Vietnam: Hanoi

This morning I was up with a bit of an upset stomach. On the flight last night I knew better than to eat the salad, but I had already taken several bites of lettuce before I remembered I probably shouldn't have. I shouldn't have.

This is the second leg of my three-month trip. I have a private tour of Vietnam, and although it's only for ten days, I am getting a nice overview of the country.

We drove a little ways outside of town to visit a local village and see how people lived in the countryside. The people were all very friendly, smiling and waving and more than willing to let me come into their homes and businesses to see how they live and work. The families all live together, with grandparents, parents and children all living in the same house.

I got to see some people at work making the cone-shaped hats from palm leaves they had left out in the sun to dry. There wasn't much sun today, and the weather is so much cooler here than it was in Thailand, Laos, or Cambodia. The high today here is in the 70s, so it's a very nice change from the 90s I've encountered so far on this trip!

We walked all around the village saying hello to old and young alike. I watched a man husk rice, which I had never seen before. We continued on past gardens filled with banana and grapefruit trees, along with several other types of fruit I have never seen before. Dogs, chickens, ducks, cats, all live in the same courtyards, and seem to leave each other to their own devices, waiting for the day when their owners get hungry enough to eat them.

We passed by the school where the morning shift was letting out. There are too many children and too few schools/teachers, so the kids go to school in shifts: one in the morning and one in the afternoon. There was a line of parents picking up their kids on bikes and motorcycles. It was definitely a carpool lane unlike any other!

We got back in the car and drove back to the city and stopped at an 11th century university complex. It is the oldest university in Vietnam and is also a UNESCO World Heritage site. It had strong Chinese influence. We walked all trough the complex, and there was a show of traditional music being performed with traditional instruments. I loved the bamboo xylophone-like thing and there was also a bamboo instrument that was played by clapping at the base and the compression of air caused sound of a particular pitch depending on the length of the bamboo tube. Pretty cool.

I had lunch at a nearby restaurant and then a short drive to Ho Chi Min mausoleum complex. We visited the complex and museum as well as the temple on the grounds. After that we visited the "Hanoi Hilton" where several POWs including John McCain were held during the Vietnam War.

We were supposed to visit a market, but I was too marketed out to visit that, so I chose to return to the hotel earlier than scheduled for some downtime. Tomorrow we head to Halong Bay, which I have seen pictures of and can't wait to see!