Hanoi

Yesterday was by far the worst day of the trip for me. I woke up early in the morning with a bad case of food poisoning, or some other gastrointestinal infection. I spent the morning in bed, catching up on Asian news (the most interesting of the English channels) and in the afternoon got some medicine at a pharmacy and vitamin enhanced fruit juice at a supermarket (no Pedialyte in Vietnam, apparently). By nighttime, I felt good enough to go to the guidebook recommended water puppet show. It was entertaining, although I think the guidebook was pretty far off with the recommendation. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I were five. We got up early today to head to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. We filed through, two by two, silent, with our hands at our sides (yes, a guard tapped me both for a hand in the pocket and crossing my arms). Honestly, seeing the preserved body of “Uncle Ho” was a bit creepy. The giant mausoleum is a bit ironic, as he requested to be cremated. But the Vietnamese lined up numerously to catch a glimpse of the demagogue-ish national icon. We spent the remainder of the day wandering around the old quarter and enjoying some cheap ‘bia hoi’ (draft beer) on a street corner. Hanoi was an okay city; it seemed more crowded and more serious than Ho Chi Minh City and lacked the tropical feel that most of the other Vietnamese cities we visited embodied. To me, the most interesting part of the city was the crowded streets in the old quarter. Although filled with tourists and souvenir shops, they still seem to hold a little bit of a more simple, slow paced way of life. There were enough old Vietnamese men enjoying a ‘bia hoi’, cigarette, and sunflower seeds or women chatting, playing cards, and chewing sunflower seeds for me to get a sense of the relaxed Vietnamese culture.

Yesterday was by far the worst day of the trip for me. I woke up early in the morning with a bad case of food poisoning, or some other gastrointestinal infection. I spent the morning in bed, catching up on Asian news (the most interesting of the English channels) and in the afternoon got some medicine at a pharmacy and vitamin enhanced fruit juice at a supermarket (no Pedialyte in Vietnam, apparently). By nighttime, I felt good enough to go to the guidebook recommended water puppet show. It was entertaining, although I think the guidebook was pretty far off with the recommendation. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I were five. We got up early today to head to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. We filed through, two by two, silent, with our hands at our sides (yes, a guard tapped me both for a hand in the pocket and crossing my arms). Honestly, seeing the preserved body of “Uncle Ho” was a bit creepy. The giant mausoleum is a bit ironic, as he requested to be cremated. But the Vietnamese lined up numerously to catch a glimpse of the demagogue-ish national icon. We spent the remainder of the day wandering around the old quarter and enjoying some cheap ‘bia hoi’ (draft beer) on a street corner. Hanoi was an okay city; it seemed more crowded and more serious than Ho Chi Minh City and lacked the tropical feel that most of the other Vietnamese cities we visited embodied. To me, the most interesting part of the city was the crowded streets in the old quarter. Although filled with tourists and souvenir shops, they still seem to hold a little bit of a more simple, slow paced way of life. There were enough old Vietnamese men enjoying a ‘bia hoi’, cigarette, and sunflower seeds or women chatting, playing cards, and chewing sunflower seeds for me to get a sense of the relaxed Vietnamese culture.