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Hanoi
Ok, so I realised today (13th) that I have been suffering from an acute case of culture shock! The climate here is totally different from anything I have ever experienced before at 30degrees and very very humid. The city is crazy hectic with motorcycles everywhere. Crossing the road at certain times of day is like an extreme sport.
Nevertheless, I have tried to make the best of things and adapt. I have been exploring the city and its hustling and bustling streets, its museums and its eateries.
Day 1
I got up just after nine and tried the free breakfast upstairs. Watermelon and a Banana, a badly fried egg, and three slices of toast with butter. Tea and Cofee if you like. Not bad really, for free.
I decided to explore the local streets. My hostel is based in the Old Quarter, with loads of busy streets lined with shops and cafes. Often roads have a theme, such as clothes, food stuffs, sunglasses (yes a whole street of sunglasses shops), etc etc. Often there are pavements, but these are as good as useless, because they are covered in motorbikes and scooters, or people eating at tiny childlike plastic chairs and tables.
I found a map at the hostel and picked my way through the streets to a local market. I could not stay very long, because the sheer amount of people was driving me crazy. By the way, when I say 'people', I mean bikes. The people never leave them. It is like man and bike are one!
I wanted to go and visit the history museum (a sensible place to start) and then the revolutionary museum. I had quite a long walk and had to constantly wave away the persistant motorbike taxi drivers and risk my life several times to cross the busier roads. I found the history museum easily enough and paid the 10000dong entry fee. This sounds a lot, but is actually about 33.3pence! I had to leave my bag in a locker and then spent an hour or so looking round. I found it a bit of an odd place, with exhibitions from caveman to buddhist, to French resistance war. They had a very good collection of some rather stunning sculptures and carvings, but I found the history itself a little hard to follow.
The revolutionary museum was closed untill 13.00, when I got there at 11.30, so I found a park bench, fought off the people trying to sell me things, and had a rest. Then I had an excellent lunch at the museum cafe, and a wonderfull fresh pinneaple smoothie.
I really enjoyed the Revolutionary museum, as it gave me my first real insight into the French occupation and the war (things I knew very very little about). It was interesting to see things from a Vietmanese perspective too, though it was laughably one sided at times (not wholly unreasonable, and to be expected of course). There were lots of amazing photographs and interesting artefacts. A bit more information in the captions here too.
I headed back to the hostel, showered, enjoyed more free beer and went out for dinner. I found a nice looking cafe with a few westerners and sat in a corner at the back. The Westerners promptly left and I felt pretty lonely with just me and a table of Vietnamese in the place. The food was good though, and the service friendly. I wandered back to the hostel, updated this blog, and went to bed.
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