Chuc Mung Nam Moi!

That means Happy New Year! Again. I arrived in Vietnam just in time for Tet, their new year, or as they like to call it, Happy New Year, as if the happiness is a given.

I flew to Hanoi from Vientiane. The journey by bus, which is universally considered to be a nightmare, takes 24 hours. By plane it took 1. I kinda felt like I’d cheated, so resolved to travel by land until Bangkok.

Hanoi is a bit like Bangkok, in that it’s full of traffic (moreso perhaps, because of all the scooters; crossing the road is an adventure every time), dirty and noisy. Yet somehow, I like it far more. It’s got a certain charm, and trees. I stayed in the Old Quarter, at a place called Real Darling Cafe, which I’d recommend. After the hard mattresses of Northern Thailand and Laos, it was the first place I got a good night’s sleep. The staff are friendly and helpful, and the trip to (the more stunning than Milford Sound) Ha Long Bay they organised wasn’t a big old rip-off. Many people I’ve met say that the Vietnamese are unfriendly and don’t like westerners because of the wars, but they’ve been alright. Maybe they’re in high spirits because of Tet.

Loads of businesses shut down for Tet, which limits/adds expense to travel and sightseeing, but I’m glad I was here to see it. It’s like Christmas crossed with New Year, Guy Fawkes Night and, because of all the men in sharp suits riding around on scooters, a Mod Convention. Friday was NYE; the days preceding it were like the last days before Christmas, with the streets of the Old Quarter rammed with presents and prospective buyers. Each street seems to have a speciality: there’s a hat street, a toy street, a tin stove street. Instead of fir trees, people get tangerine trees, and they take them home strapped to the back of their scooters.

Everyone went to the lake to see in the New Year. There were a lot of teenagers and military on leave but still in their uniforms (conspicuously not about to launch any offensives this year). Very few people were drinking, which was surprising. The fireworks at midnight lasted fifteen minutes, and after applauding most people dispersed to start street fires or headed to the temples to light incense and pray. Apparently on NYD, everyone stays at home for a big meal so I assumed that the lack of traffic waking me up at 7am would last. It didn’t and by lunchtime everyone was racing around again.

One of the sights I managed to see was Ho Chi Minh. Yes, the Ho Chi Minh. He’s dead, but government embalmed him and put him on display. They say “Hey kid, wanna see a dead body?” then make you walk for miles to get into the Mausoleum grounds, in an act of typical communist bureaucracy. Surely, I thought, this is not what Uncle Ho would have wanted. However, I can testify that he was not spinning in his glass casket. I also went to the Military History Museum which has a lot of war memorabilia but not a lot of history, so you have to learn it by osmosis. The captions which refer to anything associated with the South Vietnamese as “Saigon puppet” were amusing though.

I took an overnight train through the old DMZ to Hue where I’ve been for one night. It’s really hot, relatively quiet and has a bunch of historical sites to cycle around, like the old palace and royal mausoleums (or mausolea). Accomodation’s pretty cheap here – I paid $6 for a room with air-con and cable TV. So I’ve been catching up with BBC World. How about that Britney Spears?

Daniel Wilson Craw : 19 Feb 2007 06:06 |  Tags: Hanoi Hue Tet Travel Vietnam |  Comments (0) |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem