Our Hotel, The Sofitel Metropole, is very nice and located close to the Centre of things in Hanoi. We had a meeting booked at 5:30 with Tuan, who will be our guide for the next 2 weeks, so we dumped our bags in our room and decided to walk off our 15 hours of travel.
In the centre of Hanoi is Hoan Kiem Lake, which is close to our hotel and provides a walking circuit that provides a great way to shake off the travelling cobwebs. The streets, although busy, felt very safe, and the people on the whole seemed very friendly and not at all pushy when trying to get you to buy stuff. The lake provided a cool breeze, leaving us with a strong desire to try the local craft beer. There’s a surprise I here you shout. Hanoi even has a place called Beer Street, which is filled with craft breweries and bars. Guides know it as Beer Street, but Street and Google Maps show it as Luong Ngoc Quyen.
We made it back just in time to meet our fellow travelers and it was very quick and easy to rule out those we would need to avoid. The rest we would require a little time to figure out, but one couple I sense is going to be a real pain. The tour details were kept brief, and Tuan will only cover the following days' events. Which was great, as jet lag meant I was struggling to even remember my name by this point. I do however remember him telling us that Tuan is Vietnamese for handsome, all I can say is his mother loves him.
Dinner was provided in a local restaurant in what they call family style, where sharing plates are placed between groups of 4 or 6 to serve themselves. After dinner, we had another list of those who clearly had big appetites and should be avoided at dining tables that required sharing. However, we spotted a couple who “don’t like foreign food” and just picked what they were offered. Our new dining best friends. The food was excellent, and Scenic has made a great start. But it is still only the first evening.
Friday delivered our full day in Hanoi, with a choice of tours for the morning. Being the cultural type, we selected the historical tour which featured heavily on the grounds and palace of the kings who predated the French colonial rule. From what we saw, the French were pretty brutal and intolerant of those who should challenge, as evidenced by the prison for political prisoners, which included its own guillotine. This was used up until the 1930s as evidenced by the photos of heads in baskets that were put on display to deter others.
Back to the palace tour, which was clearly the top location for very young school children to have their class photos taken before they leave infant school. It made our day as the children all wanted to say “Hello” in English, and as they got braver, returned for a series of high and low fives. So much laughter and smiles from all those innocent faces was heart warming. An interesting observation for this communist state was the difference in uniforms. At one end, white silk gowns and at the other, blue track suits. Seems like the communist dream still has “some pigs more equal than others”.
Our tour finished at the Hanoi Hilton, supposedly named by American prisoners of war because they were treated so well by their captors. Very interesting, but certainly left me with confirmation that history is written by the victor. Well worth a look if you come to Hanoi.
We used our free time in the middle of the day to take a walk to Train Street, so called because they have bars that run on a narrow strip of land
between houses but at the side off three tracks. An amazing experience and very popular, so get train times from your hotel as they change daily and if you don’t want to walk, cabs are about $2 each way.
Our first evening adventure was billed as an electric car tour of Hanoi during rush hour. However, our electric cars turned out to be golf buggies. We all piled onto the 6 waiting for us and hit the streets, which were pressed tight with scooters of all states of repair. Although most junctions were equipped with traffic lights, it seemed that the locals treated these as advisory, the same with one-way streets and lane discipline. Add to this that most are also trying to text while weaving past anything that offers an opportunity to progress, and you are faced with what looks like chaos. Having said that, on our 45-minute tour, we only saw two crashes.
We departed our buggies at the water puppet theatre, the only one of its kind in the world. Having sat through 55 minutes of it I am not surprised. Created by farmers working the paddy fields, they developed the use of puppets that, although above the water, were controlled by poles that projected underwater from a screened area behind them. The introduction by two traditional Vietnamese singers was so high-pitched, loud and wailing, I thought initially I was having an episode of tinnitus. Also, the puppet novelty wore off very quickly, and I am ashamed to say, even though I was in the front row, I nodded off.
The evening closed with another group meal and a briefing on our departure to Halong Bay tomorrow. Shit, bags outside at 7:30am? I thought this was supposed to be a holiday.
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