Good Morning Vietnam

Our first morning in Hanoi, we had breakfast at the hotel, included in our rate--a fried egg, toast with butter and vegemite (actually provided by the hotel, not our stash) and freshly squeezed orange juice. Eating such food was strange to us, and we feared our bodies would go into shock. I guess we have the French to thank for all this western food. They pushed and pillaged their way into Vietnam in 1859 and decided to stay for about 100 years until they were finally kicked out in 1954. But at least we've got fresh bread and excellent coffee. And the orange juice has hastened my recovery from a horrible cold, as it's so good that we're drinking it several times a day. The oranges are actually green and look like large limes. But inside they're orange, but taste sweeter like a tangerine.

After a good meal, we walked around the Old Quarter of Hanoi. It is a maze of narrow streets packed with houses and shopped. They are all narrow but rise many stories, as people used to have to pay feudal taxes to the king based on the width of their street frontage. During the 13th century, Hanoi's 36 guilds settled in the Old Quarter, each taking a different street, and each selling a different product. So today, the streets translate to such names as "Silk Street" or "Bamboo Screens Street." There are still traces of this left, as shops dedicated to selling the same thing all seem to be packed onto one street. There are whole streets selling towels, sunglasses, shoes, motorbike parts, aluminum kitchen vents, hub caps, leather goods, herbs, clothes, and anything else you could imagine. The Old Quarter is very lively, and outside of it, Hanoi is just a city, so this is where we have been able to feel the uniqueness of Hanoi, and where we've spent all of our time.

We stopped at the Kangaroo Cafe, reportedly the only western-owned tour company in Hanoi (and there are A LOT of tour companies!). It really is a cafe that sells mostly western food, and is apparently delicious, and well priced. We booked a trip to Halong Bay, then had lunch at a cafe overlooking Hoan Kiem Lake, right in the middle of the Old Quarter. We returned to the hotel for a much needed nap, then went back out to explore the crazy streets again. We went to the Dong Xuan Market, a 3-storey market full of stalls selling silk goods, shoes, bags, fabrics, clothes, electronics, and nearly anything. Nige managed to bargain for a $5 'North Face' backpack we needed after trying 5 other shops around town.(They are less likely to bargain with you here, something we became used to in China) We made our way back towards the lake and stopped at a corner 'pub'-really just some plastic stools on the sidewalk in front of a small shop, spilling out into the street. We chatted to a cute 70 year old Vietnamese man with about 3 teeth. He comes to this 'pub' every evening to have 2 beers with his mates. After a few beers, we bought a round for him and his friends, which they loved. All up, we walked away AU$0.87 poorer.

We next went to the Municipal Water Puppet theatre for an evening puppet show. Water puppetry is an art started over 1000 years ago in northern Vietnam and was virtually unheard of outside this area until the 1960s. Rice farmers who spent most of their time in flooded paddies developed the art. They carved the puppets out of water-resistant fig tree wood, and modeled them after the villagers and themselves, animals from their daily lives and legendary creatures like dragons, phoenixes and unicorns. Today, the puppetry is performed in a theatre, on the surface of a tank of waist-deep water. The puppeteers train for at least 3 years. They stand in the water behind a bamboo screen, hidden from the audience. The puppets are painted with a vegetable-based paint and are attached to a long pole. The music was from a live band, and is as important to the show as the puppets are, consisting of wooden flutes, gongs, drums, bamboo xylophones and a single-stringed dan bau, made of a Chinese cucumber. The performance was a series of scenes, each depicting a piece of pastoral life or legends. It was an hour long, and quite fascinating. It all looked so simple, but we could tell how difficult it really would be.

We had an average Vietnamese meal and headed to bed.