"Good Morning, Vietnam!" (Part One - Hanoi)

Ever since I arrived in China, there have been a few places I have wanted to visit. Not just cities in China but other Asian countries also, close to the top of the list was Vietnam. Luckily for me, my closest friends in China, Chris and Jess also wanted to go. With a few weeks off from school for winter, we booked a two week trip, Hanoi would be our first stop.

We headed for our hotel 'The Splendid Jupiter' located in Hanoi's Old Quarter. The drive, though at night, gave us our first taste of the city that would play host to us for four nights. The thing that struck me most was the European feel the place has to it, having done a little research into Hanoi prior to our visit. I was aware that Hanoi had served as the capital of the French Indochina between 1902 and 1954 (though the French had in fact been in Vietnam since 1800's), so I'd expected some influence to be noticeable but this had not prepared me for what I actually saw. I could have been in a car travelling through some French town that night. The other thing that stood out was the use of mopeds. It would appear to be the preferred mode of transport in Vietnam.

The following morning, we headed to the lake known as Hoan Kiem after breakfast and walked around it in its entirety, stopping occasionally to take a few snaps before taking a few minutes to explore an old temple which had been built atop a small island in the middle of the lake. We had to cross a beautiful red wooden bridge to access the island, paying a small amount of Vietnamese dong for entry. As it turned out, my travel buddies and I had stumbled upon of all things, a Chinese temple. Inside the temple we learned the story of a large turtle known as 'Cu Rua' which translates to 'Great Grandfather Turtle'. Some experts believe the turtle to be around 700 years old and the last of its kind. Perhaps we'd stumbled across the Asian equivalent of Loch Ness?

When we returned to the hotel, a member staff known as Mr. Tom offered to exchange money for us, as Vietnamese Dong is a closed currency, which basically meant that we could not obtain any prior to our entry into the country, we'd been using what little we'd exchanged at the airport until now so we decided to hand over our Chinese Renminbi (RMB) to a guy we could only assume was indeed an employee of the hotel and not some chancer who'd knocked up an official looking name tag and donned a suit ready to scam some unsuspecting travellers. I gave him 3000RMB, which is the equivalent of about £300 before he left us at reception and hopped onto a moped and sped off. Thankfully, he returned a few minutes later carrying millions of Dong. He counted it out in front of us, with me being the proud owner of of 9,000,000 Dong. Finally, after all these years, I was a millionaire! Unfortunately I was in a place where beer cost a few thousand. Needless to say, I wasn't going to be rolling in it for long!

A few hours later, Chris, Jess and I found ourselves in a bar of all places. We sampled a few of the local beers - Bia Ha Noi, Bia Saigon and Biere Larue. Before too long, dusk was upon us and Chris decided to take a walk up to the hotel to see if our friends Steph and Koenraad, who would also be spending a few days in Hanoi, had checked in yet. Within 20 minutes he'd returned with our two friends in tow, and as you might expect, they were in need of refreshment. Steph ordered a round of beers and shots, I don't actually remember much of the night after that.

The Gang: Steph, Jess, Chris, Koenraad and Me having one or two local beers

Our second full day began with a shopping trip, though of course there were more beers to be had too. But of course, no trip away would be complete without me being scammed out of money by some local (you have all forgotten about the Tea Scam I fell victim to when I first arrived in Beijing, right?). Jess, Steph and I were all chatting whilst Chris and Koenraad looked on from further up the road, a street seller approached the girls and I, carrying her bags of pineapple. She handed me her, hmm well actually I am not sure what you would call it, it kind of looks like a stick that has a tipping scales on either end, well anyway she handed me that thing. She then proceeded to force her little hat on my head and pointed at Jess's camera. Jess took a few pictures before I passed these props to her and returned the favour of taking a photo or two. Once we handed it all back to the woman, I kind of felt obliged to buy a small bag of pineapple from her, big mistake, and in a flurry of numbers, pointing and broken English she was soon away with 250,000 Dong before I could even calculate the exchange rate in my head. That's right 250,000 Dong, that's about £7.50, funny how I can work it out now! This should be the part of the story that goes on to insist that it was indeed the juiciest and tastiest pineapple that had ever passed my lips, alas my bad luck didn't end with my pockets hurting, no in fact my tongue hurt too as it swelled and began to bleed a little, I forced myself to eat it though whilst assuring all my friends that it was worth every penny.

Scammed: Moments before losing 250,000 Dong to a wily old fruit seller

My tongue and appetite did recover enough to enjoy a lovely evening of local cuisine at a cracking little restaurant called 'Quan An Ngon'. The food was delightful and a lot cheaper than the local pineapples. We had seafood spring rolls, Vietnamese sausage with chilli sauce, crispy pancakes, deep fried noodles and of course the local dish, Bun Cha.

Local Dish: Bun Cha - Grilled pork in a soup, vegetables and noodles

The following day we went to Ha Long Bay, which was one of the most beautiful places I visited in Vietnam. It obviously deserves its on blog post, so keep an eye out for that...

The day after Ha Long Bay was to be our last in Hanoi, and our final day with Steph and Koenraad before they headed off to Ho Chi Minh City and we took our train down to Da Nang. Like all the previous days, it started with a cracking breakfast of egg, bacon and toast followed by chocolate covered pancakes and washed down with a Vietnamese coffee. With our breakfasts digesting, we prepared for yet another day of adventure only to be informed by Ha, a member of staff at the hotel, that the Single Pillar Pagoda and Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum were closed for the Vietnamese New Year. So we changed our plan slightly, checking out before heading back to the Hoan Kiem lake, firstly to show Steph and Koenraad but secondly to fly by the Water Puppet Theatre for tickets, huh? what? Yep, believe your eyes, its true, this band of twenty-somethings would be taking in a spot of water puppetry! After booking our tickets to the 2pm show, we made our way to another tourist spot, whilst trying to contain our excitement.

One other place of interest that we'd been made aware of in Hanoi was an old jail that had opened its doors to tourists, known as Hoa Lo Prison or Maison Centrale as we preferred to call it. The prison has a lot of history, built in the 1880's by the French it was originally used to hold political prisoners, who underwent torture and in some cases, execution. When the French left Vietnam in the mid-1950's, the prison was used by the Vietnamese as an "educational" centre. It would later be used to house American prisoners of war during the war. Most notably, senator John McCain, then a pilot in the American Navy, spent some time there. It was a fascinating and eerie place to be but with one eye on the clock, we soon had to leave for our show.

Maison Centrale: Known as Hanoi Hilton by American POWs, sounds kinda cosy...

Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre is arguably the world's most famous water puppet theatre. And it was certainly more impressive than any I'd visited in my many years as a water puppet enthusiast. All jokes aside, it was actually me who'd put forward the idea of watching a water puppet show, as I'd read that it was a big part of Vietnamese culture and as the show was only twenty minutes long, it seemed like as nice a way as any to end our time together in Hanoi.

The show itself was pleasant, although the narration was in Vietnamese, we did manage to get the gist of what was going on. The show was split into fourteen traditional tales and famous folklore, our favourite was simply known as 'The fox chases the ducks' according to the free programme, I don't feel compelled to outline what the story was about as I'm sure you can work it out for yourself.

My New Hobby: Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre, Hanoi

We had a final beer or three outside a cafe located opposite a catholic church. Saying our farewells to Steph and Koenraad, not at all emotional as we knew we'd all be getting drunk together in Beijing again soon enough. Chris, Jess and I finished our beers then made our way to the hotel to grab our bags but not without a quick photo with Mr Tom and Ha before walking over to the train station to catch our overnight train down to Da Nang for what would be just over a week of sea and sun.

Friendly Hotel Staff: A photo of us with Mr Tom and Ha of the Splendid Jupiter

To be continued...