The Hanoi Fur Hunt

To evade some monotony of the fur hunt saga, I will skip the hunter’s Hoi An, and Hue escapades, and move on to Hanoi.

Hoi An really is an interesting little town that has retained it’s early Chinese influence and charm, (We loved Hoi An.)

Hue oozes with history from long ago, and also featured prominently in “The American War” Predominantly during the Tet Offensive.

We emerged from the Hanoi’s Noibai airport after a short flight from Hue, wondering if our hotel had arranged pick up service for us only to find two drivers from two different hotels, waving placards welcoming Mr. B…. B….h to their respective hotels.

How that happened I would never know, later we were to reflect,

“Maybe the other hotel would have been a better choice,”

 But we weren’t to know that just yet dear reader, after all, we had forked out the grand sum of eight dollars a night for the “Hello Viet Nam Guest House” it looked great on their web site, (and on their brochure,) this was to be one of Hanoi’s unbeatable bargain priced accommodation guest houses. Both the website, and the brochure told fibs!

Noibai is close on forty kilometers out of Hanoi; the drive in is mainly through suburbia. The homes along the way in create a picture of prosperity, even if they look a bit higgledy-piggledy in height, structure design, and the wide array of colour schemes.

Initially, the road is wide, two wide lanes for cars and trucks, and two on either side for scooters.

As is the case throughout Viet Nam, the traffic lights give a digital countdown on the time remaining on each of the three colours. Sure makes it easier to judge the lights for a quick take off, or just to get through on a red before the change, who am I kidding?

Again our driver had pulled out his mobile, (I lost count of how many calls he made or received,) it seemed he was relaying his progress and location to our guesthouse.

Now the streets had narrowed. I mean narrowed.

I had selected to stay within Hanoi’s Old Quarter to experience the real ambience of the city. After all, anyone can stay in the Ritz.

Now the street had gained another “narrowed” classification now a class Three Narrowed rating, on my scale that is narrow!

Our car came to a halt. We had reached a four narrow rating, foot traffic, and scooters only street.

From somewhere down this little street that bore more resemblance to a grotty market place, emerged a guy in a suit to collect our baggage.

 

Surely this must be a short cut to our hotel, we can’t be staying in amongst all of this I thought, as we picked our way through this street market squalor of curbside butchers, fish vendors, veggie stalls, noodle stewing, scooter dodging, from front and behind, wandering vendors,” No! I don’t want to buy your matches, or what ever it is you have!” Di Di Mau! Di Di Mau! I shouldn’t be so hard on them, it is the only way they have of earning a living.

But really folks, as I said before, this is one reason for wanting to stay in The Old Quarter of Hanoi, the only way to experience the true flavor of the country, is to get amongst it.

We were amongst it here, smelling, and almost tasting the flavour of the country too.

After a short walk, we arrived at the Hello Vietnam Guest house, where a lady sliced, and sold bamboo shoots from amongst the scooters lined up at the doorstep.

 She also had pots of brew steaming in an alleyway across the road, which served as the kitchen for her kerbside restaurant.

As time went by, we noted she had a pretty regular clientele. People would walk, pedal, or scooter up to her, she would ladle up a good dollop of bamboo shoots into plastic bags, and off the customer would go, disappearing through the tangle of humanity down the street.

A lady selling fresh live fish shared another portion of our doorstep.

 The fish were alive until sold, after the sale was agreed upon, with a swift clout with a lump of water pipe, and the fish flicked no more, the fish bagged, and away went another happy customer.

We booked in, and were led upstairs to our large ensuite bedroom. Very basic, not flash, not too clean, but we accepted it for what it was, but I might add we only stayed there for the agreed two nights. Nuff said about that.

The management were really helpful and friendly, bad luck their cleaners and maintenance men were on leave, or non-existent.

The Old Quarter of Hanoi is the only city in Vietnam to retain it’s ancient merchant’s quarter, a congested square kilometer often referred to as the area of thirty six streets, the area of the thirty-six guilds. Now there are more than fifty streets in this area, the street names reflecting the wares sold in each of these streets, Bac Dan St. wooden bowls, Cha Ca St, roasted fish, Han Bac, silver smiths, Lo Su, coffins, Hang Be, rafts, and so it goes on.

 This is the Asia we dreamed of from afar. Steeped in history, pulsating with life, buzzing with motorbikes. The streets are narrow and congested. Crossing the streets is a thrill seeker’s adventure.

The architecture is another interesting feature of the old quarter. Land taxes on properties there were set relating to the width of the block, not the depth, or height. Most buildings were built narrow, long and high, and were called tube houses. Some were only a bit over two metres wide, but four stories high.

The old quarter is an easy place to get lost in. We know!

 We soon became masters at the lost tourist syndrome.

Away from the old quarter, everything is as normal, dodge motorbikes, cross streets at your own peril, shop, walk around the picturesque lake where on a weekend, families relax,

do tai chi, do any exercise one can dream up, eat, have coffee, or just sit and watch others get fit.

An attraction not to miss is the water puppet show. We were told bookings must be made two or three days in advance. We had only one evening free, so bowled up to the ticket office expecting to be turned away, but no, did we want first class tickets? “Yes,” forty thousand Dong each got us our tickets, and seats within a short splash of the watery stage.

The musical accompaniment to the puppet show was a treat in itself; the highlight was a solo performance by a young lady playing a Monochord harp.

This instrument had only one string, and the musical tones were achieved by varying the tension of that string by means of a tensioning lever.

 Guess one has to se it to get the true meaning of my description.

In the past, only males were permitted to play this instrument, as it was believed if a woman were to play the Mono Chord, spirits would fall in love with the player, and whisk her away.

Wonder how many male players were mistakenly carried off never to be seen again?

After the show, we had dinner at a great little restaurant, then made our way back to our new hotel Located on Raft Street (still in the old quarter,) but a little more up market than Hello Vietnam.

Around midnight we were awakened by a crash, and sounds as if our front wall was collapsing! I pulled the blankets up around my ears, and pretended to have heard nothing.

Not so for my better half, she peered out the window to the street below,

 “Something’s happened down there, there are people everywhere. Get down there and see what’s going on!”

“Yes dear” I replied with a little defiance in my tone. “Why me? I’m not that brave.”

Arriving bleary eyed at the front step of the hotel, I wondered why anyone would park a car so close to our doorway. I found it so hard to get out.

Hey! This car, a small taxi was seesawing over our front step, pinning four motor scooters against a tree on the footpath. Another tangle of scooters lay behind the car, marking its course as it mounted the footpath, and another doorstep, before coming to rest on ours, the two large pot plants that once graced the front step now looked like a giant jigsaw puzzle scattered in all directions.

No one seemed too perturbed, mobile phones were out in force, snapping pictures, and even the taxi driver didn’t seem too upset as he checked out the carnage he had wrought.

Someone tried to sell me a cheap scooter for parts, I declined the offer, and headed back upstairs to break the news that our hotel wasn’t collapsing, and we could go back to sleep.

What an entertaining night we have had.

 

 

Next morning everything on the front step had returned to

normal, the two large pot plants had disappeared, and all the scooters parked on the footpath were in top shape.

Had I dreamed it all?