I'm glad I'm doing a recap of Hanoi instead of writing about it as it happened, because I wouldn't have had many nice things to say. By now my annoyance has tempered and I can understand and maybe even sympathize. We stayed in the Old Quarter, which as charming as it was, is one big tourist trap filled with hustlers. We arrived from our night train at 4:30am, pushed passed all the scummy taxi touts and found one on the street. He quoted a price that was a little high so I told him to use the meter. We could tell he was driving further away than he should've to pad the fare, so I got into a heated argument in Vietnamese (I'm capable of doing that now). Then when Mick paid him, he tried to shortchange us. Still stinging from the cheat, I told him he was stupid and couldn't add, "Didn't you finish school, idiot?" Hanoi started badly for me. Anyway, it was 4:45am and everything dark, closed and locked up. We knocked on one of the metal garage doors that covered a hotel lobby and a really sleepy guy raised the door (the night-shift hotel employees in Vietnam sleep on the floor) to let us in. My mom flew back to Saigon to spend more time with her siblings. We were left to go back to our adventurous traveling methods.
Hanoi is a nice place, once you get out of the tourist areas. When we ventured outside of the Old Quarter, everything was normal and friendly again. Hundreds of tiny, little 6-year-olds walking back to school from an outing screamed, "HELLO!" to us, one by one, as if it was the funniest thing ever, a riot. Unlike hustler kids who would ask for money. Food was cheaper and better too. The baguettes are amazing in Hanoi. As was the coffee which costs more than beer. There are lots of Australian expats married to Vietnamese and many of them spoke Vietnamese fluently, which baffled Mick because he can't distinguish the Vietnamese tones from each other at all. One Australian told us how hard it was to do business there because of the corruption and red tape. I simply can't understand why Vietnam can't understand that hurting tourists will hurt tourism, hence hurt Vietnam's pocketbook. Make tourism easy. Accept credit cards. Standardize prices. Fix the roads. The Australian guy was trying to convince me to live there and introduce American smarts to Vietnamese business. No chance! I'd sooner live in Croatia.
Mick at a liquor and baby formula shop. Everyone on this street sold liquor and baby formula. They charged Mick twice as much. I talked them down a little.
Here we are sitting on tiny stools five inches off the ground toasting our beer hoi at beer hoi junction, an intersection of crowded street bars serving 12-cent beers.
Vietnam vs. Thailand in soccer. It was close, they tied.
Mick with some cool guys talking about restoring vintage Vespas.
Who would want a fake IKEA shopping bag? I don't know, but they're for sale.
Me sitting on those little stools again. This place sold one thing only: fruit doused with condensed milk over crushed ice. Yum!
The scooter traffic seems never-ending.
I meant to show how crappy this river was, but it turned out to be picturesque.
This rickety old bridge was brought to you by the makers of the Eiffel Tower.
This is a nice park isn't it? I wish whoever is drying their laundry would stop doing that.
This is a nice lake isn't it? Until...
...you see dead fish floating everywhere. Ugh, I wonder what's wrong with the water.
A FiviMart supermarket. I was so frustrated with all the overcharging and negotiation on the street, I went here instead, where prices are marked, you know, normal and taken for granted in the U.S.
Sorry, another picture of scooter traffic that goes on for miles. I couldn't get over it.
This lady is living dangerously. This is a working railroad track.
This means "NO PEEING." No one obeyed.
A piece at a bonsai exhibition.
Me relaxing with a smoothie after my day at the spa. All the cheating scamming and hustling in Hanoi took it's toll. The locals cheated, not me.
This was our shuttle to the bus station. Yes, I'm serious. My luggage is in between the driver's legs.
06:39 PM // Wednesday November 15, 2006 // permalink
