Day 6: Hanoi (Wednesday, July 2)

Wednesday marked Amanda's first full day in Vietnam, and we decided to be ambitious. We got up and promptly sat around chatting and planning for a while! Eventually we did make it out of the hotel for breakfast... yes, at Highland's Coffee. But today we went to a completely different part of town and a completely different Highland's Coffee.


After a bit of wandering, Matt took over the map and we made it to the "Hanoi Hilton"... or the Hoa Lo Prison. The prison has lots of history - it was built by the French in the late 1800s, and they used it as a prison for POWs during their war with Vietnam in the 1950s. Then, the North Vietnamese turned around and used it to house captured American pilots shot down during bombing runs over Hanoi, including current presidential hopeful John McCain. There isn't much left of the prison - most of it was demolished in the name of progress (i.e., to build a giant office and condo tower) - but what is there depicts some interesting scenes. I don't think any of us really knew what to expect, other then that the conditions were surely awful. But the tiny little cells with rock hard beds and leg restraints were worse then I could have imagined, at least. The truly remarkable/ironic/disturbing part of the prison museum is how the two wars are depicted. The first half which deals with the Vietnamese prisoners housed there during the war with France shows the horrible cell conditions and routine torture (including many torture instruments). Then the second half, concerning the War of American Aggression, shows the pictures of the American pilots celebrating Christmas and Thanksgiving, receiving gifts, playing games, and generally looking content and happy. A bit inconsistent perhaps?


From the prison, we walked up to the Old Quarter around Hoan Kiem lake. Our first stop was the Ngoc Son Temple. It's on an island on the lake which you access by a nice red bridge.




Afterwards, we started our walking tour (thanks Frommers). This is the old commercial area of the city, and all of the streets have names that at one point signified what was sold on the street. "Pipes and Bongs" was a particular favorite, but alas, these days they have completely different items for sale. Shortly into our little tour we came across this great tree which is growing right in the middle of the buildings... pretty amazing. The kids in front of the tree got a kick out of us taking pictures and started lifting themselves up in the air by grabbing onto the tree branches to pose for us - good times.


We walked up and down the streets, occasionally stopping into stores (partly to browse the clothes, but mainly to take advantage of the air conditioning). We also stopped at a few places to snack. The absolute best was definitley the bun bo at Bun Bo Nam Bo, on Hang Dieu street - wheat noodles, beef, peanuts, lime and lots of fresh herbs. We split a bowl to get a little strength and then continued our tour through the old quarter to our next eating stop - Cha Ca street. Cha Ca is a Hanoi specialty - white fish, turmeric, and dill cooked in oil and then served with rice, cilantro, peanuts, peppers and fish sauce. We aimed to go to Cha Ca La Vong, which is supposedly the best joint, but unfortunately they were done for the day by the time we got there. We hit up a joint across the street instead. The food was good, but the atmosphere left a little to be desired... the owner kept screaming at his daughter pretty much throughout our meal. The streets might not be named after what they sell anymore, but there's definitely still a theme... we saw "bamboo street" and "motorbike accessory street" and plenty of other comical wares for sale. The best motorbike, though, has to be this one... with the LV seat cover.


Full from our snacks and tired from walking all day, we stopped into Tamarind Cafe on Ma May street to relax and grab a juice. Somehow, we got suckered into ordering dessert too... crumble with ginger ice cream (pretty awesome). Oh well, a great way to cap off our stagged lunch that afternoon. We made our way back to the lake just in time to get tickets for the Water Puppets show that was about to start. I think we were all a bit skeptical about the show, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. And it was the perfect length, clocking in right at about 45 minutes. Any more and it might have been too much.


Still not ready for dinner, we pushed on and did more shopping, and we found some great stuff in the streets around Saint Joseph's Cathedral. The best street was Nha Tho, with lots of good stores for housewares and clothes. Matt bought a couple shirts, and Amanda bought a dress (custom tailored and ready for pickup on Friday when we get back from Halong Bay). One of the housewares stores had the best collection of lamps, too. If only they were easier to tranport back home!


Somehow we regained our appetites, and we decided it was time to grab a bite to eat. We ended up at Nam Phuong on Phan Chu Trinh, just a short walk down from the corner of the lake. This was our first nice dinner at a proper Vietnamese restaurant as opposed to the modern and French fusion restaurants we had enjoyed... and it was quite good. Curiously slow service (including our waitress who kept playing with the toddlers that were at the table next to us - we never did figure that one out), but the food was tasty. Afterwards, we collapsed in a taxi and went straight to the Sheraton. We depart for our overnight trip to Halong Bay early in the morning.