We wandered around checking out the thousands of little shops the line narrow streets of the Old City, and eventually made our way over to the train station, where I tried to buy a ticket to Beijing. No such luck, I would either have to catch the train that left in two hours or take one on September 25! Class starts on the 3rd -- I would have to resort to flying... We found a chic, French-Vietnamese style cafe for some drinks and to get out of the scorching heat, and then headed up to a gourmet Vietnamese buffet restaurant in the renovated courtyard of an old Buddhist temple for lunch. Finally we had some good Vietnamese food!! Almost none of our expectations had been met up until now with regard to food in Vietnam, but this place was fantastic. We left happy and with full stomachs for the first time in weeks.
After lunch we went to visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, where the former president who had explicitly demanded to be cremated after dying, is preserved and put on display for all to see -- Lenin style. We explored the streets around our hotel that evening and ended up at a bia hoi place (10 cent draught beers) where Brian met a crazy Irish guy who invited us to come see the illegal street races with him at the lake. We went down to a balcony bar to watch the insanity unfold, but the police had their way and shut down the festivities before they could begin.
After spending some more time at one of the shady, hole-in-the-wall bia hoi places (they are basically closets on the street with a few kegs and a ton of plastic chairs that spill out onto the sidewalk), we found out that the city completely closes down at 11pm. Apparently the "fun police" have decided that all sinful behavior takes place after 11, so there is a city-wide curfew that causes scrambling and lowering of steel gates in front of every store, bar, restaurant, and hotel each night. The night was still young in out books, so we took hopped in a cab to take us to an Irish pub called Finnegans. The driver assured us it would be open, but when we pulled up the steel gate was down. He honked his horn and the gate quickly lifted just enough for us to squeeze underneath and enter the lively, very still-open pub. We met everyone who was in there - all Irish and ALL named Brian, and had a great night chatting with everyone about politics, business, Vietnam, the people, the food, you name it. At one point, all the light and music were turned off and we were told to be quiet. The police were doing a rove of the street outside and they might hear us (sounds like the dorms at TCNJ). After they passed by, they lights and music came back on, and the beer continued to flow.
When we were ready to leave, Brian, Irish Brian, and I crawled back under the steel gate and back onto the ghost town of street where a cab had been called for us. We hopped in and realized that no one knew the name of our streets. (They all sound the same!!) We made up a few names that sounded right and imitated any combination of "Nguyen" "Pho" and "Long" that we could think of, hoping the driver would have any idea where we wanted to go. He didn't. A guy on a motorbike passed our taxi and had a map, so we took it and showed the driver where to go. After a crazy adventure through the streets of Hanoi and harassing the taxi driver, we made it back to our hotel only to find out that the hotels all put down steel gates at 11 also. We were locked out! After knocking and yelling for a few minutes we figured out how to pry open the gate. We crawled under and found our way back to the dorm room where we were sleeping.
The next day we explored more of the streets, which are all named after what product is sold there. "Bat Dan" - wooden bowl street, "Hang Cot" - bamboo lattice street, "Lo Su" - coffin street, "Hang Khoai" - sweet potato street, etc... The shops really all do sell the same things. It's amazing how they are organized. We came across a store selling war propaganda posters. Some were translated into English:
"The Southern female guerrillas are truly full of guts."
"Determined to defeat the American invaders so our children can sleep in peace."
They would have made great dorm decorations if they weren't being sold for 25 bucks each. Oh well.
We visited the "Hanoi Hilton" -- the POW camp where John McCain was held during the Vietnam War. It's unbelievable how blatant the propaganda and lies are that the signs and pamphlets provide. "American soldiers were treated as our fellow brothers. They enjoyed the luxuries of basketball games, delicious Vietnamese food, and care packages from home. Many were sad to leave when they were released." Are you kidding?!? This place is infamous for the torture that took place here.
For Brian's last-night dinner we went the fanciest Vietnamese restaurant in town, wearing shorts and t-shirts (oops). The food was fantastic. We had some more bia hoi and went to the lake to watch the illegal motorbike racing again. This time the action was much better than the night before. Police were everywhere with their clubs ready to beat people off their bikes, and government trucks were spraying water all around the loop to make it dangerously slippery. We saw a few racers going damn fast, dodging through heavy Hanoi traffic, but we got tired and went to sleep before the real races began.
The next morning Brian left for the airport for his 30 hour flight back home, and I hopped on a bus to go to Halong Bay.
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