah...floating in a boat through limestone formations, this is more like it), which was rowed by two locals.  Note the temple sitting on the top of the cliff.  The squiggly line to the left of the temple is a huge carved dragon.
 
 
Our sampan was much like this one, and the river trip took us through three long, low caves like the one pictured here.  It doesn't look like the cave goes anywhere, but not unlike the Emerald Cave leading to the hong on Muk Island in Thailand, it and two others just like it go right through.  The trip would have been enjoyable if the sampan rowers hadn't so aggressively tried to sell us embroidered items on the way back down the river.  We felt trapped and turned-off.  To make matters worse, the sampan team demanded a tip before we reached shore - essentially indicating they wouldn't take us back until the tip was paid.  We got out what we thought was an appropriate amount of dong (especially since we had already purchased the sampan captain a beer and his assistant an iced tea at the half-way stop), but they sneered at the tip we offered, refusing to take what they considered to be a pittance.  Well, that did it for us.  We refused to pay them anything and insisted they take us to shore.  They did and we left feeling like the day had been tainted by our rowers' nastiness.  This was the only time in Vietnam we felt we were being taken advantage of.  It's too bad it happened on our last day, ending our trip on a sour note.  It wasn't until today when I re-read the section about Tam Coc in our guidebook that I realized the warning was there all along, "...they're even trying to clamp down on the over-zealous - occasionally aggressive - peddling of embroideries and soft drinks by the sampan-rowers."  Well, it's good to know that the tour organizers know this is a problem, but our guide book is over two years old, so it doesn't seem like the clamp down is working.  Hmmmm....
 
Ok, one more Vietnam story before the topic is closed.  This is one of our favorites.
Our flight out of Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City was early at 6:30 am.  After discussing it with our marvelous hosts at the Charming II, we decided it was best to leave the hotel at 4:30 am.  So we did, with no problem (aside from waking up the sleeping bodies in the lobby again on our way out).  We boarded the plane with Don in the window seat, me in the middle and a tiny, 70-something Vietnamese woman in the aisle seat.  Don and I proceeded to try and get some sleep while the plane was loaded.  Shortly after the plane started to taxi, the woman next to me nudged my arm.  Thinking something was wrong, I opened my eyes to see what she wanted.  She spoke no English, but with a few Vietnamese words (which I didn't understand) and a few gestures, she seemed to be saying, "Hey!  The plane is moving, pay attention!"  Or maybe she was concerned that I wasn't paying attention to the flight attendant's safety instructions.  Whatever the reason, I decided it was in my best interest to stay awake at least through take off, so I wouldn't offend my seat mate.
 
As the plane approached take-off, the lady grew more agitated.  Squirming, fidgeting, looking side to side, straining to see out the window, glancing at me every few seconds with a perplexed look.  Ok, ok, I finally got it. This woman had never flown before.  She was alone on a plane surrounded by foreigners and she was scared.  I gave her my best, "everything is going to be ok" look and patted her arm.  The plane took off and she sat at rigid attention the whole time, big eyes swinging from side to side.  When she felt comfortable enough to take her iron grip off the arm rests, she asked me through hand gestures if we were still going up.  I nodded my head yes.  A few minutes later and she seemed to relax when the plane leveled off.  Now she moved into Curious George mode.  What's this?  She indicated the tray table and the hole in the tray table (for drinks).  How do you do this?  She indicated the button that releases the seat back.  I showed her how to work it, but her miniscule body mass wasn't enough to get the seat to move, so I gave it a shove.  Whoa!  She liked that and settled into her seat further.  I noticed her feet dangling above the floor and flipped the foot rest down for her.  She acted grateful and decided it was time to show me her (new?) purse and all its contents.  Out came her plane ticket.  I indicated she needed to keep it safe as it had two bag tags attached to it.  Then came her Vietnamese identification card.  Very nice, I nodded.  And then the grand finale, a wad of Vietnamese dong (money).  She had some dong loaded up in a wallet (also looked new) and a plastic bag with more dong wads in it.  She spent the next fifteen minutes arranging her dong, smoothing it out, counting it, etc.  Given that $1 equals 20,000 Vietnamese dong, a lot of dong goes a little way.  I tried not to stare and left her to her money tidying while I tried to take a nap. 
 
It wasn't long before the food cart arrived.  The choice was rice porridge or some kind of quiche thing.  Surprisingly, she went for the quiche.  The perplexing thing for her was that there were no chopsticks, and everything was packaged in a plastic pouch or foil dish, which she didn't seem to know how to open.  I and the English guy across the aisle helped her to unpackage her food.  Then she did her best to use knife and fork to eat her quiche.  Now I know how the Vietnamese must have felt watching Don and I use chopsticks, because watching this lady use a knife and fork for probably the first time in her life was like watching a toddler learn to feed himself.  She did well and nary a crumb was spilled.  After turning up her nose at the fruit (which wasn't that fresh), she polished off the rest of her meal and seemed pleased.  She then pointed to her plastic silverware and then to herself, asking me something.  I wasn't sure what she was asking.  She asked again.  Then again.  I finally decided she wanted to know if the silverware was hers.  I nodded yes.  I received a huge smile in return and she immediately bent to the task of wiping off the entire set of plastic (knife, fork, large and small spoons).  Once finished, she looked to me again for affirmation, were they hers?  I nodded yes.  She dug out the plastic pouch they came in, loaded them back in and proudly stuffed them in her purse.  Then she looked at me again and nodded at my tray.  Not sure what she was asking, I just nodded yes.  Another huge grin and she started working on my plastic silverware.  I finally got it.  So did Don and the English guy across the aisle.  We all stifled laughs and sent our plastic silverware her way.  She meticulously cleaned off every piece, put them all into a plastic pouch, and added them to the stash in her purse.  Pleased as punch, she leaned back to enjoy the rest of the trip.
 
As we descended, she held her ears and looked pleadingly at Don, the English guy and I.  What's happening?, she seemed to be asking.  Why do my ears hurt so much?  We tried to offer suggestions to increase her comfort.  We moved our jaws up and down.  She looked at us like we were being rude (according to Vietnamese custom, we probably were).  We tugged on our earlobes.  We asked the Vietnamese guy in the row ahead of us to explain to her what was happening.  He did, but to no avail, she kept covering her ears and looking at us with big doe eyes.  This went on until we landed and she seemed to recover.  From there, the English guy took her under his wing and got her on the shuttle bus to the terminal.  After that we all lost track of her as we transferred to our Kuala Lumpur flight and she (hopefully) went to baggage claim.  We can only wonder where she was going and why.  Maybe a son or daughter lives in Ho Chi Minh and she was there for a visit?  Or was moving there?  She did have two suitcases after all.  Between those and the new set of plastic ware she picked up on the plane, she'd be able to set up house anywhere.  All she'd need is a slice of sidewalk and a tube house room.
 
Once again we were humbled by one who appreciates the smallest of small things, has so little, yet seems to thrive and be happy.
Anne
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