qWT2K9--the quasi World Tour 2009: Week 6: Hanoi, Sapa and Halong Bay

This past week has flown by. We have been to Hanoi, up to the mountains of Sapa and down to the water at Halong Bay. All were great to see and very different from one another.

Hanoi was a city of mopeds, French colonial architecture, incredible coffee (they use condensed milk as sweetener I LOVE IT), very friendly people and more mopeds. Unlike in China where we at least learned how to say ‘yes, please, no, thank you”, everyone here we have encountered speaks enough English for us to communicate. The city is crawling with tourists, and equally matched by travel agencies trying to sell you any sort of trip to the mountains, coast, or elsewhere. You can pay for things in US dollars as commonly as you can in their currency, Vietnamese Dong. The exchange rates are so crazy that I saved the 5,300,000 Vietnamese Dong (about $300) price tag from the small camera I bought in Hanoi (long story, but I had to replace the little camera I was using for video because I tripped on a floorboard and sent the camera flying, cracking the lens—but it is captured on video, which is at least sort of humorous).

In the center of Hanoi is Hoam Kiem lake, where you can find Tai Chi in the morning and women selling fruit and postcards in the afternoon and evening. The old quarter is very interesting: winding small streets with mad tangles of power lines above and remnants of French beaux arts facades on the upper stories, standard shop storefronts on the first floor. Every block sells a different category of things: there’s a block for housewares, a block for shoes, a block for toys, one for funeral caskets and headstones (yes, an entire block of headstone and casket makers!), etc.

We visited the Hoa Lo Prison (also known as the Hanoi Hilton), which was not what I was expecting. Located only about 2 blocks from the Lake in the center of the town, the prison was built by the French in 1896 and was where they imprisoned Vietnamese Revolutionaries prior to American’s during the Vietnam War (which here is called the American War). They had pictures on the walls of the Vietnam War vets decorating Christmas Trees, attending Christmas Service, playing sports, etc. A little too Disney for what I assume really went on there, but interesting enough to see it and the way its is trying to be portrayed.

We made our way to the mountains after 2 days in Hanoi. Sapa is in the northwest corner of the country and where Fansipan, the highest peak in the country, sits at 3150m above sea level. The town was originally established by the French as a lookout, but now the majority of the tourism is centered around the hill tribes that live in the surrounding area. We arrived there from overnight train from Hanoi. Chels and myself got in a van with about 10 other westerners to have Haddaway’s “What is love” busting out of the van speakers. Chels and I both erupted in laughter, thinking of Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell doing their night at the Roxbury dance, but the others did not seem to be as amused, but then again, it was only 6:30 am. We made our way up the mountain with winding curves revealing glimpses of where we were going to spending the next two days. We did about 10 miles of hiking over those days, up and down parts of the mountain, through rice paddies, past water buffalo grazing, seeing small villages and hill tribes going about their daily life. Unfortunately, Sapa is a bit touristy, so part of their life now includes trying to sell stuff very persistently.

From Sapa, we went back to Hanoi to catch a bus to Halong Bay. Halong Bay (which translates to “where the dragon descends to the sea”) is on the Gulf of Tonkin with about 2000 karsts rock islands jutting up out of the water. It is kind of like Guilin (posted last week) on crack. We boarded our junk (old boats fitted out for tourists) around noon and set off going around the mountain islands. Our boat was a little beat up, most of the deck chairs were broken, the railing was missing at a couple of places on the top, but it was clean and there were only 15 people on board which was perfect. I sat at the bow of the boat, sans railing for a good 45 minutes watching fishermen in the distance go about their daily life as the islands went from foreground to background. Our junk stopped at a floating fisherman village where we picked up dinner which the crew prepared. We moored for the night near other junks. There were women on rafts stocked with beer, coke and oreos who would row from junk to junk trying to make a sale. After a beautiful sunset and dinner, Chels, myself and our friend Mike from Oregon who we had met did Karaoke. No one else on the ship wanted to sing (except the crew, and one random Czech guy) so we got about 2 solid hours of voice-losing hits in. Simon and Garfunkel, Bobby Darin, Rod Stewart, Vanilla Ice, Coolio, CCR, Rolling Stones, The Doors, Sinatra, etc. Towards the end just after finishing a smashing version of Proud Mary, we heard a shout from outside “YOU BUY SOMETHING, COLD BEER?” I don’t know if it drew as much laughter as when Mike and I attempted the theme from “Shaft”, but I thought it was the funniest moment of the week. We were up kayaking the next morning just after dawn and then headed to another island, Cat Ba, where we hiked to a peak in the state park and then spent the afternoon at the beach.

Halong was definitely more of a vacation pace than Sapa, but the experiences were both beautiful and fun. We’re off to Saigon today and then Cambodia for the rest of the week!

01 Graffiti phone numbers, Hanoi