Vietnam #2: Hanoi, Halong, and Puppets!

After a really nice time in southern Vietnam, we took a 2 hour flight from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) to Hanoi, the capitol of Vietnam, in the north. If you haven't looked at a map of Vietnam lately, you should pull it up on Google Maps. I continue to be surprised by it's shape, very long and skinny, with lots of coastline. Because of a flight delay, we arrived in Hanoi at 1:00am on a Friday night/Saturday morning. On our taxi ride into town, we were surprised at how many people were out and about in the middle of the night. We assumed it was young people going home from clubs until we started seeing motos and bicycles carrying huge bundles of flowers and greenery. Soon after, we drove past a HUGE flower market called Quang Ba, buzzing with activity in the middle of the night. Brilliant colors, lots of activity, and tons of people coming and going. It was a fun introduction to Hanoi.

It was too dark to get pictures of our night flower market drive-by, but here are some of the bouquets those flowers ended up in. 

Our first morning in Hanoi, we visited the Confucian Temple of the Jade Mountain. It's on a little island in the center of Hoàn Kiếm Lake (Lake of the Returned Sword), which is in the middle of the Hanoi's Old Quarter, and conveniently close to our hotel. According to legend, in the 1400s, the Emperor was boating on the lake when a golden turtle surfaced and asked that his sword be returned to him. After the Emperor was finished fighting off the Chinese, he returned the sword to the turtle. There is now a Turtle Tower on the lake to commemorate this event.

Lake of the Returned Sword, as seen from the Temple of the Jade Mountain, on the island in the middle. 

A bridge leads over to the island (on the right)

The temple's gift shop sells golden turtles with swords, to go along with the lake's legend.  

Temple of the Jade Mountain.

The roads in Vietnam are infinitely better than in Nepal. In fact the quality of life in general is much better than in Nepal (sorry, Nepal!). There are nice sidewalks in Vietnam, but they are often crowded with parked motos and the seating of mini restaurants. The seating is what we would consider kindergartener-sized tables and chairs, but all sorts of Vietnamese are found sitting at these little tables and chairs to dine. We, as giant Westerners, do not fit in many of the spaces that the smaller Vietnamese do.

We saw Vietnamese dining at these tiny tables and chairs on sidewalks all the time. I guarantee we would have crushed the furniture had we tried to sit in them.  

We visited the Maison Centrale or Hoa Lo Prison, also known as the "Hanoi Hilton", the prison where American POWs, were jailed during the Vietnam War. The prison was actually built in 1896, during the French occupation of Southeast Asia. At that time, it housed male and female Vietnamese prisoners, and was called hell on earth because of the torture and inhumane treatment of those prisoners. The French brought over a guillotine and beheaded some of the prisoners. How nice of them...

Bill in front of Hoa Lo Prison, aka the "Hanoi Hilton" where US POWs were jailed during the Vietnam War. 

The -oh-so-generous French shared their guillotine with the prison when Vietnam was part of French Indochine. 

 The guidebook we received at the prison was noticeably short on details and very one-sided about the time the prison was used to house American POWs, mostly pilots who'd been shot down. According to our guidebook, "captured pilots were given favorable conditions for entertainment, cultural and sports activities, chess playing, listening to Voice of Vietnam radio (English broadcasts), watching films and enjoying music." Hmmm... this makes it sound like a regular week at the spa, when in fact, the prisoners were subjected to really awful conditions and often tortured for information. Just ask John McCain.

Needless to say, during both the French and Vietnamese eras of rule at the prison, it was a significantly unpleasant place to be.

That afternoon, after we had done our always-interesting perusal of a grocery store to get some snacks, we were sitting in a park looking out over the Turtle Lake, when we were approached by a couple 11-year old girls who wanted to talk. Basically, they just wanted to practice their English. This started a series of conversations with locals who kept approaching us asking to talk to us. We had a lovely time interacting with little girls and their parents, university students and other young people. They knew quite a few American references. The two little girls that Bill was talking to said they liked rap music, so Bill asked if they knew Jay-Z. They didn't know of him or Beyoncé, and Bill was thoroughly surprised. We always find it interesting to see and hear what American culture has seeped its way into foreign countries. We've seen plenty of Anna and Elsa from Frozen worldwide, many KFCs, Burger Kings, and Pizza Huts, as well as plenty of Nike and North Face (lots of brand name retail items are knock offs of course). We've also heard LOTS of American music in many countries. For better or worse, American culture can be found everywhere.

The Turtle Temple in the middle of Hoan Kiem Lake. 

Eating snacks and talking to strangers eager to practice their English. 

The next morning, we boarded a bus for a 5-hour drive from Hanoi to Halong Bay. A cruise of Halong Bay is a very common tourist activity in northern Vietnam, and it's easy to see why. Halong Bay is littered with massive limestone rock formations (aka karsts). It's very dramatic and very cool to see. We boarded a boat for a 2-day, 1-night cruise in Halong Bay.

Our boat, the "Scorpion", for cruising Halong Bay. 

It was a bit cheesy, with planned activities and some "forced fun" as we like to call it, but it ended up being a big highlight in large part because of the great group of fellow cruisers on our bus and boat. Some incredibly friendly and interesting fellow travelers. Here's a quick summary of them:

• A young British couple taking a gap year, but not traveling the whole time. They'll head to the Alps to work during the ski season for fun.
• A retired couple from New Zealand, who are currently bicycling around Southeast Asia (!). They've also cycled across America (!) and all through Eastern Europe (!).
• An Armenian couple who only spoke Russian but came with a translator and lots of vibrant body language. The wife was celebrating her 50th birthday, so we got to sing her Happy Birthday twice and see them do a celebratory Armenian dance.
• A Vietnamese-American couple from Orange County whose families fled Vietnam after the war. They return every other year to Vietnam even though they have no family here, just to maintain a connection with their other home country.
• A young couple living in London. She's from Brazil, he's from the Netherlands.
• 4 young guys from Italy, but the northern part of Italy, where they speak German (what??).
• A semi-retired couple from Johannesburg, South Africa. They were both born and raised there, but they are ethnically Indian, although now 2nd and 3rd generation South Africans.
• A KLM flight attendant from the Netherlands who travels all over the world.

While on the boat, we did some excursions like kayaking to get a closer look at the rocks. We also stopped at one of the rock islands, Titop Island, in order to climb to the top and catch an incredible sunset. We took another outing from the boat to see a large cave system in the middle of one of the karsts. And finally, there was a little cooking class where we learned how to make fried spring rolls, which were delicious by the way. And all of this was while getting to know some very interesting fellow travelers. It was definitely a highlight for us.

So very many rocks coming in Halong Bay

Kayaking

It was bright!

This is the boat that took us from the Scorpion to all our other excursions. 

Titop Island, which we climbed in order to see the sunset. 

Titop Island in Halong Bay

Looking east at sunset over a small section of Halong Bay. 

Looking west at sunset over Halong Bay

Amazing rays of light at sunset in Halong Bay

Part of a giant cave we visited in one of the giant rocks in Halong Bay

More of the giant cave. 

Bill and our friend from New Zealand learning to make spring rolls. 

Then we took another long bus ride back to Hanoi. On our last day in Hanoi, we went to see the famous Water Puppet show. It was bizarre, funny, and loud. It was basically a pool with a set, where water puppets danced. They were controlled by puppeteers hidden behind the set backdrops. All the speaking/singing was in Vietnamese, so we didn't completely follow, but it was basically several short stories, including the golden turtle story from above. It was kind of a quirky, fun thing to do.

The musicians at the puppet show. 

Some of the many water puppets. 

The puppeteers, who apparently stand in the water behind the stage, and the musicians thanking the crowd after the water puppet show. 

As for Vietnamese food, we tried new and different things, although once again, our embarrassing lack of tolerance for spicy food surfaced a few times. Bill got addicted to milk tea (we call it bubble tea at home). I discovered bun cha, which is basically pork with rice noodles, greens, and a light sauce - yum!

Some other observations:

Dermatologists would love the Vietnamese, they are covered from head to toe when out in the sunshine. Seriously, I wonder if they have lower rates of skin cancer.

Thanks to the French influence, the Vietnamese use the same letters we do. I never saw a word longer than 5 letters. For example, Vietnam is usually spelled Viet Nam, and Halong is usually spelled Ha Long. How can they have so many short words? Well, all the vowels have multiple modifiers. In English an 'a' can have many sounds, right? It can be a long 'a' like in BAKE, or a short 'a' like in 'PAN'. But in Vietnamese, each of those sounds has a different modifier, like an apostrophe over the a. These are all the different a's in Vietnamese:
aâăáấắàầằãẫẵảẩẳạậặ

Wow, right? And it's a tonal language, which means that it's even more complicated to learn. Needless to say, we only learned how to say Thank you, and even that was a bit of a stretch.

Up next, Cambodia!