Day 44: 22/7/13

I didn't feel great last night on the overnight train. I'd a pain in my tummy again, like before but thankfully no trips to the toilet- that would have been horrendous as the smell in the toilet was bad enough to make the healthiest person vomit! I slept a bit, but not enough.
We arrived in Hanoi around six in the morning. Hanoi is the capital. When Hue was the capital it was called a different name- like Tanlong- which means dragon rising and Halong means dragon descending. Hanoi means city inside the river.
We were way too early to check in but we could have Breakfast at the hotel that the guide could pay for with our tip money. 'This be good.' I tried a small bit of toast for breakfast as well as Imodium and dioralyte! It seemed to so the trick. Within an hour I was fine and actually hungry! A few people are getting the pains in their tummies but recovering quickly again. Obviously our tummy needs time to adjust to the food!!
We went to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum then. We all had to get different taxis together. Ann-Marie, Steph and Hannah were in one taxi and we were all there, their taxi was missing. It started lashing rain while we were waiting and of course the thunder and lightening came out!! The guide had to ring the taxi company and then they ended up ringing him as they knew at that stage that we should be there. We found them though- they had just been dropped off a different side of the mausoleum. At this stage we were all like drowned rats! We took a picture of the building that he's embalmed in. The building is closed for maintenance on Monday's and Fridays so we couldn't go in anyway!
Ho Chi Minh is extremely important to all the Vietnamese people. He is an idol and considered like a great uncle to all the people. He went abroad when he was young to countries like Russia and learned about Marxism. He was the one to declare independence from the French and even though the South of Vietnam would have fought against him for being Communist they still respect him as being a great man. People come from all over the country to see his body and people have pictures of him in their home to worship him. His will stated that he wished to be cremated and his ashes spread over all of Vietnam- north, central and south. When he died, Vietnam still wasn't unified. However, in the Vietnamese culture they traditionally don't cremate people so they decided to embalm him instead. So specialists from Russia had to do the job. Now though, he is all over Vietnam anyway as he is on all their money! We just took a very quick rainy picture there and moved on!
Some people went back to the hotel then because it was too wet. Others were going to the Temple of Literature so you can guess what I did. Just five of us went to the temple with the guide. When we got there, there were young teenage girls volunteering as tour guides for free. They do it for the summer and then do it in a different place the next summer so that when they are older they could become a local guide in the area and maybe a tour leader after that. It's a good idea. The first girl we had was very good and had only been there second days. The second girl was good but she didn't understand our accents at all when we tried to ask questions!
The Temple of literature was basically a temple worshipping literature, education and Confucius. He was a Chinese philosopher/educator who believed in good morals and good education. Vietnamese people follow lots of his beliefs. The main part of the temple was to worship him. There was a big statue of him with offerings around it. There were four smaller statues around that representing his best students or followers. There were 10 little headstones around that again with names of further top students. These are all from hundreds of years ago. Confucius was around in 500 BC. There was a wishing wall there too. It was just a blank timber wall but if you had a wish you could write it on the wall with your finger and only you and Confucius would know what you were wishing for. Lots of students come here to pray for good results in their exams. Beside Confucius there was a statue of a crane standing on a turtle- standing for ying and yang and also the crane stands for knowledge and and the turtle longevity so knowledge everlasting.
The temple had outer buildings and walls all around it. Most of it was destroyed during the war but it was all rebuilt in 2000. There was another temple behind the first one and this one was to worship the first principal of the first university in Vietnam. It also had lots of information about scholars in the last who studied to become a doctor to the king- not a medical doctor, more like an advisor. They had three exams to pass to get there, a regional one, a national one and one from the king. They would have to come to the temple for the exam. There was a list of names of students with the highest results and one of them was only seven years old. As far as I could tell this was all going on in the Middle Ages and no women were allowed to study, just men. They had a photograph of people being examined for their exam which she said was taken in the 19th century but she said the exams ended in the 17th century so it wasn't very clear!! It probably continued until there were no more kings??? There was a picture of the punishment you got for cheating- getting your head stuck in a ladder- I'll have to show that one to the kids!!
Upstairs in that temple also there were shrines to three kings who had been important to the temple or to eduction. They were a different dynasty to the Nguyen dynasty- Ly Tong or something. Their names are so hard to remember! There were eight kings in this dynasty and they seemed to be around the 11th century. There must have been massive battles between the various dynasties back in the day! On the balcony of that upper part of the temple you could see that lots of people had thrown money on the roof of the lower bit asking for good luck.
We went back to the hotel and had a little bit of free time. We went with Steph and Hannah to try and find something resembling a sandwich for lunch but we seem to be in a real local part of town which isn't catered for tourists! It's good if you want to see their style of cafes and things, not if you wanted to eat! We walked for ages and eventually ate at a hotel near ours which was a bit expensive but did nice soup! The views on the way their and back were pretty interesting. They have millions of electrical wires going along the street- you'd wonder how the place doesn't blow up! There are motorbikes whizzing around everywhere- it's crazier than the other cities! People carrying around baskets of food, tools, or anything else are weaving in and out around the motorbikes. There are lots on the side of the ride just sitting on their hunkers, some eating or drinking, some just watching. They didn't seem like they were too familiar with tourists but at the same time they are very friendly. If you smile at them you get a big grin and wave back!
When we got back to the hotel we met our guide at reception and were chatting for a few minutes. Steph had given him a piggy back at the home stay as he's way smaller than her. So he decided to give her one today from the reception down the corridor to the lift. Not a bother to him! The staff at reception thought we were all demented!! In the room then I saved Ann-Marie's photos on to my computer as hers are way better than mine. Now I'll have millions of photos to pick from! I put up a link on Facebook too- Matt Keane: Ireland for the Summer- the words are very appropriate for me right now!! Shell commented- only six more sleeps!!
We went on a street food tour in the late afternoon. We were split into two groups so we wouldn't all turn up to eat at the same time. We had a local guide to bring us on the tour in the old quarter but our guide came with us too. So our group was Ann-Marie, Steph, Hannah, Khoa, Bryan (the American in our group) and then two Aussie people on their honeymoon who had just booked the street food trip separately. And of course, me!
A taxi brought us to the old quarter and dropped us off at the first stall which was a little roll with pork meat and chilli in it- a little spicy but very tasty! Intrepid are the only company that have this tour because a lot of the street food isn't that safe. They spent a lot of time tasting and testing all the food before they found stalls and shops that were acceptable for us to go to. We walked through the markets in the old quarter then which was an experience in itself. There were people everywhere and motorbikes whizzing around us. I asked out guide about the number of road deaths and he said thirty people die a day, which he didn't think was too bad, considering there were 90 million in the country!
The streets were small and some of the alleys were just big enough for a motorbike to pass us. There were people everywhere all selling something on the side of the road, at the front of their house, from their baskets or bicycles... Anywhere at all! It was food mostly that was being sold- although most of it was unrecognisable. The fruit veg section was okay. The meat section was interesting! There were people chopping up cooked chickens and ducks, live chickens running around, live frogs hopping around inside a net, pig intestines, pig blood, pig tongue- they like their pigs!! There was a cockroach running underneath the stall in one place too- just to add to the atmosphere! The locals were entrigued with all these white girls coming- one of them thought I was 18, so I'll take that!!
Our next stop was at a little cafe place that specialise in one particular food. It's pork mince mixed with pork, wrapped in rice paper that was just freshly poured out from the vat of boiling rice. It was still hot and mushy so it was an unusual texture but it was okay. There's fried stuff over a lot of the local meals here too including this one and we were wondering what it was an we were told it was fried baby shrimp. There was also some boiled pork meat thing cooked in cinnamon for us to try, which was basically like a frankfurter. Unusual food and not stuff I'd want too often but good to try!
After that we walked further through the old town and we walked on train tracks. The tracks are in use and 10 trains pass a day but there are houses right beside the tracks so when there's no train the locals are all out sitting on the tracks which was cool. You'd like to have photos of them because it's like the stuff you see in a postcard, but you don't want to be rude either by taking a photo right in front of them!
We stopped at a barbecue place next. They put two hot plates in front of us and dished out food they had cooked on the barbecue. There were some veggies- tomatoes, aubergines and green beans. There was tofu with some spice on it. After that it got a bit more adventurous. We tried frogs. You could see their front and back legs and everything!! It tasted lovely though- honestly like chicken, but maybe a bit saltier!! The rest of the meat was really chewy- pork breast or something- the frog was nicer!!
We were stuffed after that but we had two more stops! Next one was for fruit salad. They obviously have lots of different fruits which make it interesting- langdon, dragonfruit, papaya, mango, etc. They put some condensed milk on it and crushed ice on top which made it milky and more like a dessert. There was plenty more ice to add if you wanted! I eat way slower than everyone else though somehow and I was only halfway through the fruit when we had to go!!
The last stop was for coffee or beer. We went into a building and climbed up loads of stairs and ended up on a balcony overlooking a lake right in the middle of the city. It was gorgeous. We only had a few minutes there though. I'd literally only drank three mouthfuls of beer and we had to go!
We were heading to the water puppet theatre for their show, so I didn't mind rushing to go to that! It's a show with nine dances/pieces. There's musicians at the side. There were two women singing and playing percussion instruments and another woman playing a weird string instrument. All of the other musicians then were behind a curtain, whatever was wrong with them!! For each song or tune puppets performed the dances. They were in water and there were sticks underneath going out the back of the stage that people were using to control them. You could see the sticks now and again, but not often. The puppets came in and out through a curtain and sometimes you could see the people behind. One puppet went off stage and a hand just grabbed its mouth as if to keep it quiet! I'd say we were supposed to see that one! They did a dance about hunting, about fans, about the Cham culture, about fishing, etc- mostly just about life in the Vietnamese countryside. When the puppets had fans, umbrellas, drums or spears or anything they were able to move the arms and legs of the puppet as well as move the fans or umbrellas separately which was quite impressive! The music was really good too. The women were singing a lot but it wasn't screechy singin like the songs we've heard in other places. The beginning of one tune where they were going fishing or something even sounded like an Irish jig! The whole thing only lasted about 45 minutes but it was really good. At the end the puppeteers came out. They had been standing in the water the whole time! I don't know if I'd like that job!!
We went back to the hotel then and had to pack an overnight bag for our trip to Halong bay tomorrow. A cockroach appeared from under the bed in the middle of our packing, and scuttled into the wardrobe! As long as there's only the one we're alright, but I don't think they ever travel alone!! We had the music channel on and it seemed to only play one direction- they put me to sleep fairly quickly!