Hanoi

Our Vietnam evisas come through. We take a tuk tuk to the Luang Prabang airport. Oddly, our driver heads in the opposite direction to the airport; mistakenly heading to the train station. We get his attention and he turns around. Whew!

On the tarmac (it is 35C) the Laos Airlines ground staff line up and wave our plane goodbye. Never experienced that before.

Temperature drop

Hanoi is experiencing a cold, drizzly front for the next week (only a high of 16C) and we are looking forward to a break from the heat. The downside is our planned multi-day excursions to Ha Gaing (mountains) and Cat Ba (beaches) won’t be great in this weather. So we cut our losses; instead sign up for a couple of day tours outside of Hanoi and shorten our stay in northern Vietnam to four days. Pat is writing about these day excursions in the next post. This post will cover Hanoi.

We stay in the old quarter of Hanoi. It is a bustling neighborhood. Motor bikes are everywhere.

It isn’t quiet.

The Market is bustling.

If you walk around West Lake you do find a few places to collect your thoughts.

Our self guided walking tour takes us past Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum.

Cau Long Bien Bridge

We read that M. Eiffel (of Eiffel Tower fame) is credited with designing a rail bridge that crosses the Red River into Hanoi’s old quarter. This bridge survived WW2 and Vietnam war bombings. Today the bridge is used by motorcycles, bicycles and tour groups. Turns out M. Eiffel had nothing to do with this bridge. We enjoy the walk.

This firm designed many bridges and buildings – mostly in Paris – it is worth a Google

We get as far as the river and turn around

We visit Hoa Lo Prison (Maison Centrale)

The French built this prison in 1913 to house Vietnamese political independence campaigners. The brutality of the colonial French to these Vietnamese rebels is well explained.

One section of the museum is dedicated to the Americans (mostly pilots) captured during the Vietnam war. Their treatment under the Viet Cong is described as much more humane. I’m sure some details are conveniently left out. This prison was named the Hanoi Hilton by the Americans POWs.