Hanoi Hanoi
as part of their septemberal visit to asia, katja, tarik of the wondrous age of 20 months, and i ventured on a 10 day trip to vietnam. a choice that seemed appropriate thanks to super-cheap tigerairways rates, and the millions of tours on offer in the country. both adults of the team usually prefer individual exploration over organised tours, but with tarik around tours became a rather enticing option. so of we went to the northern capital of the indochina country; drawn by the renowned beauties of ha long bay and the prospect of shopping, and shopping, and some more shopping, and... well... more.
the hotel we booked online turned out to be not only nice, helpful, and friendly, but also super conveniently located around the corner from a wonderfully cosy local caffee, and next to a local beer hoi place. these places sell locally brewed beer at rock bottom prices, provide you with a free flow of peanuts in shells, and offer local food, in our case fantastically yummy local food - trying that tofu in tomato sauce means remembering it forever.

the fist two days we spend wandering around the thousand little streets of hanoi's old quarters, looking at a million shops, with xillion things to offer, hoping that the typhoon that blew in from the east would not hit us, but stay instead in the central parts of the country. but with ha long bay as the main drawing factor we decided to check bbc weather hourly and to book the tour anyway. and it was worse taking the risk! the typhoon stayed in central vietnam, bringing chaos and distraction, but we only got a bit of rain. in a way it made me feel awkward; here am i on a great holiday while only a few 100km south people are loosing their lives and homes to a typhoon – it made me feel very privileged and gave even more meaning to finally seeing one of the most spectacular world heritage sites. and man, if ever there were ever places of stunning natural beauty ha long bay is for sure one of them! we spend 3 days on a boat going around the million little islands, rocks, and outcrops, and every minute was as spectacular as the next.
but let me tell you our passport story:

in vietnam one has to surrender ones passport on check-in into the hotel. we left it at that and considered the passport more safe in the hotel then in our bags while cruising through tourist country, but when we came cat ba island - the major island in ha long bay where we spend the first night of our trip in a hotel - they told us that we needed our passport to get permission to sleep on the boat the following night. now, nobody mentioned this to us before, and, with the boat being a local vietnamese junk and it sailing vietnamese waters one would not exactly expect a passport control, would one? well i asked the guide for help and he did a phone call, on my expense of course, to the hotel, shouted a bit, and then gave firm directions: bring the passports to the agency, they will put it on the next morning’s mini-bus to ha long bay, the guide will give it to our boat’s captain, and we will get it on boarding the vessel! i thanked him, and was happy, while all the other tourists considered me mad. the emotional difference was initiated by the fact that our fellow travellers had great doubt in the organisational skills and trustworthiness of the locals, while i knew from experience that such seemingly crazy schemes work like clockwork, because nobody who is a link in the organisational chain will want to loose face by being responsible for the loss of the passport and therefore make 1000% sure that it reaches the next link. and, voila, on stepping onto the boat the next day we were unceremonially presented with our passports - problem solved :)

after a spectacular sunset in ha long bay and a night on the boat we returned to hanoi, and rested a day before planning further excursions into the nearby tam coc and perfumed pagoda. both daytrips included a boat ride along the river, but while tam coc is sporting high cliffs and caves, the river journey to the perfume pagoda is set in a far more gentle landscape. tam coc has been made famous in the ever so boring film indochine, but unlike the film the landscape is truly breathtaking, with the river flowing in between rugged cliffs, before going underground, only to appear again at the other end. the second boat ride brought us to the hill that hold the perfume pagoda, which is a cave-pagoda, and a place of true spiritual energy. to be honest it is hard to say which of the trips was best, i would not want to miss a single one of them ...

back in hanoi we used the last two days to eat as much of the yummy food as we could, including mooncake in our personal celebration of the mid-autumn festival, wash it down with huge amounts of vietnamese coffee and beer hoi, visit the mid-autumn festival market, and to shop until we dropped, or better to say, until tarik got too bored to bare :) but because we are also culturally interested people we visited a fair few temples and concluded our trip with the matinee show of the otherwise totally booked out water-puppet show, and what a finale to a truly spectacular trip.
The summary:
- tarik does not like to be rained on
- a plastic bags on your head is as good as a raincoat
- the southern Vietnamese are warmer than the northern ones
- the north has the most spectacular landscape
- Hanoi offers the world-best shopping
- beer hoi is great
- my advise, go and see for yourself...