Driving in from the airport in Ha Noi Martine and I began the processs of acclimatizing ... no, reacclimatizing ourselves to Asia. Of course, everywhere is different so what could the drive of about 40 minutes in from the airport tell us? Well, firstly, the area around Ha Noi is a mass of big, enormous and truly stupendous building projects, including a gigantic bridge across whichever river Ha Noi lies on. Secondly, everyone seems to observe the speed limit rigorously (Alfred: Actually, he's serious; this isn't one of these Ruairí things where he is actually, oh-so-cleverly saying the opposite of the truth and - rather condescendingly if truth be told - trusting the faithful to figure it out. Six lane highway from the airport to town and virtually no-one drove over 60 kph. And everyone on a motorbike was wearing a helmet. It was like being back in Rwanda ... well, kind of). And, thirdly, car indicators are for decorative purposes only, for use at Christmas and national holidays or whenever Ha Noi needs to floodlight an area cheaply! One reason for this is that using the indicator might interrupt the texting that all drivers indulge in
while they are driving around Ha Noi.
(Alfred: I have to use one of my infrequent interjections here to highlight how unbearably smug Ruairí has become since he realised - rather belatedly - that the capital of Vietnam is written as TWO words (Ha Noi) Please do notice therefore just how often he manages to work the name of the city into his sentences!)
Having visited Vietnam in January, it was interesting to compare our memories of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) with our initial impressions of ... em, Vietnam's capital. Some things are the same - incessant traffic, dominated by motorbikes and some bicycles, tall but incredibly thin buildings in a bewildering melange of styles, friendly people, an air of hustle and bustle. But, at first glance, Ha Noi does seem a little more laid back, less intense (Alfred: he's been here less than 24 hours and spent most of that asleep. Please treat these 'insights' with the respect they deserve.) And they do love eating! Maybe it's because Vietnamese eat out so much compared to at home but it really is striking to see so many people eating in public and so many places for them to do it! Our first meal was in a little restaurant on the street where we had - what else - two different kinds of pho (Vietnamese soup) and it was great! (Alfred: Apart from Ruair* ... where is the key for the fada? I have never seen a keyboard with so many accents on it but where is the one for writing Ruair*'s name properly? OK, open Word, type Ruair, insert symbol í, copy and paste here. Ruairí. Anyway, Ruairí decides soup will not be filling enough and orders an additional noodle dish. This turns out to be another soup, so three large bowls of soup arrive for two people, to the obvious bemusement of the staff. Ruairí, of course, does his usual imitation of 'this is what I meant to do anyway' which, given how often he has had to do it over the years, he now has down to a fine art). The restaurant was on what looked like a little alley between two main streets but this meant there was a constant stream of motorbikes whizzing past our table, which would have been fine if not for the waiter's unnerving habit of grabbing at the sleeves of the passing motorcyclists to try and persuade them to stop and eat.
QUICK RECAP
So how did we get here? Well, we spent the last few days in Ireland in an orgy of packing and throwing stuff out. It really is amazing how much stuff one can accumulate in a house after nineteen years of living there! Sunday and Monday saw our diet restricted to whatever was left in the fridge a we were forbidden from buying anything new. This led to some interesting salads and sandwiches (Alfred: I suspect Ruairí may never eat anchovies again) but the Chinese dumplings with burdock filling did end up in the bin. Then, we packed our bags. Our weight limit is one 30kg bag each plus one cabin luggage and a laptop or handbag. And we actually ended up weigh below that (Alfred: Oh, please!). One suitcase of 17kg each, one backpack of maybe 6kg and my laptop. And that's it for the next two years! Then my wonderful friend Éamon arrived at 4 a.m. to bring us to the airport (Alfred: Coddayn Gale ger 'masochist'?) and off we went. And it was a pretty uneventful, if exhausting, trip. Dublin-Heathrow with British Airways (forgot how nice BA are to fly with) and then Malaysian Airways London-Kuala Lumpur or twelve hours or so. A few hours in KL and then on to Ha Noi - well, almost. Apparently something went wrong while they were refuelling the plane so, even though they had already loaded everyone on board, we all had to get off again and wait for a different plane. But nta kibazo as we say in Rwanda (Alfred: A phrase indicating you are frustrated and pissed off but far too cool and laid back to show it).
And I watched films!!! Ed Byrne once made fun in a sketch of people who say of holidays 'getting there is half the fun' - "they must have really shite holidays!" But for me watching loads and loads of films in a row is heaven, especially films you would have baulked at paying ten euro to see at home. So I watched (in chronological order of watching) Man of Steel (very good), White House Down (had its moments but, really, a ten-year-old girl doing an impression of Mel Gibson from the end of The Patriot?), World War Z (uh), Unknown (Liam Neeson, really liked this, probably because the twist caught me completely by surprise and, unlike most such twists, was completely plausible) and The Artist (a delight).
(Alfred: I would like to point out at this stage that I spent the entire period of almost twenty-four hours upside down in a backpack, sharing this space with a Canon Rebel camera and case, changes of t-shirt and underwear, assorted documents, and whatever other random objects were from time to time shoved in. The outstanding moment of the trip from my point of view was that Ruairí decided in Kuala Lumpur that he didn't need to change his underwear, a decision that may or may not have met with the approval of his beautiful travelling companion and fellow travellers but saved me from having ... well, you get the picture).
Arriving at the airport led us to the wonderful world of taxi and hotel scams. I had, of course, prepared diligently for the trip by reading all the tourist guide information available and all of them harped on about the dangers of taxis at the airport pretending to be from your hotel but actually bringing you to a completely different hotel with a fake name on it providing a crappy service at extraordinary cost. This sense of insecurity was added to by the Hanoi City Palace Hotel sending us a secret code by email which we were to use as verification with the taxi driver who was picking us up and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES were we to get into a taxi with anyone who didn't have this code. (Alfred: the code was HP-858, in case you are interested, which you aren't. But you may have noticed that the hotel is the Hanoi City Palace, not the Ha Noi City Palace. Indeed.)
WHY DO I HAVE TO GO ABROAD TO GET MY NAME SPELLED PROPERLY?
Of course, when we got there, there was no driver because our plane was three hours late but a phone call to the hotel soon put that right. So the driver turned up and he had the best code of all: my name on a notice, perfectly spelled. Not since I flew into Phonsavan in Lao and was greeted by my hotel owner with a placard with my name on it have I been so impressed (Alfred: though the guy in Phonsavan did scoop the jackpot by saying 'Conas atá tú, Ruairí, conas a bhí an turas?', the fruit of some diligent research on the Internet. If you want attention to detail, the Vansana Hotel in Phonsavan is your man). Seriously, I am pushed to remember the last time someone in Ireland spelled my name properly so this made a refreshing change (Alfred: Rant over, let's move on).
SETTLING IN
The hotel is lovely though we did have to negotiate for a better room - the original one had no window but for $28 a night in the centre of Ha Noi's Old Quarter that's hardly surprising. Anyway, for an extra $10 a night we have a giant room with two beds, the smaller of which is the size of our double bed at home and the ultra-king size (Alfred: maybe Emperor-size) we could sleep sideway on. Balcony on the main street and a charming bathroom which, when I posted an image of it on Facebook, caused a certain amount of bemusement.
I posted it because of the wonderful design of the toilet and handbasin, which I described as a cross between French Third Empire and 1920s Art Deco but obviously many of my Facebook friends had not encountered an Asian toilet before and were puzzled by the hose attachment. The practice of using sheets of paper to wipe oneself after going to the toilet was essentially invented in the USA in the nineteenth century as a way of ... recycling the innumerable catalogues that were then in circulation. From that came the invention of specific toilet tissue. But, for the rest of the world and especially in Asia, it seems a dreadfully unhygienic way of cleaning and they use ... water, a little water jet after which you dry yourself and head off fresh and clean!!
ADVERTISING AND CULTURAL REFERENCES
At Ha Noi Airport as we waited for our taxi, we saw these four large billboards advertising a brand of Vietnamese coffee. Can you recognise the faces, at least some of which came as a bit of a surprise!
Answers in the next post!!
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