Hi everyone,
Hope you've all recovered from the earthquake! Things have been a bit less dramatic round here as we've spent 4 days relaxing in Hanoi before we head to Halong Bay to soak up some...er...cloud.
Yes that's right, for the first time in 6 weeks it's not been bright sunshine from morning till evening. Terrible eh? You must feel really sorry for us... Phil's tan has already faded back to pasty and no doubt in another few days he'll be back to ghostly white and will have to start all over again.
We arrived in Hanoi on Saturday evening and our hotel is in the Old Quarter in the centre of the city. It's full of narrow streets and little alleyways and feels quite Parisian. The French influence is also apparent in the south of the city which has wide tree-lined boulevards and there's also a small lake (Hoan Kiem) about a minute from our hotel, which is rather nice, with a tiny pagoda in the middle.
So far we've managed to get around without serious injury, despite the interesting approach to traffic regulations round here, where crossing the road basically involves staring down a swarm of mopeds to see who will give in first and let you through. The roads do have traffic lights but we're starting to think that these are actually just some sort of festive lights or decorations, rather than anything that the traffic is supposed to pay attention too!
On Monday we went to prison. Hoa Lo Prison to be exact, also known as the Hanoi Hilton. It was originally built by the French colonists to imprison Vietnamese who opposed them, and later the Vietnamese used it for US prisoners-of-war. One POW was John McCain, the presidential candidate, who was shot down over Hanoi in 1967 and held in the prison for 4 years. The prison museum has pictures of his capture and the pilot suit he was wearing. Other parts of the prison show how it looked under French rule, including one of the actual guillotines they used.
We decided to get a bit of culture on Monday evening and went to see the famous water puppets. Water puppets have been used to tell traditional Vietnamese folk tales for nearly 1000 years and there's a theatre dedicated to them in central Hanoi. The shows last about an hour and the puppet-masters stand in the water out of sight behind a screen and control the puppets with sticks that run under the water. It was well worth seeing, especially the fire-breathing dragons!
On Wednesday we failed to see inside Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum. Just like we failed to see Lenin in Moscow. In Moscow we'd mixed up the opening times but we knew we needed to get to see "Uncle Ho" before 11am so we got up early. Unfortunately though we got held up moving room in the hotel but still managed to get to the Mausoleum at 10 to 11. At least we thought we'd got to the Mausoleum...
We were about 50 feet away from the entrance, but for reasons known only to themselves, the guards were telling everyone they couldn't walk through the car park (despite other tourists milling around in said car park and no traffic whatsoever, except for 3 stationary buses) and instead had to walk round three sides of the outside of the square and enter by the other end of the car park. By the time we'd got all the way around, it was 5 past 11 and the Mausoleum was closed. Grrr.
We're leaving Hanoi tomorrow so have missed another chance to see a famous dead Commie. Darn it. Maybe we'll just wait till we get home and go to Highgate Cemetery to see where Karl Marx is.
(By the way, if you're wondering why we moved room, it's because the building opposite the hotel is being rennovated and at 11pm last night they drove up a big lorry and started launching huge bits of rubble into it from the top floor. The lorry was parked right under our window and came back three more times before it eventually left at 4am. Good morning Vietnam indeed!)
We're off to Halong Bay in the morning, which is about 3 hours drive from Hanoi and is meant to be very scenic. Though we're a bit worried by the afore mentioned cloud cover, which might make for some atmospheric if not very sunny photos. We're going for two nights and are spending the first night on a traditional Chinese "junk" style boat. The next day we plan to explore some of the islands and stay overnight on one of them before returning to Hanoi on Saturday afternoon.
Then on Saturday evening, we're getting the sleeper train to Sapa which is north west of Hanoi and close to the Chinese border. It's meant to be very scenic round there too, so we're planning to have a wander round the countryside before we cross into China on Tuesday morning.
Our current plan for China is to get the bus to Kunming in Yunnan province (just north of Laos) and then head north to Chengdu to visit some pandas, then east to Chongqing for a two or three day cruise down the Yangtze River to Yichuan. From Yichuan, the plan is to head to Shanghai for a few days then up to Beijing and the Great Wall. We've got till 26th March in China before we fly to Oz. The plan may well change as we make our way around but that's how it looks for now. Any recommendations, tips etc., let us know - we're still only halfway through the background of the China rough guide!
We're hoping we won't have any problems updating our journal from China but we know that the government has banned access to some foreign websites from within the country. We're hoping World Nomads isn't one of them, but if we go quiet in March, you'll know the reason why!
Love from Phil and Sarah x
P.S. Sarah had her haircut yesterday, by a non-English speaking Vietnamese hairdresser - so testing acting skills to the max! If it went wrong, she was ready to hide it with one of the big conical hats they all have round here, but the Vietnamese hairdresser seems to have done a good job. Not bad for 3 quid!
