Historic Hanoi - So Much to See

After the exhaustive climb up to the Perfume Pagoda, Chris and I decided to spend the next day as a slow paced recovery day. We actually got to sleep in (seems like we haven’t had a chance to do that since back in Fiji as every day since then has been jam packed with things to do) and later that afternoon, spent the day walking around the streets, checking out the numerous shops and soaking in everything that was happening around us. My bargaining skills were put to the test again and we were able to pick up a few souvenirs. At one store I was able to get some pretty great prices and the owner said she was selling this to us at a loss and at first I felt really bad as I didn’t want to rip anyone off but then came to realize that if they were really losing money on the sale, they didn’t have to sell the items to me and could have just said “no”. Later that evening when Krista and Derek came back from their mini excursion, we hooked up for dinner and talked about our respective trips. Derek and Krista enjoyed their stay as they got to get away from the city but found there were a lot of “hidden” costs associated with the trip which they were not made aware of. They enjoyed the nature park as much as they could (it seemed like you had to pay to get into certain parts of the park if you wanted to go for additional hikes) and really enjoyed the Tam Coc caves as they got to go into the caves and didn’t have to fight with thousands of others tourists and boats. They even got to see a bat and Krista was brave enough to take a picture of it (praying the entire time that it wasn’t going to fly towards her when she took the shot!).

Streets of Hanoi

Wandering Downtown Hanoi

Our last day in Hanoi before we hopped on the train to Hue was Feb 7th and we spent the entire day sightseeing and seeing many of the must see tourist spots of Hanoi.

President Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum

The mausoleum was officially inaugurated on August 29, 1975 after two years of construction. The project was the result of a close collaboration between engineers from Vietnam and the former Soviet Union in order to keep the remains of President Ho Chi Minh, a great patriot who was later conferred the title of “World Cultural Activist”.

There were hundreds and hundreds of tourists waiting to stand in line to get a glimpse of the President in the Mausoleum. Since Chris had seen this before, he decided to sit this one out to take care of our bags and cameras (as none of these items were allowed in the Mausoleum) and Derek, Krista and I stood in line. As we got closer and closer to the entrance, I was not sure what to expect. We walked through a series of passages and flights of marble stairs where we saw the remains of the President in a chamber. It was very strange to see someone who has been dead for so long right there in front of you. I’m not sure what I was expecting but the President looked very distinguished and important in his suit and looked quite “real”. We did not get to spend much time inside the chamber as they kept moving us along in a steady pace.



One Pillar Pagoda

Outside of the Mausoleum around the back is the One Pillar Pagoda which means “long lasting happiness and good luck”. It was first built in 1049, during the reign of Emperor Ly Thai Tong and according to legend, Emperor Ly Thai Tong who had no children, often went to pagodas to pray to Buddha for a son. One night, he dreamed that he was granted a private audience with Buddha. In his dream, Buddha was seated on a lotus flower in a square shaped lotus pond where the Buddha gave the Emperor a baby boy. Months later, when the queen gave birth to a male child, the Emperor ordered the construction of a pagoda supported by one pillar to resemble the lotus seat of his dream in the honor of Buddha.








Ho Chi Minh Museum

The Ho Chi Minh Museum is also located behind the Mausoleum and was completed in 1990 for the anniversary of President Ho Chi Minh’s birthday. The museum is a four story building and designed in the shape of a lotus flower as a symbol of the President’s noble character.

The main showroom displays thousands of documents, articles, pictures and exhibits illustrating the historical events that took place during Ho Chi Minh’s life as well as important events that occurred in the rest of the world since the end of the 19th century.

We were also able to view the Calligraphy section of the museum where various calligraphers had converted Ho Chi Minh’s diary that he had kept when he was wrongly thrown in jail. I found some of the poems and entries that he wrote moving and was impressed at how he could sum up his situation in just a few words.









Temple of Literature

The Temple of Literature was built in 1070 in honor of Confucius, his followers, and Chu Van An, a moral figure in Vietnamese education. Here you can also find Quoc Tu Giam or Vietnam’s first university. It was the first educational school for royal family members and it was later opened to talented students. This site now preserves historical vestiges of a 1,000 year old civilization such as statues of Confucius and his disciples and ancient constructions.















Lunch – Local Style

Before heading to the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, we decided to stop to have some lunch and decided to have lunch the way locals do. We stopped at the corner of a street where you can find several little “corner restaurants” right on the sidewalks. They have small tables and stools set out and just cook right there on the streets. We weren’t sure if it was the most sanitary way to eat but figured we’d give it a shot so we stopped at a corner and had some bbq’d pork with noodles and green vegetables. We were happily surprised with the food and found it quite tasty. We were also lucky enough to be sitting right next to another small street vendor who was selling beer out of a keg known as Bai Hoi in Vietnam. We enjoyed our lunch and had some beers and the best part was the price. Lunch cost us each 10,000 dong which is 0.74 cents CDN and the cost for 5 glasses of beer came to a whopping 9,500 dong which is approximately 70 cents CDN. Yup, you read right, 70 cents. We were just as surprised as we had been used to spending around 12,000-15,000 (0.89–1.11 CDN) dong for a bottle of beer at other restaurants which we thought was a killer deal. Suffice to say the prices of some things in Vietnam still comes as a big surprise to us at times.



Vietnam Museum of Ethnology

The museum of Ethnology was opened at the end of 1997 and contains more than 10,000 objects, 15,000 black and white photos and hundreds of videos and cassettes which depict all aspects of life, activities, customs and habits of the 54 ethnic groups of Vietnam. The museum was quite interesting as it was able to recreate the daily life of these different ethnic groups along with their religious rituals and symbolic festivals. We were able to admire costumes, embroidery as well as outside stilt houses and habitats from different groups. The most interesting fact that we learned that we weren’t aware of is that there are around 1,000,000 Thais who live in Vietnam.







After a full day of walking around and touring the main highlights of the city, we made our way back to town as we were getting ready to catch our 7pm overnight sleeper train to Hue, a small city in Central Vietnam. We were unsure of what to expect from the sleeper train but overall were happy with what we got. The compartment of 4 was quite small and bit claustrophobic for Krista and I but the boys fixed that problem for us by using their belts to tie the top two bunks up to the wall fixture so it appeared like we had more room. We spent the first couple of hours playing cards, laughing, drinking and chit chatting before we decided to call it a night. We are expected to arrive in Hue at 8am on the 8th of Feb.

Until then, have a good night’s sleep and hope to hear from some of you soon…