Honk if you Love Hanoi

23.11.2002 24 °C

Honk if you love Ha Noi....

This seems to be a fitting way to begin this email and I'm certain that when I reach Saigon, it will be even more apt.

I arrived here on Thursday afternoon and was delighted to be greeted by two smiling faces at the arrivals area of Ha Noi's Noi Bai airport I had my name written "Be Lin Da Brooke Roy" on a piece of cardboard! I've always wanted to be greeted at the airport by a cardboard flashing local. I felt most special indeed. Honk!

The ride from the airport was certainly an adventure. Field after field of rice and vegetables and people riding motorbikes, bicycles and carrying yokes filled with tomatoes, kumara, star fruit etc etc. You name it, they had it. Amidst all the rice paddies, there were lots of little villages - with beautiful maisons juxtaposed with rubble from the American war. Along side of the road, vendors had set up shop for the day.... I think come rain, hail, shine or the other one (mental blank) perhaps snow?...they are there everyday selling whatever they can.

Now back to that honking.....it is certainly something which could be considered a national sport! Everyone with a motorbike honks passionately to assert his/her space on the road. I think perhaps the motorcyclists take tremendous glee in their honking behaviours which certainly work well at terrorizing the travellers. Those who have bicycles similarly ring their bells. And jolly loud bells too! The women with the yokes don't have bells or horns so they just do their best to avoid being converted into minced-meat. In downtown Ha Noi (Vietnamese is apparently not mono-syllabic but they do write everything as though it is... anyone understand?!?), the honking is even more of a cacophony. It is ceaseless too. Any time of the day there is honking honking honking. I can even hear it when I'm away from the traffic - of course, something that is quite infrequent.

That said, the hotel at which I am staying is on a quiet alley way in the Old Quarter of Ha Noi. It is run by a Vietnamese family and guarded competently by their ankle-biter dog (Mi La) and cat (originally named "Kitty"). It is very spartan but clean and safe and the family are lovely. Upon my arrival, I was greeted with bananas and artichoke tea. Quite a peculiar taste but very pleasant.

Speaking of hot drinks, Vietnamese coffee is jolly good stuff! It is about 10 times as strong as Aussie coffee but really good. In the local English paper, Viet Nam News, they were pleased to announce that Vietnam had just become the major provider of coffee to Spain! Must be good if the Europeans are getting stuck into it.

I treated myself to some fine dining on my first night in Ha Noi, a posh restaurant called (most originally I might add), Ha Noi Garden. The restaurant appears to be a favourite with over-dressed diplomats, Japanese businessmen and the ex-pat community. Very nice food, but a tad characterless... I also indulged in some (mostly) window shopping. There are some exquisite art, musical instrument and handicraft shops not far from where I am staying, as well as silk shops.

I followed the walking tour in my LonelyPlanet Guide yesterday morning around the Old Quarter. It takes you through the cities 36 "Pho Puong" (36 streets) which is essentially a massive marketplace. Each street is named after the product in which it specializes. For example, Pho Hang Giay is the shoe street, Pho Hang Ruoi is where you go for clam worms, and Pho Hang Gai, is where you go for hemp (for wearing, not smoking in this case). Chicken street was interesting...here you can buy a chicken fresh and take it home to kill and prepare for dinner. You can also buy deep fried chicken feet, chicken heads, and chicken gizzards. KFC - Vietnam Style! It certainly puts a new spin on the whole fast food thing. Hey at least you KNOW it's gonna be fresh - oh and definitely doesn't have rabbit in it!

I spent the afternoon walking around Hoan Kiem Lake (there is a Loch Ness monster character that stole the sword of the 15th Century emperor, Ly Thai To in here), visiting the Ngoc Son Temple (Jade Mountain Temple), going to the Temple of Literature (where Vietnam's first uni was started in the 11th Century), listening to an enchanting concert with instruments similar to lutes, tubular bells (made from bamboo!) and cymbals and cruising down to see Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and Musuem (both closed but I think I will get to see Unkie Ho when I get back from the North).

I visited a handicrafts shop somewhere along the way and learnt about some interesting things from the salesman - Apparently if you have carp (alive or as a sculpture) in your house it will bring you good luck, if you have a cat, it will bring you wealth, a statue of a Buddha, will bring you happiness (I think a pot-belly is also useful), and the goatee-Buddha (not sure of his title) will afford you longevity. So far Caesar (my cat) hasn't afforded me any wealth....grrr....maybe I should get some carp when I get home for him to play with!

Perhaps though, as Vietnamese spirituality has Taoist/Confucian influences (the Temple of Literature is Ha Noi's centre of Confucianism), the wealth is more intrinsic...in which case I'm getting there. I did become a millionnaire twice over yesterday when I took out 2 million dong from the bank (there are 8000 dong to the Aussie dollar so you do the maths!). I was very excited. Who needs Eddie McGuire when you can achieve millionnaire-status in Nam!? Honk honk honk!

Today was a very exciting day which started with me being mistaken for a mosquito by the local motorbike drivers. There are believed to be 10 million motorbikes in Vietnam (population around 78 million, 13th most in the world would you believe) and you certainly notice em. It takes quite some skill to cross the road in Ha Noi. First of all, you look to the left....actually maybe it's the right. I don´t think anybody really knows! In Nam, you are supposed to drive on the RHS of the road, but really everyone just drives wherever they can fit! As for pedestrians, well what an adventure! It is actually easier walking on the road, towards oncoming traffic, than on the footpaths as they are covered with motorbikes. The only problem is, you are a very easy target for the incessant cries of "Madame", "Where you going?" and "Taxi madame". In a stretch of maybe 100 metres, you will guaranteed be asked 5-10 times if you want a ride.
Smiling sweetly and saying "No No merci" seems to work. The dudes are actually pretty good about it....they don't follow you and psychologically torment you like the hawkers in Paris. The ladies with the yokes (is there a technical term for this when people carry the baskets?) also follow you. I don't know how the heck they walk with those things but they practically jog with them. Some must weigh several dozen kilograms. In the Kangaroo cafe, you can buy exclusive tea shirts that say (in both Vietnamese and English) "No cyclo, no taxi, no shoe shine, no hat, no cigarette lighter".....I'm thinking of making an investment. Could be very handy.

I was delighted to read in today's paper that by 2010, the local government anticipates there will be good roads in the Ha Noi area. YEAH RIGHT! I think even if they did go to the trouble and expense of fixing them up, they would get hammered very quickly from constant pounding by motorbikes and trucks etc....I don't know anything about roads though so maybe it is a feasible expectation. I was even more delighted when I read tomorrow's newspaper today! It had an article on yet another Pommie-thrashing game of cricket. Go Aussies go! Another gem was that a study conducted in several European countries, Canada and the States found that only 9/10 18-24 year old Americans could ID their own country on a map. Some 50% could ID fewer than 10 countries. Shocking!

This morning I visited St Joseph's Cathedral and also the Hoa Lo Prison Museum. This prison was essentially a concentration camp for anti-colonial revolutionaries during the late 19th/early 20th century. There are some rather ominous looking guillotines on display their (complete with draining baths) where the nasty French dudes did their best Marie Antoinette impersonations. Very scary looking apparati. During the American War, the Vietnamese used the same prison to house American pilots shot down in combat (it then became known as Hanoi Hilton). As the info provided to the tourists says, the Americans were treated very well and were very happy there. There are countless pictures of the shiny happy Yankees plastered all over the museum walls to attest this claim. Shiny happy prisoners?

This afternoon I spent at the History and Revolutionary Museums. The history museum was not particularly engaging, however the Revolutionary Museum was quite fascinating - one Ho after another Ho after another Ho.

Some other cool things about Ha Noi....
1. As in Australia, the garbage collection is ridiculously early in the morning. However, unlike down under, there is not a garbage-truck but rather a lady with a wheelbarrow who dongs on a cymbal-type instrument. When she starts a-donging, all the people in the nearby houses come a-running with their garbage for collection.

2. It seems every second old dude (i.e. over 60 - life expectancy isn't particularly high here) wears one of those metal army hats you see in movies like Saving Private Ryan, Full Metal Jacket etc. Even better is when they go all out and put on army fatigues too.

3. Nobody seems to have an indoor kitchen. Rather, you see people sitting out on the pavement in front of their houses doing their cooking on gas-cookers or hot coals. They will sell you some of their dinner if you ask. And instead of sitting round on chairs at a table, an awful lot of people squat down and do a tremendously good job balancing whilst munching on their fine foods.

4. They have amazing fruit drinks/smoothies here. For lunch for instance, I had a "tamarind exotique" which had tamarind, sugar cane and pineapple in it. 5 Honks!

I'm off to Halong Bay/Cat Ba Island tomorrow and then on to Sa Pa (NW Vietnamese mountains) on Tuesday night. May be offline for a week but please keep the emails up.

Ciao Belinda x
P.S. Honk Honk!