Category: Vietnam

I woke up this morning around 5:30 so I could take a walk before we all met for breakfast. Near the hotel that I am staying at, there is a small lake with paths all the way around it. When I started out, I saw very few people, but as I made my way around more and more walkers came out. The lake was maybe about half the size of Green Lake, with maybe a similar crowd. Even this early, I was approached by people selling their wares. I took a couple of early morning photos that are probably a little too dark, and got in 8500 steps before breakfast. The funny part of this little story is that although my phone said it was 5:30 when I got up, it was actually 3:30. No wonder there were so few people out there.

Our tour kept us busy throughout the day. Our first stop was the mausoleum  of Ho Chi Minh. We arrived right in the middle of every elementary school in the area taking a field trip there. It was two lines more than a mile long of little kids, and they all wanted to say hello to us, or touch our hand. Our guide said it was probably because they were from remote areas and had never seen light skinned people before. It was very cute. The trip through the mausoleum itself was the same two lines moving at a steady pace past a perfectly preserved body in a glass case. It was interesting for the short time that we were there, but I found the architecture and the military guards in full dress uniforms carrying guns with bayonets to be more interesting.

We then walked past two of Ho Chi Minh’s residences, one of which was on stilts. While he was in charge, he refused to live in the opulent palace that was built by the French, deciding to live humbly instead in homes that he built himself.

After we were done, we went to the Museum of Vietnamese Culture. I have to admit that I was more interested in the mountains where some tribes lived than the different ethnicities. One was about 10,000 feet, and ripe for the climbing. It takes three days. Alas, that will not happen this trip, as we are not going anywhere near it. From there we went to lunch, and then visited a Buddhist temple. We also stopped at the temple of Confucius before heading to watch a water-puppet show. I have had maybe 8 hours of sleep since 4 am. Monday, so I had a difficult time staying awake in the dark theatre. What I saw of it was fun.

We finished the day off with a cyclo or pedi-cab ride. At first I was a little embarrassed to be sitting in a seat being driven around by someone and being passed by people on foot. However, I soon decided that it was rather relaxing, and enjoyed being able to look around at the shops without having people come out and try to sell me something. I saw lots of shops that I would like to explore further, but I was completely lost, and have no idea where they were.

Although this is the same day as my previous post, my computer is not resetting to the new time zone, and I don’t feel like figuring out how to get it to do so. This should be the only confusing day. Just remember, we woke up in Japan this morning.
Our flight went well, and we arrived in Hanoi safely. Unfortunately, our luggage didn’t, and the airline that we took is saying that it is not their responsibility, although they are trying to locate it. Right now, we just need to get some new clothes so we can change out of the ones we put on Monday at 3 am. The plane was very nice, but the most interesting thing was electronically tinting windows. You press a button, and the windows got dark. It was very cool. There is a video of it below. Note that the tinting speed was increased by a factor of 4. It took about a minute to go completely dark, which is not shown here.

Hanoi is a crowded town, with very narrow buildings. It just celebrated it’s 1,000th anniversary in 2010. Lanes don’t seem to mean much when driving, and crossing the street is rather scary. You just start walking, and hope that the constant stream of cars and bikes don’t hit you. Sarah made the apt comparison to Frogger, and now we make little bleep bleep noises as we cross. The most interesting auto I saw today was a moped with two people on it, and the one in the back was holding a 4’x6′ framed canvas. Imagine seeing a person sitting on the back of a moped with their arms spread as wide as they can go, grasping a huge framed painting that completely blocks the driver and the front of the moped. Perhaps you had to be there, and I unfortunately didn’t have my camera.

The view from our third-floor hotel room.

To relieve some of the stress, the whole family went for a massage, which came out to around $8 per person after tips. Tomorrow we start our tour of the city.