The City of Six Million Horns

We've arrived! Our 13 hour flight from SFO to Hong Kong was relatively painless. We were surprised that we were even fed a couple of times by United Airlines in route! We watched a couple of average movies and we both slept a little.

We landed in Hong Kong at 6pm, and caught a shuttle to the Novotel Citigate hotel 5 min away. It was very nice and extremely convenient. We went for a swim in the mosaic tiled pool, had a drink at the bar and then hit the hay.

7/21 Hong Kong/Hanoi
On Monday morning, we took a flight at 9am to Hanoi on Vietnam Airlines. On the plane, we read up on Vietnam and made our plans for the day. At the Hanoi airport, we waited for what seemed like an eternity for our bags (it was probably 30 min), and changed some money (exchange rate is 1 dollar = 16,700 Vietnamese Dong, so yes, we're now millionaires!).

Hanoi is located adjacent to the Song Hong (Red River,) and has a number of large lakes spread around the city. Our drive to the hotel was full of sights and sounds that welcomed us to this beautiful country. (This was April's first trip to an emerging country, so the whole experience was very eye-opening.) The things of note were: throngs of scooters and small motorcycles as the main form of transportation, people honk their horns to let you know they are there, you are in the way, to signal they are coming, or just because they want to....meaning, there is a LOT of honking going on, people carry EVERYTHING on the back of their scooters, we saw rice paddies and people working the farms (and in the traditional triangular shaped straw hats), a man in a cart being driven by a cow, and a woman on her scooter (on the “freeway”) talking on her cell phone, to name a few

After checking in at our hotel, and grabbing some lunch, we were off to the Old Quarter in the city. Now this is an interesting place! We arrived at the Hoan Kiem lake and started to explore. We had brought along the maps for a walking tour from the Lonely Planet book, and our first stop was the Huc Bridge and the Ngoc Son Temple. What's great about many of these places we come to visit, is that the admission fee is cheap – usually around $0.25. After a view of the lake, we walked through the many streets of shops in the Old Quarter. The Old Quarter was an area that Hanoi's 36 guilds established themselves in the 13^th century, each naming a street for the trade. There is Silk Street, Bamboo Street, Mats Streets, Wooden Bowls Streets, etc. While some of the original trades are not there anymore, it's interesting to see how one street will have 10 (or more) shops that sell the same thing right next to each other.

As the afternoon wore on, we became very hot and sweaty. The humidity is really high here, so we were very thankful for our dry-wick clothes, and April had to buy a Chinese style fan from a street vendor to stay somewhat cool. We stopped into a cafe/bar in the afternoon to grab a Bia (beer) and sit in the air conditioned restaurant. (At many shops, we would stop to shop a bit longer if they had a fan blowing inside!) After recharging a bit, we walked a bit more to Quan An Ngon, which was a traditional Vietnamese restaurant recommended to us by an Intel employee from Vietnam. We had an interesting and delicious meal with soup, fried rice, spicy beef and some shrimp and pork rolls. Back to the hotel via taxi and we were sleeping by 9pm.

7/22 Hanoi
We got up a little later today and headed down to the gym for another morning workout. We want to exercise as much as possible while on the trip, so we can compensate for the yummy food we will be eating! And speaking of food, we had a great breakfast at the hotel buffet before heading out on the town. The hotel shuttle dropped us off right near the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, where our travels began. Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum is Vietnam's #1 place of pilgrimage, and many Vietnamese come to pay their respects. Minh is honored for his role as the liberator of the Vietnamese people from the French colonialism, and for his communist idealogy. The Mausoleum is where his embalmed body is laid to rest (yes, there is a glass sarcophagus). To go through the Mausoleum you must pass a security area where your bag is evaluated and then x-rayed. If you have a camera, you must walk it in an official red bag to the electronics holding area where you are given a claim ticket and you can pick it up at the exit of the Mausoleum (of which we wondered if it would really happen). Some other rules include proper dress (no shorts or hats, and shoulders need to be covered) and no fruit as I had to toss my afternoon snack from my purse (“banana, not allowed”). In addition to the mausoleum, we saw where Minh lived and worked on the nearby grounds.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around looking at art and shops, and then we headed back to the hotel for a dip in the pool and some rest. Around 8pm we caught a taxi ($1.50 for the 10 min ride) to a restaurant called Sen, which offers a traditional Vietnamese food buffet, in a sprawling indoor/outdoor restaurant that seats hundreds of people. It was an interesting experience to try different local foods (many of which were new to us), and yet to be able to pick and choose what looked good in the buffet. Our favorite dish was fried fish sautéed with greens and served over noodles with peanuts, fish sauce and some other spices. We finished with some fruit for desert and then headed to our hotel for bed.

Today we're off to Halong Bay for an overnight on a traditional Junk boat.