Ki Earth Journey: 15. Hanoi, Vietnam

In the French cafe on Hoan Kiem Lake - Hanoi

Dear friends and family -

Greetings from Hanoi, Vietnam. After two days of roaming the city on foot I’m beginning to find my way around. I’m staying at the Art Hotel in the Hoan Keim old quarter district, which is in the heart of the city. The gals at the front desk told me that Hanoi is just more of the same of what’s outside my door, it simply goes on and on and on with 6.5 million people. The old quarter here reminds me of the old town Chiang Mai—in that it’s a micro representation of the macro, and that’s good enough for me.

The Art Hotel
— click to enlarge --

The buildings of old Hanoi fascinate me--at some point they set up a strange ten, twelve or fifteen foot wide building code. So most of the structures here in downtown are tall and skinny. My whole hotel is only twelve feet wide . . . a five story hundred foot long executive single-wide mobile home. From the street it’s easy to miss--I’ve been here two days and I still pass by it. It’s practically only double door from street level. And like almost all the other hotels in the old colonial district, it doesn’t look at all inviting. But once inside it’s fairly elegant--a comfortable seating area and dining room--and at least four uniformed staff at my beck and call. My very clean and cozy room is $38 a night and I highly recommend it if you’re visiting Hanoi.

Try walking across this (this is what I'm talking about)

Hanoi is like an agitated ant hill. The ants are motor-scooters. There’s a plethora of them, meaning zillions of scooters everywhere. Here and there you’ll find red/green light pedestrian crossings, but mostly you’re on your own crossing the scooter filled streets. If you wait for all the scooters to pass by, you’ll be waiting forever. The only way to cross a street is to walk straight into all the oncoming traffic and hope it won’t hit you. Seriously. If you hesitate, you disrupt the dance . . . so you just step out off the curb and go for it. I stood there contemplating one impossible-to-cross situation today--and a little old lady came up and walked past me without hesitation--right into on-coming traffic like she was on a suicide mission. The seas parted and she made it to the other side by some sort of divine right. I was next. This is my practice while here . . . though after four and 1/2 months in Asia I do well in traffic--and actually prefer it to the way-too-many US traffic laws. As I wrote about in one of my Chiang Mai blogs, Asian’s have a well-developed sixth sense in traffic. I know accidents happen here, but I have yet to see one. (except for those poor dogs—which I only heard)

Down the street from my hotel

Halong Bay stock picture

Today I took a bunch of photos, got my Thailand Visa stamped and decided to make plans for leaving town--with the help of the gals at the front desk. I like to go with the flow and the flow wasn’t going. For some odd reasons planes, trains and boats were all booked up. So I’ll spend a week in Hanoi—glad it isn’t Phnom Penh. The gals highly recommended that I take a cruise--two days and one night on a junk boat out of Halong Bay, a bay with thousands of limestone karsts and isle, inside the larger Gulf of Tonkin, three hours east of Hanoi. This is my first official “tourist” package--the drive back and forth, an overnight stateroom on the elegant looking polished-wood boat, the island tour and all meals for $215. Should be some great pictures sailing through the tiny islands.

The Ruler

The King

So before and after I will roam the streets of Hanoi. If I get bored I can always go to the Royal Mausoleum and check out the preserved dead body of Ho Chi Minh. The front desk gals tell me that the guy’s dead body is a must-see. I went to Graceland and saw the grave of Elvis--I think that’s probably close enough. Oh, I also saw a real pigmy mummy in a gift shop on the wharf in Seattle. Does that count?

Seattle Fremont Lenin
(I like it better than the Hanoi Lenin)

I actually like Hanoi--ant hill and all. It sort of kind of reminds me of Seattle, since I just mentioned the Emerald City. Let’s see, if you take the quaint shops in Queen Anne, Fremont or Ballard and cut them up in twelve foot slices, allow people to cook food on the sidewalks and fill the roads with a million scooters--then pretty much kind of sort of the two cities are similar. There’s lakes and parks and a chill in the air and a statue of Lenin, just like Seattle. But no Space Needle. Or ferries. Or gnomes under bridges.

Hanoi street scene

I have this cleanliness thing--which is why I seriously considered moving to Lake Wobegon. In Hanoi all day long everyone throws their garbage into the gutter and every night sanitation workers come by and pick it all up--as opposed to Phnom Penh, where every day everyone throws their garbage into the gutter, if there is one, and nobody ever picks it up. OK--I’ll shut up about Phnom Penh, obviously not my favorite town. Just to be fair, I was in Kabul 40 years ago. I didn’t like that city either.

OK--I have three test questions to make sure you’ve been paying attention. 1. How many people live in Hanoi? 2. Where the hell is Lake Wobegon? 3. Who is buried in Ho Chi Minh’s tomb? Alright, four questions - What's a dong?

I hope the pictures say 1000 words I didn't say in this blog. Speaking of thousands, I’m having some trouble with the Vietnam money. I went to the ATM and the choices confused me. I clicked on 1,000,000 and got a big wad of 50,000 dong notes. I went into the bank and asked, “What’s this?” I found out that 50,000 dong is equal to $2.50. So then I went out to eat and they gave me a bill for 275,000 dong. I’m thinking, My god, they want over a quarter of a million something or other for lunch! It was actually a very formal table-clothed place--very French--so the $14 was justified. It all works out. Tonight I had a rare Tiger beer and a better than the French place pesto pasta, at the Gecko Cafe--all for 75,000 dong, or $3.75. That’s my new favorite eatery in Hanoi. Tomorrow I’ll buy their T-shirt.

The French Cafe

So tonight at 10 p.m. there was a knock on my hotel room door. A waiter had a small platter in his hand--two small eclairs for a good night treat. This hotel is a very special place.