Hanoi. Days 1-6.
I have put this off long enough, time to write about my trip.
After changing planes in Seoul, we arrived in Hanoi. It was cooler than I expected, and the van ride to the hotel was a quick introduction to the roads of Vietnam. The horn was used as an indicator, as well as a warning, greeting and to pass the time. It reminded me a little of Bangkok.
The first night (we got in to the hotel at around 10pm) was spent planning tours for the next four days. Tim and I crashed out early, and since they had screwed up our reservation we had a single bed and a double. Tim won our janken match and got the single, so I tried to fall asleep as far to the side of the bed as possible. Jon farts a lot.
For our first full day in Hanoi, we went on a tour of the city with the manager of the hotel and a private driver. Our first stop was the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Not only is this a massive monument to Uncle Ho, but you can walk through it and see his body in state. Every five meters there was a guard with an AK47 at his side, bayonet attached.
After that we went to a shitty little zoo and looked at a bunch of animals in tiny cages. Not very exciting.
Then we went to a museum that housed a bunch of stuff from the Vietnam War. There was a bunch of old artillery pieces, guns, planes, helicopters, and pieces of downed B52's. There were also a bunch of photos and stories, showing just how much of a role propaganda still plays in modern Vietnam.
David -- the hotel manager -- asked us if we would like to go to a snake farm. Assuming it would be a type of a zoo, we happily said yes. After arriving at what first appeared to be a house, we were lead up stairs to a restaurant. "Great." I thought, I was quite hungry now. It all happened so quickly, my hungry brain didn't click right away, but two guys brought out a cloth bag with what was obviously a snake inside. One guy pulled it out, and I thought, "great, a bit of a show before lunch." Next the other guy, who was not holding the snake, stepped on the it's head, pinning it down. Then in a flash they had it up, it's head pinched between thumb and forefinger, and a sharp knife went into it. the knife came out and quicky another thumb and forefinger went in, retrieving an artery. The knife cut through this, and the two guys holding the snake drained the blood into a glass on the floor. Next they took the knife, extended the cut a further few inches and cut out its still beating heart. They put this in another glass and offered it to me, not wanting to offend them, I swallowed it. luckily the rice wine that they had it in was so foul that I couldn't taste much else. We were asked to sit and the made a drink by combining the blood and more of the same rice wine, which tasted somewhat like shochu. We all drank that and were told that apparently we would get more "Games." (Games, as far as I could tell, relates somehow to your ability to have sex... I'll leave the exact definition to you.)
Then, the feast started, the chefs prepared the entire snake, and sent out about half a dozen dishes for us to eat. They let nothing go to waste, we even ate the skin which had been deep fried. The food was great, and the five of us (including David and the driver) struggled to get through it all.
The bill, however, was like a kick in the teeth. One hundred and thirty american dollars. I'm sure that that does't seem like a hell of a lot for 5 people, but let me put it in perspective for you. The cost of the hotel that we were staying at was thirty dollars a night, for three of us. We could have stayed in the same hotel for 4 nights and still had money to burn. Meh, live and learn.
That night we went out and explored the city, drank a bunch of beer and ate a bunch of spring rolls. Yum. And by the time we got back to the hotel they had put us into a room with three single beds.
Day 3, we took a boat tour up a river and went to the Perfume Pagoda. I think we may have eaten dog at lunch...
The trip up was in a strange, 6-person, metal boat, paddled by an old lady who was at least 70 years old. When we got there we decided to hike up the 4 kilometer trail to the pagoda. It was an easy hike and took us a little over 40 minutes, including a few photo stops.
It was nice just to be out of the city.
We arrived a little late back in Hanoi, and we went for a quiet drink.
Day 4. We had booked scooters the night before, and we used them to visit a few places in the city. My God, it was a steep learning curve. I only fell off once though, and that was at the very beginning. I was going so slow that I simply stepped off and let the bike slide a couple of feet before picking it up and starting off again.
Day 5. This was supposed to be our last day in Hanoi, supposed to be. We had booked our flights the night before and thought we had everything sorted. We arrived at the airport at 4:15pm because our itinerary said that checking started at 4 and the flight left at 6. The first indicator that we had the wrong time was when there was no signage to say where to check in. The next was when the staff at check in laughed at us. We spent the next hour trying to find a phone, then calling the travel agent and the hotel. Since it was the travel agents fault, they booked us on a flight the next day at no cost, and we went back to the same hotel.
That night we went and walked around the night market, buying a couple of t-shirts.
Day 6. We slept in, and chilled at the hotel until our taxi came and picked us up at 1pm for the actual check in time of 2pm. Needless to say we made it to the airport on time and landed in Siem Reap at around 6pm.