Hanoi

After our great night hanging out with Cambodian breakdancers and a sobering morning learning about the Khmer Rouge regime, Cindy and I bid fairwell to Phnom Penh. We took a flight to Hanoi, which was a shock to the system on a number of levels. We had strange mojo with the taxi driver from the airport, our hotel didn't have enough rooms for us, and it was cold - much colder than we expected. Evidentally central heating is an Imperialist concept because our hotel was actually colder inside than out.




The city itself is very crowded and chaotic. Vietnam has about 10 times as many people as Cambodia and it shows. For traffic lovers, it's a bonanza. There are so many motorcycles whizzing by at any given time that just crossing the street is a major accomplishment. After a while you learn to just start walking and keep going.

I had such a fond impression of the southern Vienamese from an earlier trip ten years ago, remembering them to be some of the loveliest people I'd ever met. So I was pretty shocked by those in Hanoi. A crass commercialism, combined with a seeming lack of social skills, made them seem obnoxious and annoying. The vendors on the street wouldn't smile at you, but just yell: "You buy from me?! You buy from me?!" The worst were the pineapple ladies, who would follow you around relentlessly, putting their balancing pole on your shoulders and trying to get you to pay for a photo op. And everyone in the city with a motorbike (all 3 million or so), had gotten the same idea that they could be an impromptu taxi for tourists. Which is awfully convenient and the best way to get around, but overwhelming when you have literally the entire city yelling "Motorbike?! Motorbike?!" at you.




These were our first impressions, and of course after a we became acclimatized and bought some more appropriate clothing, we um...warmed up to the city. Hanoi is quite beautiful and walkable, with a compact, largely preserved old town core, many picturesque lakes, great restaurants and amenities. The residents have a certain kind of big city, Communist chic going on. Women wear high heels and drive motorbikes, with their fur-lined jackets and face masks. I found a sweet, excellent tailor to get some suits made, a friend of a friend of Cindy's ran an alternative movie house where we saw a great documentary on Saigon, and our hotel did have its chilly charms (mainly delicious pho for breakfast and the internet in every room). The cinema owner gave us directions for an awesome walking tour: we ended up going to see Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum (from the outside, it was closed), the lake where John McCain was shot down (he's actually very popular in Vietnam and was a favorite here for the election), and on a fairly posh island of apartment buildings on the lake, a cockfighting ring (okay not awesome but interesting). Aside from it being pretty awful, the location was so weird - it was as if someone had decided cockfighting would be a good addition to the Kirkland waterfront back in Seattle.