The night train brought us into Hanoi at 4:30 in the morning. We were told to grab a taxi to our hotel, but since it was only a mile away, we decided to take an early morning stroll through the mostly deserted streets. Morning hours in most cities are so peaceful, and here, we got to cross the street without fear of being run over. Our hotel was sort of closed when we arrived, but the breakfast cook showed up at the same time as us and just knocked on the front door, waking the poor bellman asleep on the lobby couch, who let us in.
We got to sleep in the lobby for about 45 minutes before the hotel guests started to come down for breakfast. We were only staying at the hotel until 8am, waiting for a bus to take us to Ha Long Bay - a large expanse of water with over 1100 mini islands of limestone and trees spread all over. “Ha Long” means “Descending Dragon” and it’s said that all the islands are the Dragon’s eggs.
Our bus was cramped, stopped at a marble factory where they tried to get us to buy overpriced statues, and took 4 hours, but once at the bay, we were transferred to a Junk Boat - small 20 person cruise ship that would float us around the Bay for 2 days and let us see some of the area’s main attractions. Our room was small and the bathroom smelled like a rotten egg, but it was quaint and the boat had three levels: bottom was rooms; the middle held the bar, dinning area, and more rooms; and the top was spread with lounge chairs to admire the view.
Unfortunately, the weather was quite foggy, so there wasn’t a crystal clear view of the islands with a beautiful blue sky backdrop, but it did give the mountains a grey-blue blended watercolor look. There were also about 50 other ships within half a mile of us, so the emptiness of the bay we saw on all the flyers was probably from 20 years ago. Ha Long Bay has only been open to tourism since 1994 and since then, over 500 different junk boats, day boats, sail boats, and speed boats show visitors the beauty of the area on a daily basis.
Our first stop was Ti-Top Island- a small island that the Russian liaison to Ho Chi Minh liked to come to when working with the Vietnam President, therefore the country named it after him. We could have went swimming, but 30 degree water seemed a tad cold, so we opted to join the large line headed up 300 stairs to a viewing platform looking out at the bay and more islands. It was a nice view, but probably would have been better on a sunny day and with less people.
The afternoon was spent kayaking a small inlet bordering a monkey island. We watched as cute little baby monkeys scaled down sheer limestone cliff-faces and somehow survived. There was a big monkey that stayed on “his” rock and if the other monkeys came near him, he’d get pissy and lash out. The monkeys were so cute that Robby kept paddling us closer to the island and I got mad because I did not want a cute, fluffy monkey that might have rabies on our kayak.
While kayaking, we met a nice British couple, Dan and Becky, who were on a different junk cruise and we just talked about all the places we had been to in Vietnam while paddling back to our individual boats to take showers and enjoy sunset happy hour. Since it was New Years Eve, our boat laid out a lovely spread of fruits and chocolates with accompanying wine to celebrate in the evening. The tour leader tried to get everyone to sing a song from their country, but most people opted to dance instead. At Midnight, all of the boats in the area honked their horns, blinked their lights, and you could hear cheers across the water.
The following morning, everyone on our boat went off to see a cave, but since we were on the 3 day/2 night cruise, whereas they all were on the 2D/1N cruise, we were shuttled to two different places before being deposited on a day boat. Our kayaking couple, Dan and Becky, also happened to be on our day cruise, so we had some great people to spend the day with. We explored a cave that had small entryways leading into large chambers and was imbedded into a rock face above the water, kayaked to a sandy beach (that a bunch of other people also happened to kayak too), and visited a pearl farm where the sales lady murdered a poor oyster in front of us to show us how they dig the pearls out of the shells.
Our day boat apparently ended at 3pm, when the normal 2D/1N cruise people start their adventures, so we had 2 hours to lounge on the sun deck of our boat and start happy hour early. When the new ship passengers came back to the boat, they were all like, “where’d you come from?” But everyone was really friendly and it was nice to spend the evening with a more talkative bunch of people. Our first group of passengers mostly spoke Korean and Indian, so it was mostly a game of charades to communicate.
Our last day on the boat was spent visiting Surprise Cave - a rather large series of cave chambers that stretch into an island interior. I think I would have enjoyed it better if there would have been some sort order to the amount of people allowed in at one time, but instead we walked-stopped-walked in a cue of 100’s. We lunched back on the boat and then we were put on a bus back to Hanoi with Dan and Becky. We joked that they were stalking us, but since they were at the boat dock first, we technically were the stalkers.
Our Hanoi hotel, Golden Rooster, turned out to be amazing. We had been there twice before for breakfast and to wait for rides elsewhere, but we got to actually check in this time. Our room was clean, comfortable, cool, and heavenly compared to our Sapa and Ha Long Bay accommodations; a great hotel to spend our last two days in Vietnam.
Hanoi is a very big city and offers tons of activities and attractions - shows, food tours, pagodas, museums, numerous Night Markets, and the Water Puppet show - a unique show that illustrates 11th century Asian puppet tradition and tells the story of a giant turtle, a lake, and ancient village life. 8+ puppeteers use long poles to control the characters and make it appear as if the puppets are walking, dancing, and running on water. The show is accompanied by a live Vietnamese instrumental band. For only $5 and having been just 45 minutes long, it was a rather nice evening activity.
1 day later, we saw “My Village”, an amazing performance of acrobatic ability infused with a live orchestra that told the story of a Vietnamese tribal village’s daily life. Since the only talking during the 75 minute show was singing, strategic lightening and music helped tell the story of love, loss, hardship, and friendship. I encourage everyone to see this show as it is spectacular and well worth the entrance price, plus you can meet the performers after the show and talk with them or take photos.
We spent our 1 full day in Hanoi on a City Tour visiting various tourist sights in the area. 1st stop was Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum where he is actually entombed and can be viewed on the weekends (creepy), plus Ho Chi Minh’s residence. There is a bomb shelter on the property, but no one apparently knows how big it is or the layout. 2nd stop was the “One-Pillar Pagoda” - rising from one pillar in the centre of an elegantly square shaped lotus pond, the pagoda is said to represent a lotus flower growing up out of the water.
Aside from a mini stop at a lacquer factory that showed us how a small Vietnamese village makes egg shell lacquer art, which was actually fascinating and way more time consuming than I ever thought, we toured the Museum of Ethnology for our 3rd stop. The museum had displays on most of the indigenous tribes of Indochina (Vietnam, Thailand, & Cambodia), including a few replicas of their houses, clothing, and jewelry.
We had a tasty lunch before visiting the Temple of Literature - opened in 1070 as Vietnam’s first National University and dedicated to the study of Confucius. Our last stop on the tour was the “most beautiful pagoda”, at least according to our tour guide. If you take a picture of Tran Quoc Pagoda from the side with the incense pillars that house real monk’s ashes, it is rather lovely. It’s also situated on the edge of the West Lake - 17km expanse of water that borders a bunch of the taller buildings in the city. There are approximately 30 lakes in Hanoi.
For our last few hours in the lovely city of Hanoi, Robby and I walked around admiring all the buildings and the people. We got slightly unlucky when it decided to rain, but a nice shop vendor gave us plastic bags to put our cameras in. We visited the Hoa Lo Prison, dubbed by captured American Vietnam War pilots as the “Hanoi Hilton” because of the excellent treatment they received- daily exercise; good food; education on the Vietnamese people and culture, which ended up changing their minds about the war and having most of the pilots regret bombing the hell out of the country; and general respect from the Vietnamese guards.
The Prison was first built in 1886 by the French during their occupation of Indochina and used to imprison Vietnamese Political Prisoners who opposed the French order. Those prisoners did not fair well in the jail - often dying from treatable diseases like the flu, dysentery, and diarrhea, as well as torture. Conditions were cramped and stifling in the summer and freezing in the winter. But the prisoners never lost faith in their communistic cause as they wrote secret propaganda newsletters and taught each other their ways while chained to the floor. Their commitment to their beliefs and their willful defiance to be assimilated by the French is truly inspirational in the face of such hardships and the threat of death, that loomed over their heads daily.
To decompress from yet another tale of sadness about a class of people committing atrocities against another group of people, Robby and I went in search of “Loading T”, a coffee shop hidden away inside a residential building that, when we found it, looked ready to crumble. But inside the building, the coffee house was adorable with flower vases on all the tables and a cozy, horticulturist’s living room vibe with a French window open to the street. The drinks weren’t too bad either.
With our time in Vietnam about up, we walked back to the Golden Rooster to grab our bags and head to the airport. We acquired a new North Fake gym bag to pack all the leather shoes we bought in Hoi An, plus some nick knacks we picked up in various night markets, so our minimalist hope for traveling lite vanished, but life is what it is and I don’t think we can every pack with “just the bare essentials”.
Vietnam is a wonderful country with beautiful scenery; friendly people; amazing coffee shops that serve at times good coffee and at other times terrible sludge; a place of distinctive history and amazing archeological finds; vast and small cities that offer their unique highlights; and an openness to welcome all and forgive passed transgressions. This past month I’ve had a chance to relax on a boat and in the mountains, meet some wonderful people from all over the world, learn more about a couple of wars that senselessly killed millions for the purpose of power or prestige, walk for miles and miles but still be awed by the hidden gems I stumbled across, and find contentment in myself and appreciation for all that I have.
Thank you Vietnam and Cambodia, you’re wonderful countries!
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