Vietnam . Hanoi

I just realized that my versatile blog became more of an "holiday snap" blog. But once I started something, I like to bring it to an end.

I left from Arad around 12. Got on a plane to Budapest direction Paris, and after I found my way thru Charles du Gaulle I barely caught up with Cari and with the plane to Hanoi.
I had no idea what to expect, I even tried to ignore the fact that I was actually traveling. Its my way of dealing with changes. Ignore but still try to make sense of whats going on around you. But the long taxi drive from the airport to the hotel gave us time to adjust.

Got fascinated, in the first place, with the houses. Long and narrow 3 stories building, with a living room at the ground floor that could serve as a eating area, TV area, shop area and even as a garage for the scooters. In most cases its everything from the above. Bright colors, and it seems cleaner and better in real life then in the left over pictures (we deleted on the way loads of them as we were running out of memory space).

We stood in French quarter, a narrow street area with kind of french and Vietnamese mix of architecture, were each street is a specialized shopping street. So, soon you start getting your way around the french labyrinth by referring as:
"Lets go to a coffee on the Sun Glasses street.." or
"What about that restaurant on the Fluffy Toy street... " or
" I saw a book exchange shop at the corner of the bag street with the art gallery street."

From the whole Vietnam Hoi Chi Ming is at his highest palce here: the mausoleum that holds his remains (which were now in Russian at the moment we were visiting... ?), the Guvernours palace turn into Hoi Chi Ming diplomacy playhouse, Hoi Chi Ming living pagoda, Hoi Chi Ming Old Age house, Hoi Chi Ming pawd, Hoi Chi Ming Museum. The last one is a must see for the cheeseness, the design lesson if you ever want to build a strong propaganda and to kind of relive the memories if it happen to have lived in a former communistic country.

I liked Hanoi. I recommend it as a entry point to Vietnam, plus its a must stop to get either to Halong Bay or Sapa.


















The trip Saga ends here, so finally I will be free to express on other issues as new sock monkeys, Basel void and Arad reality.


asia tour . end of part 9 of 9