Last few days in Hanoi.
Following our return to Hanoi from Halong Bay we spent Monday morning visiting sites in the Old Town including the Temple of the Jade Mountain, located on an island at the northern end of Hoan Kiem Lake, a major tourist attraction within minutes of our hotel. We then spent the afternoon visiting the Temple of Literature, a massive temple complex dedicated to education in the western part of the city.
We then made a stop at the nearby Museum of Fine Art, a 3 story building featuring art ranging from the dawn of civilization to the present time.
While we cabbed it to the temple we walked back, experiencing some of the city’s stranger sights. Lenin Park, featuring a statue of the communist leader was, one the one hand a respite for the city’s male population who congregated in groups playing Chinese checkers and various card games. At the other end of the park, skateboarding teenagers used the base of Lenin’s statue as a ramp while he seemed to look down, disapprovingly. Further east we encountered a set of railway tracks, with buildings and cafes located within 2 or 3 feet, which must have been somewhat unsettling for clients when the train passed by.
The next block seemed to feature nothing but stores selling light fixtures and coloured bulbs while the block after that every store was selling furniture fabrics, faux leather, cushions, pillows and foam in various sizes and thicknesses.(It seems that Hanoi streets were originally set up and named for a specific type of vendor so that merchants offering the same or similar products were all located on the same street, such as the Street of Shoe Sellers)
Vendors at various street corners were selling everything from pineapple and mango slices to noodles and nuts. A barely noticeable drizzle cooled the air for us, but locals seemed to be impacted more severely- bikers rode past us covered in plastic ponchos and pedestrians dressed in jackets that we would reserve for sub zero temperatures, even though the actual temperature was still above 20C.
Today (Wednesday) we joined our tour coordinator, Mr Manh Tatien for a local delicacy - egg coffee at a place that had apparently served several thousand cups to various delegates at the Trump/ KJU summit last week. Operating since 1946, Cafe Giang was located down a narrow alley and would normally be missed by most tourists. Today, however the place was packed with an even mix of regulars and tourists, it’s reputation for having catered to “American Royalty” seemingly boosting its appeal. We spent close to an hour discussing our trip, making suggestions on things that needed fixing or could enhance future travellers experiences.
While amazingly tasty, the egg coffee seemed a little hard to digest, to put it diplomatically. Exactly how the eggs are incorporated into the cofffee was something we didn’t actually learn.
Having said our goodbyes to Mr Tatien, we decided that a Hop On, Hop Off bus would be the best way to cover the most sights in the least amount of time. At roughly $12 pp it was way cheaper than similar transport in Europe but possibly our most expensive purchase of the trip. Over the 4 hours that our ticket covered we managed to visit the Quan Than Temple, extremely busy with Buddhists as it was the first day of the lunar calendar, requiring them to honour their ancestors and make offerings.
It was a similar sight at Tran Quoc Pagoda. Located on an island overlooking West Lake it is, apparently, the oldest Pagoda in the city, dating back at least 5 centuries.
Our next stop was the Imperial Citadel, a UNESCO site and a hub of military power for almost a thousand years before descending into ruin in the 1700’s. It was eventually destroyed by the French in the mid 1800’s to make way for new development. Nowthe site of many archeological digs, its buildings are slowly being restored and rebuilt.
Our final stop of the day was a visit to St Joseph’s Cathedral. Located just outside of the Old Town and built in approx. 1880 it featured an impressive altar and several stained glass windows.
Realizing that we had gone the better part of the day without eating we opted for a spaghetti dinner at a nearby restaurant. Black Jacks ( not exactly a typical Vietnamese restaurant) offers pizza, pasta, tacos, steaks and a few Vietnamese favourites. We opted for pasta- our first non Vietnamese meal since we arrived.
A sudden heavy downpour, our first real rainstorm since we arrived, found us ducking under cover as we made a run for the hotel.
With our alarm clocks set for 6:00am tomorrow we are hoping to beat the rush to visit the Mausoleum of “Uncle Ho” ( Ho Chi Minh) before packing and checking out of our hotel.
(As a side note to this piece, I’m having some difficulty uploading additional images to this post so I will be adding some more- mostly today’s sights, once I get home and can access the blog from my computer.)
We then made a stop at the nearby Museum of Fine Art, a 3 story building featuring art ranging from the dawn of civilization to the present time.
While we cabbed it to the temple we walked back, experiencing some of the city’s stranger sights. Lenin Park, featuring a statue of the communist leader was, one the one hand a respite for the city’s male population who congregated in groups playing Chinese checkers and various card games. At the other end of the park, skateboarding teenagers used the base of Lenin’s statue as a ramp while he seemed to look down, disapprovingly. Further east we encountered a set of railway tracks, with buildings and cafes located within 2 or 3 feet, which must have been somewhat unsettling for clients when the train passed by.
Vendors at various street corners were selling everything from pineapple and mango slices to noodles and nuts. A barely noticeable drizzle cooled the air for us, but locals seemed to be impacted more severely- bikers rode past us covered in plastic ponchos and pedestrians dressed in jackets that we would reserve for sub zero temperatures, even though the actual temperature was still above 20C.
Today (Wednesday) we joined our tour coordinator, Mr Manh Tatien for a local delicacy - egg coffee at a place that had apparently served several thousand cups to various delegates at the Trump/ KJU summit last week. Operating since 1946, Cafe Giang was located down a narrow alley and would normally be missed by most tourists. Today, however the place was packed with an even mix of regulars and tourists, it’s reputation for having catered to “American Royalty” seemingly boosting its appeal. We spent close to an hour discussing our trip, making suggestions on things that needed fixing or could enhance future travellers experiences.
While amazingly tasty, the egg coffee seemed a little hard to digest, to put it diplomatically. Exactly how the eggs are incorporated into the cofffee was something we didn’t actually learn.
Having said our goodbyes to Mr Tatien, we decided that a Hop On, Hop Off bus would be the best way to cover the most sights in the least amount of time. At roughly $12 pp it was way cheaper than similar transport in Europe but possibly our most expensive purchase of the trip. Over the 4 hours that our ticket covered we managed to visit the Quan Than Temple, extremely busy with Buddhists as it was the first day of the lunar calendar, requiring them to honour their ancestors and make offerings.
It was a similar sight at Tran Quoc Pagoda. Located on an island overlooking West Lake it is, apparently, the oldest Pagoda in the city, dating back at least 5 centuries.
Our next stop was the Imperial Citadel, a UNESCO site and a hub of military power for almost a thousand years before descending into ruin in the 1700’s. It was eventually destroyed by the French in the mid 1800’s to make way for new development. Nowthe site of many archeological digs, its buildings are slowly being restored and rebuilt.
Our final stop of the day was a visit to St Joseph’s Cathedral. Located just outside of the Old Town and built in approx. 1880 it featured an impressive altar and several stained glass windows.
Realizing that we had gone the better part of the day without eating we opted for a spaghetti dinner at a nearby restaurant. Black Jacks ( not exactly a typical Vietnamese restaurant) offers pizza, pasta, tacos, steaks and a few Vietnamese favourites. We opted for pasta- our first non Vietnamese meal since we arrived.
A sudden heavy downpour, our first real rainstorm since we arrived, found us ducking under cover as we made a run for the hotel.
With our alarm clocks set for 6:00am tomorrow we are hoping to beat the rush to visit the Mausoleum of “Uncle Ho” ( Ho Chi Minh) before packing and checking out of our hotel.
(As a side note to this piece, I’m having some difficulty uploading additional images to this post so I will be adding some more- mostly today’s sights, once I get home and can access the blog from my computer.)
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