Hanoi - Meandering First Impressions

February 10th 2009


My first impressions of Hanoi have been pretty positive. Arriving off the train at 5am with no money, I was helped into town by some fellow passengers. They did me a favor trading me some extra CNY for Vietnamese Dong until I could find an ATM.


Rocking into central Hanoi just before dawn didn't exactly give me a good sense of the city, which is to say that it was quiet – too quiet. I got dropped off by Hoan Kiem Lake, a north-to-south stretch that centers around the Old Quarter and the French Quarter, the busiest places in Hanoi. I wandered the streets looking for my hostel and when I found it just before 6am I got into my room and crashed out until about noon.


Keeping odd hours and sleeping in random places tends to take a weird toll on you. I don't find that I sleep any more than I usually do, its just spaced out at more irregular intervals. I'm not finding it uncommon to sleep 10pm to 4am on a train/bus, finding my next bed and sleeping again for a few hours... or not, and then taking a good nap in the afternoon. It's quite refreshing, actually, not being tied to any given schedule, but I do have to plan ahead occasionally for certain sites or show times. For example, I almost slept through my 8pm water puppet show... I'm sure you can all relate :-P


One of the premier attractions of Hanoi is the famous water puppets. Basically the team of puppeteers stands behind a veil in a pool of water about three feet deep. From behind the veil various puppets poke out on poles and illustrate various classical scenes, such as the Dance of the Phoenixes or Early Morning Fishermen. The premise here is that back in the day when the rice paddies were flooded over this custom developed as a way to entertain during festivals and etc. Today it's mainly reproduced on a stage with an audience of foreigners but we also benefit from modern puppeteering technologies, like dry ice and fireworks. To be honest I thought the puppets on water would get old after a bit, but every scene produced brand new puppets with novel tricks so it was quite entertaining the whole way through. Two thumbs up for water puppets.


Hanoi the city is very nice, except for the exhaust. When I rolled out of bed the first day and stepped out of the hostel, I was overwhelmed with the change a few hours can make. Motorbikes are everywhere. Where there isn't a motorbike, there are bicycle rickshaws and cars. Faded crosswalks are merely remnants of a droll/bored bureaucrat. If you want to get anywhere, step out into the street and feel the motorbikes flow around you like a pebble had been dropped into their stream. Not for too long, however, because the taxis have no qualms about running you down.


Hanoi is not a very tall city from what I can see. I've stuck mostly to the Old and French Quarters, of course, and the buildings here are two- or three-storied affairs. The European influence is still here, but it feels like it's fading quickly as people renovate sporadically around the city. The Hanoi people are a lot of fun as well, at least compared to China. The first day or two when I steeled myself for a barter or to order a meal, the unexpectedly relaxed composure of my adversaries very much threw me off. This was followed by a day in which I couldn't tell if people were joking or being pricks, and finally now I am able to appreciate the Northern Vietnamese sense of humor.


Which isn't to say everyone here is a saint. The way I like to say it is thus: In China, they will angrily scam you until you're too scared to ask. In Vietnam, they'll still scam you but at least have the courtesy to do it with a smile.


Met some nice people in and out of my hostel. My first two days I had periodic chats with a Scottish girl who'd been on the road with her boyfriend for quite some time. They were heading up into China for a week or two before finishing their months-long trip and then to return to Scotland. I believe her name was Chavonne and I never got her boyfriend's name because he never acknowledged my existence. I suppose opposites really do attract. Then there was Lisa Lin from San Fran, the pleasant American girl who was yet another student in China. We had a few meals and drank a few beers together and traded things to do in Hanoi. We were walking through the Old Quarter on one evening and came across the strangest scene.


There is plenty of street food to be had in all the cities of the world, but on this night we walked in to a full-on street bar. At one quiet intersection (comparatively quiet, that is), the four corners had spilled out into the street a bit with stools full of foreigners sipping draft beer. I found out that this was called Beer Hoi, a special bootlegged beer that tastes like swill but gets the job done at 3000 Dong (17 cents) a cup. Shiver me timbers.


While drinking our Beer Hois I chatted up this entertaining Australian family trio; father daughter and son were traveling together for a month through Vietnam on what I suppose was their summer break. The high school-aged son was trying to convince dad to buy him a tailored purple silk suit for his prom, a proposition I fully endorsed, but I don't think it was meant to be. Some people just don't know opportunity when they see it. If I come home in a tailored purple silk suit, you'll know who to thank.


My last observation about Hanoi so far is that there are lots of old people. Old tourists, I mean. Granted most of them are European and thus more accustomed to travel, perhaps, but I'm still surprised to see such a large constituency of older tourists on the regular. And, moreover, staying in the same sorts of places that I'm staying. I haven't seen any in the dorm bunks, yet, but I've seen what the regular rooms look like and they're not exactly luxurious. Anyway, I hope I'm still that spry when I reach my golden years. For now, its more Beer Hoi for me.