scooter

I picked up the motorbike today. Actually it is what we would call a scooter.
Riding through town was crazy, but I just go slow and let everyone else go around me. We rode to a village about 15km out of town, and that was ok.
We start the motorbike trip in the north on Saturday.

Temple of Literature

On a day I spent walking in Hanoi, I visited the Temple of Literature. This was built in 1076 as a school for training Confusion scholars. It is a large quiet area with several courtyards, separated by gates like the one in the picture. Classic architecture from the time. It was great to spend a couple of hours there, away from the traffic.
Walking around Hanoi was a bit of an adventure in itself, just finding my way around. I had a map, but I actually used a compass as well!
I also visited the Ho Chi Min museum, which has exhibits of writings and artifacts from his life and displays about the history of Vietnam corresponding to his time.

morning exercises

I have the day to wander around Hanoi and site-see. I stopped at the lake first thing in the morning to see people doing the morning exercises. I even joined in for a bit. The people were very welcoming. Something you realize after a while is that despite the apparent busy-ness and chaos, there is a certain laid back feeling that underlies everything.

Halong Bay

I got back yesterday from a 3 day trip to Halong Bay. It was a 2 hour bus ride from Hanoi, and then a couple of days on a boat, including sleeping on the boat, and a night on Cat Ba Island.





Words just can't convey the awe of this place. Imagine over 1000 sharp tooth-like islands sticking out of the water, all covering the area the size of a city. When I woke up on the boat and looked out my cabin to that sight - wow! We stopped at an island visited a cave - easily the largest cave I've ever seen. It almost seemed like the island was hollow. There are also floating villages with a hundred or so local people who make there living fishing and selling to the tourists. The sheer number of tourist boats was also amazing. At night they all achored in the same place, and the lights from hundreds of boats looked like a floating city in itself.


On Cat Ba Island I hung out with some of the people I've met so far. Went to the beach, went into town in the evening.

Perfume Pagoda

Here are a couple of pictures of the trip up the river to the perfume pagoda, with the scenery and people fishing.

Hanoi photos

I've found an internet cafe with a pretty good connection. Here are a couple of photos of the streets of Hanoi, with the motorcycles, and people. It seems the sidewalk is like part of the living space. In the morning you stop and join everyone having pho for breakfast, and stop further down the block where everyone is sitting on the sidewalk, having coffee, reading the paper. And of course, once things start opening up, there are the ubiquitous street vendors, selling everything from food to shoeshines.

Hanoi

There is something mesmerizing about Hanoi. Perhaps it is the continuous mosaic of narrow buildings, several stories high so that's all you see on either side from the road, with the kind of tropical decaying French colonial style that characterizes Hanoi. Punctuated with old lush trees or advertising. The road network is a spiderweb, and it's impossible to know where you are just by looking around. Or perhaps it is the chaos of the swarm of motorcycles on the road with the constant honking.
My first couple of days were spend walking around, mainly in the Old Quarter which is the most intense and the tourist/backpacker hub.
Internet connection is very, very slow, and uploading photos does not seem to work. :(
Today I did a day trip to the Perfume Pagoda, south of Hanoi. It involved a 2 hour chaotic van ride, a very peaceful hour long trip by rowboat upriver, with dramatic scenery of sharp, green, mountains, and an hour long hike up to a cave that was made into a temple. There were several temple buildings around, as well. There was a cable car which I took down. On the way back tried my hand at rowing (it is different from the row boat we have here) but did not get very far.
This is the end of my third day. It's going very fast. It's been great to catch up with my friend Denis. I'm staying at his place, just outside the center of Hanoi, and he and his wife have been very hospitable.
Well, it's been a long day. Bye for now.