Vietnam....Hanoi

Hanoi is ever so slightly different from Tokyo. They have some definite similarities. They are both capital cities, erm and they're both busy places. Thats it. Hanoi is a world away from Japan and it's been a real culture shock, especially to me. I'm just starting to get in to the swing of things now, but it's a really strange experience. We flew into Hanoi on Friday, getting it at mid-day. This was after 24 hours of travelling from Tokyo to Singapore, where we had to hang out at the airport from 2.30am till our flight at 10am. Singapore airport's not a bad place to hang out, free internet and xbox, but trying to sleep on airport seats is a bit crap. We strode out of the airport and onto our airport minibus to run us into town ($2 each). It took about 1/2 hour to reach our hotel, which was 1/2 hour of the driver tooting his horn at every other vehicle we passed and this it turns out, is what they all do! I was amazed to see your stereotypical image of Vietnam (conical hat wearing farmers in paddy fields) as soon as we left the airport, but there it was, water buffalo too :) The rest of the drive was a dusty whirlwind of grey and mopeds really. Our hotel is a nice one, very clean and comes with free breakie all for 4 quid each. Its called Stars hotel, the website photos are slightly deceiving as always, but none the less, its very good.
Hanoi hits you in the face like a massive, grey, moped really. Or rather like a few thousand mopeds. Crossing the road is a bit like playing frogger, but you have to avoid mopeds. You wait for a slight break in the rush and then walk at a steady pace, so that they can see you and hopefully avoid you, which they have so far :) Walking around is a bit hasselie, as in people are asking you if you want a ride somewhere on their moped, or their cyclo, or their taxi, or trying to sell you books, doughnuts on sticks? or various other things. Starting to get a bit immune to it now, smiling, saying "No" and carrying on walking at the same time. On the main roads (there's loads) the pollution is pretty grim, I feel like I've started smoking again, I bet Ventolin sales are through the roof here! All in all, the Hanoi environment is not the best I've experienced and tomorrow night we are off to Sapa, which is in the mountains, so we should get some fresh air and less crowds hopefuly :)
I've been fairly negative about Vietnam so far and I can hear Sam's voice in my head now, telling me to shut up moaning :) But, there are some positives. By the way, I'm in an internet cafe at the mo, whilst Sam is having her hair cut at Tony and Guy for 3 pounds :) It normally costs her 100! Positives then. This morning we went to see Ho Chi Minh. Actually we went to see his embalmed body at the mausoleum, which was quite a surreal experience! He died in 1969 and apparently against his wish, his body has been at the mausoleum ever since, except for 3 months every year, when he goes to Russia to get serviced. The queue was absolutely massive, but fairly speedy. You can't take cameras, phones or anything like that in and so there is an x-ray machine and bag searches. It's still a commie country and so there are guards dressed in green with peaked caps and red stars and all that kind of thing and so you feel a bit nervous as they're keeping an eye on you, making sure you're not disrespecting Uncle Ho! So I had my bag with me and I was told it was to big to take in, so I had to go back down the queue to the bag keeping place, where they took my Lonely Planet book out of the bag, gave me my bag back and the book to carry seperately and then said it was now small enough to carry inside. ??? :) This country...! I joined Sam back in the queue and we eventually entered the place. We trooped up the stairs, watched very carefully by the guards, who indeed actually searched Sam's bag for hidden cameras (she looks more suspicious every day) and then entered the inner sanctum of Ho. We filed past Ho, who looked remarkably well, considering he'd been dead for 36 years, I thought he looked slightly pale and then we were back outside again, very, very weird. Quite cool to see him though, I imagine a bit like seeing Lenin, similer beards as well :)

That was this morning anyway, yesterday we had a look round the Military museum. All these places cost about 15p to get into and unlike normal museums or 1000 year old temples, you can pretty much wander where you want and touch what you want. Which when it comes to ancient artifacts isn't ideal, however when it comes to tanks and helicopters is quite cool :) The military museum was basically making it very clear how great the Vietnamese army was and who could argue with that, having spanked the French in the 50's and then the Yanks in the 60's! I got up to have a look at this Hue and was amazed to see a chain machine gun with magazine still attached on the inside. Bizarre!

We also went to the Ho Chi Minh museum, which basically charts Ho's life through the medium of commie symbology. This not only involved the usual workers holding aloft sickles against red backgrounds, but also giant fruit on giant tables? This photo's for you Em, courtesy of Sam, Uncle Ho and the words 'big' and 'little' :) Finally, today, we went to have a gander at the Hanoi Hilton. For those of you who don't know this was a prison built originally by the French, but became well known during the Vietnam war, when American P.O.W's were locked up here. It was a pretty spooky place with lots of evil looking cells and an original guillatine and yes it had been used alot by those Frenchies! Interesting place.
Well, that's what we've been up to. On the night train to Sapa tomorrow. Mmmmm, fresh mountain air :) Nice food here genrally, very, very cheap. Last night we ate out for 1 pound! Today we had lunch for 3 pound, but beer is quite expensive at around 30p for a bottle of Tiger. Will put together some slide shows when I get to a decent computer, this one is driving me nuts! By the way, it's all broadband here so far, which I was pleasantly surprised to discover, that doesn't stop this particular pc being annoyingly slow though, blah, blah...
Will blog soon from the hills :)