Getting off the plane in Hanoi, Vietnam I didn’t know what to expect. I had no Lonely Planet or guidebook of anykind; I had done no research into the history, current affairs or attractions that pertained to the city, or even the country. I was for the most part ignorant about the country in which I was traveling to. However I was excited. Melanie said we should go to Vietnam, I said okay, and off we went.
Any apprehensions I had increased as Melanie and I got in the taxi to Hanoi and conversation commenced with the driver. He was asking where we were from and when I told the taxi driver I was from America he replied “you look like America, like army”. While at this first worried me, I came to find there was nothing to worry about and the next week and a half proved to be amazing.
Any apprehensions I had increased as Melanie and I got in the taxi to Hanoi and conversation commenced with the driver. He was asking where we were from and when I told the taxi driver I was from America he replied “you look like America, like army”. While at this first worried me, I came to find there was nothing to worry about and the next week and a half proved to be amazing.
Traffic, traffic, traffic, were my first observations of Hanoi. Cars ,the horns constantly blaring to get the motorbikes out of the way, the motorbikes engaged in their own race of passing one another and that too for some reason requires non-stop horn usage. Crossing the street took getting used to. Melanie and I stood on the curb and I would try to wait for a lull in traffic, only to find there was no such thing. Luckily she showed me the proven method to cross the street that she learned last time in Vietnam; walk slowly side by side, her ushering me across the street. There are probably a few hundred motorbikes (mopeds) for every car in Hanoi. Hence the traffic is dense; moving at different speeds, and has no rules. However while the were everywhere anc caused traffic to be out of control, what blew me away was the utilization of these motorbikes. They carried everything and accomplished this while managing the traffic. Just a few examples of everyday mopped cargo that we saw during our trip were: entire families (5 people) on a moped, animal transport (one was carrying 12 piglets), food transport (enormous bundles of fruit, huge bails of rice), and tools (ladders, rebar, display cases).
The layout of Hanoi city seemed unique to me in that each street had a common retail theme. On one street, every shop would sell sunglasses, the next street, every shop shoes, the next, every shop clothes, the next toys, so on and so forth. The fmost comical and strange streets were the street that sold only stuffed animals and toys and the other being the street where every shop sold Mannequins.
The layout of Hanoi city seemed unique to me in that each street had a common retail theme. On one street, every shop would sell sunglasses, the next street, every shop shoes, the next, every shop clothes, the next toys, so on and so forth. The fmost comical and strange streets were the street that sold only stuffed animals and toys and the other being the street where every shop sold Mannequins.
Walking around the street in the evenings as Melanie and I did frequently there were all kinds of social activites taking place. badminton and a checkers like game were the most common and mixed between these games would be women set up with a plastic table and chairs selling fresh juices, whisky and cigarettes. Badminton courts are painted everywhere there is enough surface area and commonly use the edge of the sidewalk as a boundary line. The checkers games would be played all around the cities parks and usually each game would attract quite a crowd with people huddled into little groups throughout the park sidewalks.
On our last day in the city we went and visited Uncle Ho at the Ho Chi Minh Museum and Mausoleum. The line had thousands of people waiting to view his body as apparently visitng the mausoleum is a pilgrimage for the Vietnamese.
Vietnam was beautiful, and I have much on my to do list that I wasn’t able to see or do this time. I think it was an amazing time to see Vietnam as the country is changing rapidly and probably will only continue to do so in the future. Everywhere we went development, development, development. Industrially, there are factories and manufacturing plants being built, hotels are being erected for the growing tourism industry, and infrastructure is being laid out to support it all. The amount of change occurring right now in the country was absolutely crazy.
I have returned to Vanuatu, a country whose entire population would take the place of only a couple of Hanoi’s inhabited streets. Here in Vanuatu we are moving into the cool season and I have a lot to look forward to in my last year here. Also many visitors and more travel. First Melanie is coming for one last visit, then I will be moving villages and islands, which will be followed by a visit from my Dad. Through all this I am applying to Med School and hopefully will be traveling back stateside for interviews during the Northern Hemisphere’s winter.
Pho
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