Back when Amanda and I were planning the trip in September, we looked at a map and drew a vague line from Seattle via LA to Vietnam and figured Hanoi would be as good a place as any to start our trip. Now that we've spent 4 days here to digest everything, I'm not sure I'd say the same thing.
Hanoi is a bit of a challenging city whose charms are perhaps not the most accessible. Tasks as simple as walking down the street become a test of wills between driver, motocyclist, bicyclist, pedestrian, and those who are just hanging out on the sidewalk. Add to that being jetlagged after a trip halfway around the world, searching for food where every storefront on a given block is only selling buttons and zippers, a labyrinthine collection of streets whose names change at every intersection and you start to get the picture.
I determined what kind of clothes I would need on the trip by looking at a map and noting where Vietnam is relative to Seattle. Seeing that it is much farther south, I figured we'd be in for great weather all around. A quick check of the weather a couple of weeks before confirmed my hopes that it would be comfortable and sunny in Hanoi with highs in the lower 70s and mostly sunny skies. Flying in from Taipei, we saw that we were flying into a giant bowl of cloud, and that cloud has not lifted since we've been here. Temps have consistently hovered around the mid 50s at best; it feels pretty damn cold here.
Amanda at the Ngoc Son Temple in the middle of Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi
After two days of wandering the cold gray city, dodging car after bike after moto after moto, we were ready to get out. The nearby Perfume Pagoda provided a welcome escape from the overwhelming bustle of the capitol. The complex features a variety of temples and pagodas, with a large cave at the top of a mile and a half walk or gondola ride. While it was still chilly there, at least we didn't have to spend the day dodging traffic.
Our last day in Hanoi, we visited some other sites within the city.
Tomb of Ho Chi Minh
Amanda with the stone tablets listing Doctorates awarded at the Temple of Literature
Next up, touring Halong Bay.
I want a stone tablet listing my doctorate!
ReplyDeleteIs Vietnamese written in the Roman alphabet? Re landing in chaos, we found Seoul to be a nice "transition city" on the way from Seattle to Cambodia/Thailand when we went.
ReplyDeleteVietnamese is written in the Roman alphabet. I think the French Catholics took the indigenous written language and converted it to Roman characters.
ReplyDeleteIn retrospect it would have made a lot of sense to have a transition city like Seoul. Maybe next time.