Hanoi:

March 12th, 2005 - March 19th, 2005

Greetings from Hanoi, our final stop on the South East Asia leg of our trip. We arrived here one week ago via airplane from Hue. We were supposed to take the overnight bus, but after considering the driving at night and the fog in the area, we felt it was safer to fly - and not too expensive, either.

We arrived late in Hanoi and went right to our guest house. We got a surprise visit by a friend of my aunt, Kiem. Kiem lives in Hanoi and works locally in the business sector. He was supposed to meet us for lunch the next morning, but he came to greet us upon our arrival. We arranged to meet him again in the morning and he invited us for lunch at his sister's house.

In the morning Kiem arrived over an hour early - Vietnamese people are very hospitable - and he brought his childhood friend along so that they could each drive one of us on the back of their motorbikes to Kiem's sister's house.

Kiem had offered to lend us his motorbike the night before to make the trip and to drive around town, but we had to explain that most Canadians don't ride motorcycles. He persisted saying, "It is much easier to drive a bike in Hanoi than it is in Saigon!" Basically, Hanoi is the second craziest place to drive a motorbike in the country and there was zero chance we were going to actually drive the thing!

Anyway, we showed up at his sister's place for lunch and they had a massive feast prepared. As part of tradition, locals make way too much food as a sign of respect for their guests. Then, they keep filling your bowl with food until you explode. There is no saying "no thank you" - they just fill your bowl more and more. And Kiem's brother-in-law kept pouring beer into our glass each time it reached half empty!

The funny part about the beer is that in the south everyone drinks Saigon Beer while in the north Hanoi Beer seems to be the beer of choice...

Nearly 3 hours after we had arrived, lunch was over! And we were about 10 lbs. heavier!

Kiem and his friend took us on a motorbike tour of Hanoi viewing both local and tourist sites. Unfortunately, most things were closed at that point of the day. So, they dropped us off at the travel cafe where we booked our trip to Sapa and we were off on the night train to Sapa for a few days of trekking.

Following our return from Sapa - at the crack of dawn - we had some time to kill before checking back into our hotel so we went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and saw Uncle Ho in the flesh. It was a long process and we had to walk in a line 2-by-2 and not carry any bags or cameras into the mausoleum.

Inside the air was cool and we snaked up stairs into the main room and there was Uncle Ho resting right in the middle inside a big glass case with orange lights on him. There were guards everywhere and you were not allowed to stop walking. The whole viewing took only 45 seconds or so but the whole process of waiting and such was about an hour.

We spent the later part of the morning recovering from Sapa and the rest of the day trying to mail stuff home from the Hanoi General Post Office which was a chore. Like in Hoi An you have to fill out forms, but in Hanoi they have customs officers there to inspect your package and then you have to give them a little extra money to approve it before you can seal it up and send it home. Bureaucracy reigns supreme here!

The next day we wandered the city in search of winter coats as we will be experiencing some cold in parts in China on the final leg of our journey. We found nothing useful, but did find our way to FedEx to send home some photo CD's. We have reverted back to using FedEx after our photos from Cambodia took almost a month to make it home after it was supposed to take a week - we paid for Express Mail at the G.P.O. in Phnom Penh but the lady clearly send it regular mail and pocketed the difference in price; something we were warned could happen!

In the evening we saw the famous Water Puppets show here in Hanoi. It was OK. They have puppets like a normal show only they perform in the water on a bigger stage and there is a traditional musical group that plays Vietnamese music for the duration of the show. It lasted about an hour. We left the following day on our Halong Bay trip.

That brings us to today, our final day in Hanoi and Vietnam. We spent the day hanging out with our friends from India, Brad & Dennyse, who caught up to us after making a stop in Borneo and following a similar route through SE Asia. We spent the day wandering around town, mostly eating and drinking. We sat at a little corner store on tiny stools and had local beer out of a keg. It was $0.12 CDN per glass out of the keg!

Each corner store pretty much has one and you see old local men in black berets sitting there sipping beer and discussion the day's events. It was fun not only for the atmosphere but for watching the crazy traffic as well.

Vietnam has been spectacular. The scenery. The people. The food. It has all been wonderful. I would probably put Vietnam at #2 behind Laos on our list of favourite places on this trip.

We leave tomorrow morning to Kunming, China via airplane. Kunming is in the south-west corner of the country. We will spend about a week in the Kunming area before flying to Tibet for a journey of an undetermined length.

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