A few high-lights of Hanoi... Well the water puppets were ace, basically Punch and Judy in water, with fireworks and dragons... what more can you want! The soundtrack is entirely live and mostly Vietnamese singing and yet you understand exactly what is going on, and even if you don't the action is pretty self explanatory... they also have evil ticket sellers who play tricks on tourists...
We knew that the shows were popular and so wandered up on our first day in Hanoi expecting to book for the next day, we were confronted by a sign at the front of the queue telling us the shows were sold out for today and tomorrow... damn... well after some thought we decide to book for our last day in Hanoi some 5 days later, all well and good and no major drama. Sadly others were not so lucky!
Whilst we waited to buy our tickets a couple came up to us (American, not that it matters, but it's interesting to note that Post Obama (PO) a lot of former 'Canadians' are now happy to admit where they really come from...) and asked if there were tickets available for today? Well we tell them about the sign and they are sad :'( as they are leaving tomorrow and they've tried to get tickets twice before and it's always sold out... oh well it's just not to be... except that when we get to the front we are offered tickets for that night... EVIL ticket people!
We searched for the couple in vain but they had wandered off into the night, probably to argue about why they hadn't bought tickets in advance and possibly to part forever after their flight home.. and all because of a sign that the ticket sellers had probably forgotten about, and that may have been up since 2004... sorry random American couple.
We spent new year in Hanoi and had been warned not to expect too much as the real celebrations in this part of the world happen at lunar or Chinese new year. We met up with a couple of Aussie girls we had met earlier in our trip up Vietnam and followed the stream of people heading towards the giant turtle lake where we found people milling around, eating candyfloss and generally being festive! Hurrah!Well this was the thing we thought and milled with everyone else and tried to find out what was going on... there were thousands of people all gathered together but as yet we did not know why! We found a spot to have a couple of drinks and watch the world go by and we noticed that attention was focused on the lake and that something would happen at midnight! We drank and talked and waited. A little before midnight a hush descended and we stood expectantly and looked towards the centre of the lake wandering if there would be a firework display or a countdown or something? We checked and rechecked our watches, had the time passed? Were they late? People began to stream off into the night.
Nothing had happened. The people of Hanoi had gathered together, all looked out across the lake at midnight... at which point nothing was due to occur. People waited for midnight and when it had passed they just wandered off. It was all very communist and it left us all a bit bemused.
New years celebrations in Hanoi were a bit of a let down after the build up and feverish speculation we had entertained about what would happen on the lake... and yet bizarrely they had guaranteed themselves a place in our memories and anecdotes in a way that mere fireworks could never have done. A quiet new year, but a great memory of thousands of people happy to look out at nothing together, and then go home content with the feeling of a job well done. The people of Hanoi had seen in the new year and it was much as the old one had been.
We visited the Perfume Pagoda and saw communism in action as well as the beautiful countryside and geography of north Vietnam. Tourists visiting the pagoda need to be paddled up the river for 90 minutes, and then after their visit they are ferried back, it's all by hand, no engines and it means the river is extremely peaceful and serene. The slightly bizarre aspect to the boat trip is that the government administers the boats and allows registered boats to work in numerical order with no competition, boat 1 works, then boat 2, and so on until all the boats have ferried a boat load and then boat 1 goes again, all very ordered and fair and communist. Unfortunately there are 2,000 registered boats, each boat carries 4 tourists on average and each villager gets to use their boat about 3 or 4 times a year which is a bit crazy, but no-one seems to mind, and amidst such peaceful surroundings it was easy to understand why.
The perfume pagoda itself is in fact a natural altar formation in a large cave on top of a mountain, two monks spent their lives there in meditation and prayer and they are remembered there as well as a the more conventional Buddhist altar. There are a number of man made pagodas bordering the walk up the mountain and it is considered one of the holiest places in Vietnam. The whole complex is a beautiful place and the ride up the river makes it even more impressive. The river is surrounded on all sides by huge limestone outcrops rising out of the countryside and shrouded in mist, Ibis birds glide across your path to settle on the backs of water buffalo... idyllic and everything we hoped to experience in Vietnam.
We also took a trip to Halong bay in the North of Vietnam, the bay is actually a series of limestone islands justting out of emerald blue seas that along with lord knows how many other places proclaim themselves as the '8th wonder of the world.' The islands themselves jut out of the sea almost vertically and are home to a healthy population of sea eagles and shelter a number of floating villages of fish farms and suppliers to the tourist junks. We couldn't get the scientific explanation for how the islands were formed but the traditional story goes that a dragon sent to help fight the Chinese thrashed it's tail and churned up the earth and left the almost 2000 islands lying behind it... they never taught us that explanation in geography but personally we prefer it to plate tectonics and it's more plausible than creationism so live and let live.
We spent a couple of nights cruising around the bay, kayaked under sea eagles floating on the thermals above our heads, and explored limestone cave formations, at the suggestion of our guide we even got up at 5.30 to see the sunrise over the islands... and found ourselves alone in the cold (no-one else aboard fancied it) as the sun came up behind an island and so wouldn't actually rise for another hour at least... :( oh well back to bed! We met some Italian chaps who epitomised La Dolce Vita, their work means they get 3 months off a year and they just go and see a different bit of the world! A few beers, a few tall tales, some frankly dreadful karaoke and we ended a great trip on a high (if off key) note.
We had done Vietnam at one hell of a pace (although the length of these blog entries may make it seem like we took ages...) but we had seen a lot, the geography was stunning and will be the thing we remember the most although the silent new year will also live long in the memory, probably a lot longer than the clothes we bought in Hoi An. Next stop is Malaysia which we decided to visit at the last minute rather than return to Thailand... we decided that we had seen a lot of temples, and would see more beaches in the Philippines so we wanted to see more nature and more jungle! So off we fly in search of Orangutans... but more likely leeches!
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