Hanoi is Vietnam's capital city and the gateway to such wonderful places as Sapa and Halong Bay.
We flew to Hanoi on 30/6, having previously booked with Jetstar before leaving Australia. Cost was $280 USD for the four of us. Jetstar took over a Vietnamese domestic airline a while back and now flies domestic routes within Vietnam. Flight was fine – we were among the few foreigners on the plane. You get a nice view of various parts of the Mekong and its tributaries along the way, as well as flying over the beaches in the Da Nang area, which we would visit later in the trip.
We spent 4 nights in Hanoi, with the trips to Sapa and then Halong Bay in the middle. Hanoi is very different to Saigon, much less hectic, a lot less frantic traffic, more graceful with more of the old French buildings etc. The population is quite a bit smaller than Saigon. We met other foreigners here who were just starting their trip and were shocked by the traffic – just wait until you get to Ho Chi Minh City we’d tell them – add maybe 50% to Hanoi’s level.
We stayed in the Gia Thinh Hotel, Hang Bac Street in the old town. We were very happy with this hotel, its location and the service we got there. We posted a good review on Tripadvisor when we got back.
While in Hanoi we explored the old city, with its streets traditionally devoted to various trades- Shoe Street, Bag Street, etc. We saw the famous 'Water Puppets' that are a unique feature of Vietnamese culture. This is very cleverly done with the operators (standing in a pool of water behind a screen) controlling fish, animals, Punch and Judy type characters with poles so they move in a very lifelike manner.
We spent some time walking around the Hoan Kiem Lake and visiting the Ngoc Son temple which is situated on an island in the lake. Also some shopping for DVDs of movies and TV shows – there are many shops selling these in Hanoi, more than in Saigon. Usually movies are about $1 and TV series might be around $2 or $3 per disk. I guess these must be DivX downloads from the internet – they fit a whole season of Heroes, The Sopranos etc onto one or two disks. The quality seems perfectly OK though. On one trip we got Heroes Season 1 and 2, Gossip Girl and Family Guy Seasons 1-11 for about $30 all up.
We also toured Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum - modeled on Lenin's in Moscow. In fact, once a year Ho is taken to Moscow for 'maintenance' work by the experts - very few other places where this kind of thing is done I guess! Narrelle and I got up very early to do this, as it gets crowded. The kids missed it, unfortunately. It was worth the trip - despite Vietnam's modernization and enthusiastic embrace of capitalism, free trade and development, they still maintain the reverence for 'Uncle Ho'. We were among the very few foreigners as we lined up to file past his embalmed body. You can't take cameras in there (can leave them at a booth - they give you a ticket to retrieve it later), and must remove hats as a mark of respect.
As you approach the mausoleum, soldiers perform elaborate routines with goose-stepping, a bit like what we saw at Arlington National Cemetery. They take you through very quickly - maybe 30 or 45 seconds inside. Ho rests in a glass-sided bier, dressed in his simple style with sandals etc. It’s lovely and cool in there, if nothing else! A formally dressed soldier stands rigidly at attention on each corner. Apparently all of this is very much against Ho's wishes - he hated grand displays and wanted nothing of this sort done for him after he died. We were also shown his simple 'stilt house' where he worked and studied – in preference to the formal presidential palace which earlier rulers had used.
I tried to see what effect this experience had on the Vietnamese – whether they were moved by it or emotional - as far as I could tell no tears; they were quiet and solemn but no obvious emotion. That surprised me a little - given the cult that still exists around Uncle Ho (his image is on all currency, propaganda posters with his many sayings are common in the streets etc) I'd have expected it would be very moving to see him for the first time. I think we saw more emotion at Kennedy's gravesite in Arlington - maybe a cultural difference there...
Hanoi must also be one of the few places left in the world where you can see a statue of Lenin (or 'Le Nin' as he is called in Vietnam) - arm extended, exhorting the working classes to throw off their chains! The communist 'Hammer and Sickle' flag flies alongside the Vietnamese flag at every government building.
Click here to see our photos from Hanoi