Hanoi

Before we arrived in Hanoi, we were told how much we would love it. If Saigon is a bustling teenager, eager to try new things, Hanoi is the wise, older grandmother holding onto tradition. Hanoi is famous for its old quarter, and rightfully so plus, it is the capital and houses Ho Chi Minh’s remains. The city holds more charm than all of Saigon (and I really like Saigon).

Originally, we planned on spending two days in Saigon, hopping a plane to Hanoi and then coming back down the coast via five days in Hoi An and Hue, which are in central Vietnam. Both cities are written about extensively, and best of all, Hoi An has lovely beaches. I thought we could have the best of both worlds: beach and history. Perfect! Well, no one told the weather. I spent the week before we left tracking a typhoon that was headed for, you guessed it, Hoi An. I quickly added warm clothes to my packing list with the assumption we would head to Sapa rather than the beach (it’s good to be a planner).

Sure enough, the typhoon smacked into the central coast and flooded both cities. We heard crazy tales of leaving hotels in neck deep water, of pushing wives and luggage in small, round fishing boats to get to dry land. The best story we heard was the 500 crocodiles that escaped in Hue and were swimming around. At the time, they had captured fifty of them. It was then we knew we weren’t in the US anymore. Someone surely would have sued.

One day in Saigon, we watched as people were turned away from our guesthouse again and again. The floods had pushed all the central coast people north and south. Originally, we planned on just flying to Hanoi and finding a hotel. Watching them, we decided it would be best to book ahead of time.

Our guesthouse had an internet connection, so we went to Trip Advisor and found a hotel with a decent rating and rates. We booked it online and got our confirmation. Easy. We weren’t going to wander the streets of Hanoi. We planned ahead.

We arrived in Hanoi around 6pm and took a taxi into the city for $10, or so we thought. When the driver stopped the car, he told us $20 - $10 each. The injustice swelled in the back of my throat like barf pushing to get out. My bag was in his trunk. We were stuck. We had to give him something. Pete, rightfully so, starting yelling at him. I was silently freaking out. We didn’t have $20 anymore, but I had $15, which he finally took and set my bag free.

Bitching and moaning about getting scammed, we lumbered down the alley where our guesthouse was only to find it closed. Not like closed for dinner, but closed and under construction. CLOSED. As in never opened. EVER. I cursed Trip Advisor.

At that moment, we were wishing we’d gone to the tropical island of Phu Quoc instead of Hanoi. Luckily, the Hanoi Hostel was down the street, and full of helpful people. The owner/manager, a great Aussie – Mick or Mike, was awesome. I was slumped in the corner, defeated while Pete and he figured out what happened. Basically, the scamming isn’t limited to taxis. People submit bogus reviews to Trip Advisor, get listed, have people come to their hotels even if they aren’t that great or, in our case, open. Oy. Since it was our honeymoon, we lifted the budget accommodation requirement and told him we’d stay anywhere – even the Sofitel. But no. Everything was sold out. Everything.

Some sweet women from Australia offered us the second bed in their room, saying they could share and we could share (the generosity of humans never ceases to amaze me), but Mick/Mike, who’d disappeared, reappeared to tell us he’d found us a room around the corner for $55. **If you are a budget traveler and find yourself in Hanoi, please stay at the Hanoi Hostel – great folks. I didn’t see the rooms, but everyone seemed happy.

From there, Hanoi looked up. Our room was lovely – I mean, not the Sofitel or anything, but really quite nice. We had a balcony that overlooked the Cathedral.

The next morning, we tooled around the city, which is incredibly walk-able. We wandered through the Old Quarter and the French Quarter (I couldn’t figure out the difference or are they the same?). We had breakfast at this café that was hard to find, but once we did, we climbed to the top and looked out over the lake. We found another restaurant we loved, and sat upstairs looking down on the street as we sampled spring rolls. We quickly learned that most restaurants have upstairs, and that’s where the best tables are.

The following day we headed to Halong Bay, which shouldn’t be missed even if you hate tours, and then onto Sapa. After Sapa, we had one day in Hanoi before flying to Saigon and home to Los Angeles. But more on that later.

Saigon a.k.a. Ho Chi Minh City

We arrived in Saigon late on a Sunday night and found out that Pete’s bag was still in California. So by the time we filled out paperwork, it was really late. Like midnight. Our first taste of Saigon, therefore, was really quite mellow. Our taxi driver introduced us to honking and optional stoplights (it seems as if they all are), and then, after passing the hotel I tried to get us a room in, dropped us off and pointed down an alley. He said our hotel was down there.

This is the alley AFTER we went down the creepy alley. Looks kind of nice in the late day.

To preface this, I spent hours reading forums on TripAdvisor and Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree researching places to go, money (what’s best to bring – answer: crisp $100US, $1 and $5 bills), and of course, safety. All over the boards are warnings about bogus taxis, getting dropped off at hotels that one didn’t ask to go to. The list goes on.

So, here we are at midnight in Saigon handing a taxi driver $8US to drop us off in the middle of the street and point us to an alley. Naïve American travelers? Yes. But here’s the thing: our hotel really was down the little alley.

I’m frugal. I don’t see the point in spending hundreds of dollars a night on a room I’ll barely spend time in. Most women, when it comes to their honeymoon, would have never agreed to stay anywhere besides top tier hotels because they only cost about $200 a night instead of $500 in Hawaii. But, I found us a room for $13 a night. Why spend so much on a hotel when we could spend that on more travel or great meals? This is the same mentality I use when booking coach tickets.

Sometimes my frugality bites me in the ass. This would be one of those times. Our lovely host led us to our cell, I mean room, on the first floor. It was just large enough to fit a double bed, small refrigerator and small wardrobe. I was glad Pete’s bag was missing. It wouldn’t have fit. Did I mention the window looked out onto the hallway and had BARS ON IT?

Pete’s clothes were in California. We were sleeping in a cell. This was our HONEYMOON. If I hadn’t been so tired, I might have cried.

The next morning, we asked our host if he had any other rooms with windows looking OUTSIDE and also, higher in the building because we heard everyone stomp to breakfast and their plans for the day. He showed us a nice room on the third floor with a window to outside, but he told us it was more. It was $16 more. I thought this was a little steep, but at that point, my cheapness was keeping quiet. We moved our (that would be my) things to the new room with the hope Pete’s would arrive that day.

The first day was like being thrown into a circus ring with all the shows going at once. Saigon has 3 million motor scooters (motos), and they function similarly to cars. People pile whole families onto them, shopping bags, refrigerators, bookshelves – you name it, it goes on a moto. Coming from a country where kids stay in car seats until they are 80 pounds, it shocked me to see toddlers sitting between their mom or dad's legs or STANDING between mom and dad as they zipped and dodged across the city. Most of them didn't have helmets. It was mind boggling.

Once we processed the moto craziness, we realized we had to wade in to cross the street. All intuition and rules about crossing the street had to be abandoned. The only way to cross through the madness was to step into it. Luckily, motos are agile and weave around pedestrians. We paused for buses and large cars to pass, but otherwise, it was best to keep moving. I admit, the first time we crossed a major street, we followed a local woman who was about, oh 90. Please note, we didn’t help her across; we followed her. Trembling.
Note the family crossing the street with traffic flowing. Totally normal.
We spent the day alternately getting scammed since it was our first day and we didn’t know better, avoiding crossing the street and absorbing the chaos around us. It was incredibly overwhelming, and at the same time, exhilarating. Aside from the fact that there are cars, people and buildings, it was like nowhere we’d ever been before. It was organized chaos. And we loved it.
This is my "stop taking my picture and let's get some food" face. I'm very serious about food.

Oh right... there was a war.

In school, I never learned much about the Vietnam War (called the American War there). My school district made time for the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, a brief snippet of the World Wars, and a quick, off-handed reference to the Vietnam War. Maybe it was too close for comfort. Maybe some of the district planners were there, or lost family there. Hopefully, Ken Burns will make a documentary so I can fill in the parts I don't understand.

It's hard to avoid the War in Vietnam. The main tourist attractions in Saigon and Hanoi center on it. We duly played tourist and went to the museums and landmarks.

In Saigon, I had a quick lesson from the winner’s point of view at the War Remnants Museum. I felt awful being an American. I am not a flag-waving American, but I am happy to be one. Looking at the pictures of the defoliation destruction, the birth defects caused by Agent Orange and the devastation that the war caused made me sick. Recently, I watched Ken Burns' documentary on World War II (it's amazing if you haven't seen it), and in it, veterans talk about how during the war, they did things they are ashamed of. Because of that documentary, I felt I better understood the savagery of war, but still, it’s awful. And whoever thought we could beat the Vietnamese had never spent time with them. Small, strong, stealth and proud - I couldn’t imagine battling them.

The Cu Chi tunnels only furthered my thoughts on that. Over 20 years, hundreds of miles of tunnels were dug that went down 3 and 4 stories. They included rooms for meeting, making weapons, sleeping, hospitals and cooking with the smoke vented far from the actual kitchen. It was ingenious - and hellish. The tunnel openings were about 12”x8” and completely camouflaged by leaves. They created escape routes and, in places, made the tunnels narrower to prevent the larger American GIs from crawling through. (They've since widened the tunnels for the tourists.) We went though about 40 meters of tunnel. Crawling through, I put my hands on the wall in front of me to feel where I was going (or used the light from my camera). It was pitch black and hot. Sometimes, they stayed underground for weeks. I was happy to be out after 5 minutes. How do you win against this?

Where's the opening?
The opening we went into was dramatically larger and had stairs.
It looks bright only because of the flash. It was pitch black. Note my wide-open psycho eyes.
At one point of the tour, there is a rusty skeleton of a bombed-out American tank. The tour stops, with the tour guide telling us that it is a defeated American tank. Since litigation isn't as popular there, people are allowed to climb all over it. I've never been in or on a tank so I took the opportunity to climb on it. While I was on it, I couldn't stop thinking that someone's father, brother, son or husband died here, and now I'm climbing on it like it's part of an amusement park. It was haunting.

The whole thing was kind of creepy: laughing and posing for pictures in tunnels (snapping away blindly and hoping the camera is facing the right direction) that people hid in, climbing on tanks, seeing traps that ensnared Americans, shooting guns (we didn't because we decided that was something we could do in the US with safer, newer guns), and making sure to stop for ice cream. And despite all of that, it's interesting and I'm glad I went.

We also went to the Reunification Palace, which was taken the day the US evacuated (April 30, 1975 for those who, like me, had no idea). I still don't know all the details of the Palace other than the "puppet" leader (so called because they say the Americans were really in control) lived there until they assassinated him. Then, the new regime moved in and redecorated the place (and the 60s decor remains to this day). There were two stories underground that served as a mission control. But apparently, I was paying more attention to the 60s sofa than the lecture because I don't remember the details.

Cruising the halls of mission control 2 stories down. Much more comfortable than Cu Chi.
By the time we were in Hanoi, I wanted to avoid the war stuff, but again, it is the main stuff on the tourist map. After wandering the French Quarter and walking around the lake, we decided we needed to check out some more history. Unfortunately, Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh) was on vacation in China getting a little work done. Otherwise, we would have gone to see him at his mausoleum. I mean, how often do you get to see a dead person?

We decided to go to the infamous Hoa Lo Prison (a.k.a. Hanoi Hilton). The Vietnamese don't mess around. They put mannequins into the racks that people used to be in just in case your imagination went on hiatus with Uncle Ho. My personal favorite was peering into small cells, and getting the crap scared out of me because a life-like mannequin was chained-up inside. For years, the French used this prison to house Vietnamese, and that is the main focus, but the part that most interested me was that it was used for POWs during the Vietnam War. John McCain was in the “Hilton” from 1967 to 1973. I had no idea he was there for so long. From the photos and information, life in the “Hilton” was pleasant and full of comforts. I haven't done my research, but I find this hard to believe. I mean, it was a WAR.


After all the war sites, going to the War Museum was overkill (and I wish we had skipped it for the art museum). Although it covered all of the Vietnamese wars, there was a large portion dedicated to the American war. It was interesting to see information on the American anti-war protests in support of pulling out of Vietnam. I never would have thought those would end up in a museum in Vietnam. Outside, they had the requisite US Army helicopters, tanks and planes they recovered during or after the war.


All in all, it was a lot to process. The death. The hand my country had in it. The rebuilt country. The bad curating. Someone needs to tell them to unfold the uniforms and put them on mannequins. I could only handle so much before I needed to sit outside with a coffee, and the Vietnamese definitely know how to make a good coffee. But more on that another day.

Sapa: Flip-flops and Socks

I planned on writing about our trip to Vietnam in chronological order, but that’s not how it’s coming out. I wrote a crap bit about Saigon, our first stop, but like I said, it’s crap. I was writing a letter of thanks to Robert Reid of Reid on Travel when this bit started flowing. Not one to deny the flow, I kept going and stayed late at work. So, here are excerpts from our honeymoon in Vietnam.

The only part of our trip that we splurged on was Sapa. We booked our tour with one of the nicer tour agencies, Exotissimo. For train tickets on the sleeper train (1 night there, 1 night back), a night in a nicer hotel (don’t recall how many stars), a guided trek, two meals and a private car to and from the station, we paid $134 each. Yes, Vietnam is cheap.

I felt like a VIP. Someone met us at the station in Hanoi with our tickets (we were in Halong Bay the days before and couldn’t pick them up) and walked us to our berth. At the station near Sapa, we were greeted by our guide who took us by private car to our hotel. He said we’d be able to check into our room before our trek (we arrived at 6am and didn’t trek until 9am), but it wasn’t available. My husband got a little pissy since he wanted to take a nap. I just wanted to wash my face so I was ecstatic that he arranged for us to have access to a bathroom with hot showers.

Compared to Hanoi and Saigon, Sapa was freezing. I have no idea what the real temperature was, but I’d guess it was around 50-ish. Again, cold in California is 60, but it felt colder than that. I piled on the layers of Patagonia tops I’d brought, a hat, a scarf and anything else I could think of to keep warm. My tough German husband wore shorts, a t-shirt and a cotton sweater. I pushed my raincoat on him. I’ll be a hell of a mother.

Our car and guide picked us up and drove us to the trailhead. Even before we got out, people were swarming around the car. Our guide explained that the local people (ethnic minority Black Hmong and Red Zao) would try to befriend us so we would buy their stuff. They’d ask, “Where you from?” and use our naïve friendliness as an excuse to badger us for cash. We were to answer, “No, thank you” to everything. In LA, I feel poor because I can’t imagine spending $1000 on a sweater. Seeing as the average annual income in Vietnam is around $700 (how's that for perspective?), we were walking dollar signs.

As soon as my dollar-sign and I got out of the car, we were surrounded by sales people. Their native dress is gorgeous, and I found myself wanting to take pictures of them like they were specimens in a zoo. We were dollar signs; they were objects. Sure enough, we were met with a cacophony of “where you from?” and “what you want?” We answered as the guide told us to, “No, thank you,” and pushed through the crowd. It must be a little like celebrities feel pushing through fans.


Every trekking group ends up with some escorts. We had a pair of young women who first asked us the questions that we ignored. They just kept walking with us, defiant to our indifference. They waited while we took pictures. They waited while our guide explained things to us. They waited and waited and waited until we finally bought some things from them, and then finally, I could take their picture.


All of a sudden we were surrounded by kids with smaller kids strapped to their backs trying to sell us stuff. They were like locusts circling us. I don’t know if they were too young to travel on, but eventually, they left us, but we picked up two more women. If you are ever worried about hiking alone in the mountains of Vietnam, don’t be. There is always someone to hike with. You’ll have to buy some goods, but you’ll have a companion.

For lunch, we stopped at a home-stay house. I was a little concerned as to what we would be eating, but our guide took our lunch out of his backpack. It was a simple, American style lunch, but tasty. It was the plum and rice wine we drank with our hostess that should have concerned me. Towards the end of our lunch, she offered us some plum wine, which we couldn't refuse. We raised our glasses and shouted out the cheer we’d learned in Halong Bay. “One, two, three (in Vietnamese), YO (or ZO)!” We did this about, oh, twenty times with plum wine and then rice wine and then beer.


After about two hours (our hiking companions waited for us), we staggered off for the remainder of our hike. I don’t think the drinking is included in the tour, and many people would probably want to skip the heavy drinking lunch. In hindsight, I would, too, since I don’t remember the second half of the trek.

The bits I remember after lunch include this: much hollering in French (don’t ask me why this started. I don’t recall.), thanking South Africa for helping me walk (somewhere we met up with two sisters from South Africa who we started calling just “South Africa.” We were “Los Angeles” and our guide became “Vietnam.”), arriving at a shop/restaurant and getting on our private bus with “South Africa.” Luckily, there is photographic evidence of things that happened. Even with those, the afternoon is blurry. NOTE: I do not recommend getting shit-faced drunk in a foreign country (or anywhere) with all your money and two cameras on you. I consider us incredibly lucky that we ran into “South Africa” and didn’t get hustled by anyone.

Being led on the trek by "South Africa" and followed by our companions.

That night, being a Californian, I thought I could wear jeans, a fleece and flip-flops to dinner (unfortunately, “South Africa” took the train back to Hanoi so couldn’t join us). It was freaking cold, so I bought some socks for about a $1.50 and let my Asian genes flow by putting them on with my flip-flops. My husband was on a quest to eat as many strange things as he could, so requested the guide take us to a restaurant that served snake. He did one better: he took us to his friend’s birthday party at an apartment 2km from Sapa. I know this because we had to walk back to town. In flip-flops and socks.

We hopped on his motorbike with him and buzzed off into the night (yes, there were three of us on one bike). Then stopped. I thought our American asses weighed too much for his little scooter, but it ran out of petrol. (that’s gas, if you only speak American English like my husband.) He hailed his friend over, and the friend drove us up to the party. We were sitting on the back of a scooter with a man we didn’t know cruising up a mountain in a country where we didn’t speak the language. The road turned to dirt. The houses thinned until there was only one every 100 yards or so. I started wondering what a Vietnamese “Deliverance” theme would sound like.

Finally, he turned left into a driveway. It was foggy, and I couldn’t make out much except for a large concrete slab, a larger house and the smaller building where we entered. We walked into what I presumed was a kitchen. A group of people zipped into coats sat around a feast of bowls and plates piled with food. At either end of the circle, there were two bowls filled with rice wine that they dipped shot glasses into. I felt like shit from all of the drinking we did earlier in the day so I declined. My large, still drunk husband dove in with gusto. They loved it.

Guess which one's with me.

There was no snake, but there were small birds (they said doves) cooked (broiled? Bbq’ed?) with their heads still intake. To me, they looked like unlucky fowl found after the Malibu fires. Apparently, they tasted great. My husband popped one into his mouth and went to town. Head and all. I wanted to throw up.


On the other side of me sat our guide with a boiled chicken head. He explained to me that in Vietnam, the head is a delicacy and proceeded to pluck the eyeball out and knaw on the skull. I was hung over with a queasy stomach and almost wretched. Every two minutes or so, someone would want to do a toast, so cheering would ensue and more rice wine was consumed. My husband, game as he is to try foods and drink wine, became the center of attention. People wanted their photos taken with him and everyone wanted to do a toast with him.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of sitting on a cold floor (the mat wasn’t big enough for all of us), we moved to someone’s bedroom. It was sparse with just a bed, desk and a small rack for clothes. It put life into perspective. Our apartment in Los Angeles is a palace in comparison. We sat around on the bed and a few chairs drinking tea before I finally said we needed to head back to our hotel (it was the nicest hotel we stayed in the whole trip).

But before we could start our walk back to town (there was no way I was getting on a scooter with anyone there), they wanted to show us where they worked. By this point, I was cold, tired, hung-over and slightly annoyed with my drunken husband, but of course we went. It was the polite thing to do.

We walk out to the large building. Someone opened the door with a key. It was dark inside before they turned on the lights. No one was around but us, and it felt eerie. We stampeded up to the second floor where they opened the door to a lab with another key. All the while, I am chanting to myself, “We are safe. We are safe. We are safe.” They work in bio-technology and do research on potatoes. The room smelt loamy. Inside, were racks and racks of beakers filled with potato sprouts. I felt like a fool.

We finally made if back to the hotel around midnight. Despite my paranoia, I made it back without stepping in any puddles.

The next day, completely unjust, I still felt like shit and my husband felt fine. After choking down some breakfast (fried rice works well in place of greasy eggs and toast), we wandered around town and stumbled upon the market. I love food. I love cooking and I love farmers markets. One of my favorite things to do in other countries is to check out their markets. Sometimes just for the shock value. Sapa did not disappoint.

The vegetables shimmered in the drizzle of the morning, looking fresh and scrumptious. The meats… the meats reminded me that we aren’t that far from life when we eat meat. Gone were the sterile Styrofoam containers. Instead, pig heads sat next to cuts of pork. Intestines piled in baskets next to the tables. Chicken and duck feet stuck up in the air, with their heads lolled to the side, beaks intact. There were live chickens and ducks in basket cages waiting their fates, but worst of all, was the dog. We knew it was dog, which is an expensive and well-liked meat in Vietnam, because the skinned paws and head were sitting next to the meat.




A few hours later, after finding the one pub in town with heat, we drank tea with other foreigners waiting for the train to Hanoi when the power went out. Without a hiccup, the bartender grabbed a battery powered light and stuck it on the bar. Someone else lit candles in the stairway and bathrooms. Power. Just one more thing we take for granted.

Sapa wasn’t my favorite place in Vietnam. It was beautiful, and I’d imagine even more so if we could have seen the views of the distant mountains, but I definitely have the most distinct memories from there. If we’d had more time, and it was warmer, it would have been interesting to go further into the mountains, off the beaten path, but at least our dinner provided an experience not included in the guidebooks.