Hanoi, Vietnam

If you look down at the pavements they may as well be non existent because everyone parks their motorbike on them and any spare space is filled with tiny infant school size plastic stools and chairs at which they eat their street food.

 

Anyway, yesterday…… Where to start? Having settled in here after a few days I thought I would read about Vietnam in general and Hanoi in particular rather than doing so once we had left like I have done in a few other places. Rather than leaving it to Glen to investigate and plan I would lend a hand…… I wish I hadn’t afterwards! There were so many negative reports about how they rip you off here and let you down with regards to booking transport etc. Maybe I was just feeling a little weak after the amount of sediment released in the floods earlier and then venturing out of the tourist area that morning.

On venturing out further afield we encountered the local’s Hanoi rather than the tourist’s Hanoi. Something we felt we ought to do, something we wanted to do but maybe in hindsight wished we hadn’t done. It was a bit like taking a wrong turn after a lovely meal and finding yourself in a dirty kitchen or visiting the toilet in a restaurant after enjoying a meal and wishing you hadn’t.

We knew we had left the tourist area when we stopped seeing women thrusting t-shirts, with “Gooooood morning Vietnam” written on them towards us and instead walked by stalls selling thick badly patterned hooded coats and face masks. (Which we had seen being worn by the local girls on motorbikes…in the humid sunny weather mind you!! ) No one tried to sell us anything. They still wore the coolie hats and carried everything on the bamboo poles across their shoulder and balanced across bikes. (so that isn’t done just for the tourists) There were hens scratching around amongst the grubby stalls (we thought we had drempt the sound of the Cockerel the other morning…..a flash back to Nusa Lembongan….. but no here in the capital city of Vietnam they have hens and chickens on the street!) There were a few dogs about but we knew they would’nt be barking tomorrow morning or keeping us awake because we had just passed by several stalls selling cooked dog! a bit of a surprise as we turned a corner on to a main road and saw several tables with whole cooked dogs! (WARNING photo to follow)

 

 

Apologies for the bad blurry photo but the lady on the next stall had sternly forbidden me to take a photo of her cooked and quartered dog when I asked, so I had to be careful and stand back at a distance for that shot.

We walked through their local market, there was a whole street selling live-ish fish and seafood one side and dried fish on the other! It seemed like the longest street ever!! I didn’t realise I could hold my breath for that long.

The streets were dirtier and the bikes and trucks etc more manic. No one really seemed to have any respect for the lives of others or their own. We may have got that wrong but that is what it seems like to us.

We walked past a Police station with a large board outside showing various graphic traffic accident photos of motorbikes, trains and cars and the dead and injured people involved in them. Gruesome!

We walked up the steps of a train station (looking for a walkway across a bridge) that I hope was not a general representation of the standard of the trains or more importantly the train tracks!

I sooo wanted to take photos of the real Hanoi but I fear I would have my camera confiscated if I did. We stood out like a sore thumb. Not one person smiled at us!

Back to Hanoi Old Quarter where we are staying………… How can I sum up the people here…. Not very friendly! Bland expressions at best. Why!? I smile at everyone……I looked back at Glen incase he had mistakingly put his cowboy hat on, but no that wasn’t it. They were just not interested in speaking to us or even smiling at us, unless you count the women with the coolie hat and bamboo yoke balanced across her shoulder selling fruit who, each day near our hotel, approaches us at least two or three times and trys to put it on Glen or my shoulder saying “photo! photo!” Or the very concerned looking young shoe shine boys (who I thought could not possibly be an annoyance to us seeing as we are wearing walking shoes and not the sort of shoes you could shine) who rush towards Glen as they can spot a ‘problem’ with a pair of walking shoes two blocks away and before you know it they are at your feet with their super glue (look-a-like) about to mend the damage and help you rid yourself of that Vietnamese Dong that has been clogging up your wallet since leaving the airport. Talking of wallets there are young men walking around with trays of wallets and cigarette lighters who can’t understand anyone who would not need to buy either from them at each street corner everyday! I tell them “I don’t smoke and I haven’t got any money to put in a wallet!” They look bemused.

The streets are full of motorbikes and cylcos (a cycle rickshaw) and women selling street food from the bamboo yokes. Some with huge piles of food one side and stacks of plates and dishes on the other! They put them down on the pavement if they have someone who wants to buy something and work from their mobile kitchen! All of these people walk about and cross the streets together in a surreal manor that is difficult to comprehend….. The bikes go fast and weave in and out of the people who are on foot and walk very slowly between them and never stop walking. It put me in mind of a film where by they somehow merge two films to make it look like there are two time zones intertwined… not sure if you know what I mean. Anyway, I am not sure how this all works together without causing an accident every few steps but it works very well…. for the locals. The key is to keep moving at the same pace at all times. I made the mistake of hesitating and then stopping and I caused chaos! Bikes can’t cope with someone who does not just walk out in front of them in the street and keep going. Even people on the pavement suddenly bunched up and nearly knocked in to me when I stopped! I looked across the road at Glen who had calmly kept going and was now looking over at me with that look of deflation in his eyes, wondering if he would actual see me again any time soon.

In Indonesia we were never far away from a wooden phallic symbol or a live hen. Here in Vietnam you have hens (complete with feathers!) and the odd penis in jars of brandy in some bars!

 

 

 

On a lighter note!……. Last week we met a Japanese lady (tourist) who kindly gave us some Snake fruit to try. The fruit is from the Salak palm tree. They look like brown over ripe strawberries, you expect it to be mushy and soft to touch but it is actually a thin very hard skin. The flesh inside had the consistency of peeled garlic cloves. The taste is said to be sweet and acidic, but it reminded me of juicyfruit chewing gum and the artificial mixed fruit flavour you come across in cheap sweets. Now if they called those sweets back home ‘snake fruit flavour’ they would be spot on! (This is not my photo, I forgot to take one of our Snake fruit)

The dirty streets do have their charms. (smile) We passed by an old women who was sat on the pavement selling cigarettes. She had a pile of them on the floor and she was happily sorting them neatly back in to a little wooden cabinet in a way that reminded me of when we used to tidy our wooden desks out on the last day of term in Marshfield Primary school. (smile) I remember that it was always a disappointing day for me as I kept my desk tidy all term and therefore on the penultimate day I had to mess it up a bit so I had something to do. I digress……

We are staying in the Old Quarter of Hanoi. Each street sells different things, there is a Silk street, Haberdashery street (which has bags and bags of buttons ….I thought of you Lauren!) Metal Pots and Pans street, Shit and glitter street (Keith , if you are reading this…we thought of you!) and Shoe street….etc. (more about those streets another day) We have been looking for flat comfy evening shoes for me for the last two months so we were pleased that our hotel was near Shoe street! So far in Asia nowhere seems to sell women’s shoes in my size. (41) As we walked around in the heat in Jogja last week, amongst the tiny women, (who are the size of Primary school children) Glen said “if we cant find shoes to fit you I don’t know how we will manage if and when you need to buy a new bra!! ” He is so funny, I wish he would write the blog! (hint hint!!)

We went for a meal last night and sat on the first floor balcony of a restaurant and ‘people watched’ as the night unfolded. Shops close early here and refuge is collected in the evening, not a good thing to be looking down onto in the open air as we ate our Pork in coconut! As Glen pointed out the bikes and cars and the madness that was happening on the small cross roads beneath us I had one eye on the young waiter. Not because he was cute, ( he was cute but only about 16 bless him ) I kept watching him for a good hour and a half whilst he picked his nose quite enthusiastically at every available moment. As he walked away from a table he was serving and whilst he was sat at an empty table by the kitchen waiting for someone to require his services. (Grimace)

Glen was pointing out how one Cyclo driver had stoped in the middle of the crossroads to take or make a phone call on his mobile! Everyone just weaved around him no problem at all. Then a guy with a decent car had parked just off centre of the middle of the crossroads and left it there! No one took a blind bit of notice. They are so laid back here! No one has a stressful expression, like I said bland really. I on the other hand find the traffic very stressful and the fact that as I was risking my life crossing the road between the motorbikes earlier today a women (you’ve guessed it) in a coolie hat! Was trying to sell me some ***** donut looking things in the middle of the road!!!! I have to admit I used a very bad word! Something I haven’t done since leaving work in March actually!

Anyway, so then Glen noticed a couple of young women stood by a lady with a ‘shop-on-a-bike’ which was ladened with clothes and bra’s etc and we watched as they tried the bras on, on top of their clothes! Now anyone who wears a bra knows that is a pointless exercise. They kept looking around obviously self-conscious but didn’t think to look up where we were watching! (Chuckle)

 

We continued watching as people walked across the busy street without looking left or right as they continued to talk to each other and seemingly totally oblivious to the bikes swerving in front and behind them. Bikes we had just noticed do not have wing mirrors and only concern themselves with what is in front of them and so anything behind them (as they pull out from a junction or turn a corner) has to be dealt with by the person following them.

Then is started to rain and we watched as people on bikes stopped to put their covers over themselves and their passengers. We noticed some women had pyjamas on (it was only about 8.30pm…) Anyway it has often rained but not for long so we didn’t think much of it until it was time to go back to our hotel! It was the only time that we had not brought our umbrella and rain macs! Typical! So we stood for a while hoping the rain would stop. There was plenty to see…. Everyone was obviously so used to dealing with a sudden downpour. As time went on there were less people walking about so the bikes were extra confident in their speed and one guy drove by on a motorbike not only with an umbrella up but he had it held down in front of him! God knows how he could see where he was going! Madness.

On a closing note….. as we walked back to our hotel this afternoon a women selling food on the street was sat (on one of those tiny stools) next to her bowls of food while another women cut her toe nails!!!!! Honest to god, I kid you not! And everyone knows that no matter how carefully you cut them over the toilet or a bowl or whatever, they always flick off in another direction never to be found again!!!!!!!! That’s all I am saying! …..things like this are not helping my mood! (wink)