Hanoi, you'll never get a second chance to make a first impression

Editors note: I thought about this before, but didn't mention it, how many places can you go where we actually lost a war, not many, it created a weird dialogue in my head all week. Just thought I'd share.

You knew it had to happen eventually, one of these cities had to disappoint. It's funny how just a few small events can alter your impressions of a city. As you will see, we had plenty of fun in Hanoi, but when we think back to our favorite places it won't make the top of the list. We had been told of the wonderful 'old quarter' so we decided to book a place there and with that begins our first trip to scamsville as told by Michelle...

When we arrived by taxi to our "hotel" the "manager" came out with business card in hand and said they had to move us to their "sister" hotel because they were overbooked. When they dropped us off the room was fine, but then we started thinking about it and how did he know we were staying there. So I put the hotel's name "sakura hotel hanoi" into trip advisor and up popped a forum with several posts about it being a scam. Basically the cab driver called ahead to his friend and let him know where we were staying so he could meet us and intercept us with a lie to take us to a different hotel. We hadn't checked in yet so we told them we'd be right back before giving them our info and we took a taxi to our original hotel. Of course they weren't full and were still expecting us. We took a tuktuk back to the bad hotel to grab our bags and dropped the key on the front desk. On the way out the guy began to ask us what was going on and we said, "trick" and he looked at us with a shamed face and his head went straight down. Evan proceeded to say a few more things to him and the guys in the back and we left happy to be done with that place. The shame we could tell he felt for being part of such an operation was some good payback for us. All in all we were out $6 for extra taxis back and forth, but it put a bad taste in our mouth.


We made it back to our original hotel, checked in, and even though it wasn't as nice inside as the scam hotel, it was in a much better location and without the bad vibe. A great dinner of Indian food and we were back on track.

The next morning we went to the Kangaroo Cafe to book our tour to Halong Bay, this is an Aussie run joint that we could count on to provide first rate everything when our trust-o-meter was pretty low with everyone else. One thing that is true over here as much as anywhere is you get what you pay for, and we weren't taking any chances with our floating junk. Every other shop front and hotel in the old quarter claims to be a tour operator, so the whole thing is a bit sketchy.

We had some housekeeping to attend to that day, so it was off to buy our water puppet theatre tickets, bus tickets to China and mail a box of goodies home. From the post office we hopped in a cab destined for lunch and here we encountered our second scam.

As soon as we started driving, Michelle noticed our meter climbing way too quickly, from 9,000 to 15,000 on up to 25,000 in no time. She quickly mentioned it to me and gave the driver the 'what's going on here' look. As soon as he saw that we knew he must have flipped off the scam button and it went back to normal. I am really haunted by this one because it should have been such a no brainer to get out right then, but we let it slide, and I can't stop kicking myself for not doing anything about it.

By the time he dropped us off the fare was 75k, or a shade under $5 and I gave him a 100k note and he tried to give me no change so I cleared my throat and he gave me 2,000, and I laughed and cleared my throat again, and he gave me 10,000, so I did it again and got a final 10,000, not all the change but I had had enough. The final dagger was that the lunch spot I had picked out was closed, so we settled on something average and sulked.

Thankfully something good was around the corner to ease our pain, the Temple of Literature. This is a complex built in the 11th century dedicated to the works of Confucius, and served as the first university in Vietnam.



The whole place was our first exposure to Chinese style architecture and a great contrast to what was going on at Angkor at the same time, albeit for different purposes.



We got a kick out of the turtles holding up these tablets of the scholars who passed the exams over the years.



Michelle really liked this stork standing on a turtle.



These guys look a bit like lego men to me



Do you think I could pass for a guard?



This gives Purdue a run for its money, but I think the Boilers are still on top. Betsy? Marshall? Cathy?



We're can't always look serious



Here are some women jammin' out for the visitors



We took a cyclo home, which was a heck of a long way for the guy pedaling us around, but we were still pissed at all cabbies and didn't want the hassle. Dinner at Cha Ca la Vong, followed by some jazz at Quyen Van Minh's and we were ready to rest before the journey to Halong Bay.

Seperate post coming for that journey, so for now let's assume we're back in Hanoi.

There was one final item on the agenda and that was the water puppet theatre. This was a most enjoyable show which features puppets in water (surprise!)



accompanied by live traditional music....



The show was great and the puppeteers do a terrific job handling all the characters while waist deep in the water. A final note about the show, we sat behind a big Euro guy so we couldn't see all that well, but we had a good laugh beacuse he was behind a giant Chinese dude, so he couldn't see either so he ended up curling through most of the show, love it!

We were off to China early the next morning, so it was farewell to Hanoi, oh how different you could have been. I can't say we won't come back, as you'll see Halong Bay is outta sight, but it just won't make the top ten on my list.