Hanoi.....Err.......Rocks!

November 18 - 23

Flight Hong Kong - Hanoi

I remember when I was in 'Nam.........*Graaaaagghhh!* - Vietnam, The NAM(e) conjures such delights as War; Suffering; Paddy fields; Funny Pointy Hats; NApalM; Marlon Brando going MAADD!; Paul Hardcastle ...... err.....N.n.n.n.n.n.n.n.n.n.n.n.n.n.nineteen........

Bit of a surprise then that my first objective opinion on the place was 'F'n Mopeds' but I like surprises! as the N.n.n.nineteenth (is that getting tired yet) in about as many seconds meeps; buzzes & swerves past I realise a Hanoi Obsession .....
(*brilliant*) .......Everyone has a bike. Combine that with the Asia wide highway code of: Do anything - Just dont hit anything (+ my own code of 'Just shut your eyes .... + dont stop/look back/even think about stopping or looking back') & the fun in the streets around + about our hotel never ends. Yoke wielding cone hats on 2 wheels with smiles babble & beep the day + night away.

The Anh Dao (means 'Cherry Blossom' - should mean 'sixth floor bit of a pit but at 8 quid a night mustn't grumble too much 'though I'm pretty sure the scrabbling sound that has woken me up for the past few nights is a rodent of some kind' but the staff are really friendly so I guess the (ok i'm exaggerating) rabied gnaw marks on my shins will heal: i'm jabbed up & i'm sure I'll remember my time here fondly') is in the old quarter of the city.....errr.....so called because it's an area that .... ummm... covers less than a third of the city......and......has been here for a bit. In fact it used to be called 'Ye Olde Towne of Hanoie' and was populated by gear stick-wielding hells angels; yokel-flinging dragon snurfers; chopstick jugglers & slightly-crazed puppeteers back in the day 'ere before records were kept Yarg!......

Dont get me started on Puppets. OK - the ticket cost a quid & we had fair warning that it was like 'watching Punch + Judy on water'. But every guidebook sells it as a 'must-see'....'never to be missed event'......'once in a lifetime experience'. It was surreal - A theatre full of non Vietnamese adults (OK, apart from the kid sat next to me who was the only person present who actually 'got' it) watching a Vietnamese language show....for kids.....that was........basically......Punch & Judy on Water ('cept they had dragons instead of crocs). When I look back on my life, it will either be:

- The best quid I ever spent & the single moment that changed my very existence.
- The moment I realised that I actually hated Punch & Judy from a very early age anyway.
- The moment I realised that after the age of 5 we do all indeed go insane.
- Another memory I blank for fear o' the demons

Cyclo ride to the Temple of Literature - I paid 100'000 DONNGGG!!!! (currently my fave name for a currency!), & found out later I should have paid about 10'000 for the trip (stop laughing Robyn!!! - Par for the bleedin' course - Thinking of adopting the slightly ironic name of Billy Barter due to my less than spectacular deal-sealing skills) Temple was kinda nice to wander around as it is about a thousand years old + is pretty much in honour of Confucious.

Confucious said something like: 'If you want to be known, you must at first become worth knowing' - could be applied to loved; respected ....... bizarrely also works for 'something' ...umm....or not.

Confucious also wrote 'I saw some piglets suckling their dead mother. After a short while they shuddered and went away. They had sensed that she could no longer see them and that she wasn't like them any more. What they loved in their mother wasn't her body, but whatever it was that made her body live.'

Interesting that Confucianism is still popular here, particularly when you consider the context of the above quotes and relate it to the fact that on visiting the Mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh you get to see 'Uncle Ho' in all his 30 year embalmed glory. Guards are everywhere + anyone showing disrespect (which apparently includes putting your hands in your pockets!) will be ejected immediately (It is veryvery difficult to not laugh......or is that just me?)etc. Fact: Ho Chi Minh wanted to be cremated. I can respect the right of the people to love their leader, even though they didnt respect him enough to respect his last wishes. Maybe a garish gold statue would have sufficed.......or a song........or a public holiday.........or putting his face on all the banknotes........or naming a city after him........Hmmmm......?

Sin Jow - Means Hello

The vietnamese have 4 mythical creatures that they revere:

The Phoenix - (Air (+ fire?)) A bird that flaps around trying to disguise the fact that it is on fire whilst using the air said flaps generates to put out said fire because it isnt aware that water would prob do the trick a bit quicker.
The Dragon - (Fire (+ earth?)) A huge scaly monster that breathes fire & generally lays about in caves on bones guarding damsels from knights and flying around setting birds alight and making some people believe they are as mythical & mighty even though they are actually just birds that were set on fire by the dragon in the first place.
The Unicorn - (Earth) A horse with a pointy cone head that runs around chasing the cone & gets stuck in trees (no, not 'call the fire brigade, there's a unicorn stuck in the tree'. but, 'the stupid horse has run into the tree and needs to have his pointy bit knocked back out of the trunk again!')
The Tortoise - (Water)......A Tortoise........ Hold-on - A mythical beast of water, of the deep.....what could it be? - A Kracken, one of those great octopus/squid betentacled sea monsters....Yaaarrrrr......err.....Naaaarrrrr. Maybe a spirit to guard the paddy fields?......Nope!.......Aaahhh! - A mermaid/man - getting colder - A Tortoise...........Brilliant!.

The day after the day befores headlines told of 13 people killed; boats overturned and capsized and smashed that night.......we had almost booked an overnight at Halong Bay but decided to just do it in a day....... The bay (Ha Long means 'descending Dragon.....Wooooo!....err....Raaaarrrr!!!) is quite beautiful and chillin' on a boat for too many hours reminded me of a time on the Backwaters of Kerala 'bout a year ago (H'aight!). The driver stopped on the way back during a pretty severe lightning storm as what sounded like bricks hitting the bus were actually larger than fist sized hailstones....the same storm hit Halong soon after & the people there weren't so lucky.......