Hump Day in Hanoi

Is "Hump Day" appropriate if you're not working? Probably not, but it sounded good as the post title.

So, here we are in Hanoi and if you exclude Halong Bay, which is as filthy as it is beautiful, and the Perfume Pagoda, which brings out the absolute worst in the locals, we've done most things already.

For those of you that have not been to Vietnam you need to know that this is a country of extremes and the Vietnamese say it like they see it.

I will explain why I preferred not to go to the Perfume Pagoda by quoting a recent traveler's post on her experience -

" ..... bad point was that when we arrived back and left the boat, the lady asked us for tips and our guide said it is expected of us to give 20.000 dongs each person. Some of the people in our group refused to give the lady the tip and she was very mad and turned to us asking for more than the money we had already given her."

I experienced much the same thing when I went to Ninh Bình, an equally beautiful place.

You go up the (fill in the tour you have chosen here) river on a boat for which you have paid for as part of a tour and from the time you embark to the time you get back you are likely to get a sob story about a multitude of sick relatives that need expensive operations, constantly, or they will try and sell you poorly made crafts or soft drinks with 400% mark up or really shitty quality Polaroids. And to make it worse they are insistent and aggressive about it.

When Georgia called one out on this behaviour, on one of her recent trips, she got told "You have lots of money. You should pay."

Our friend, a native Hanoian, Hien laughed when I told her of my experience in Ninh Bình and said "Oh, you think it is only Westerners that get that? No. Those people do it to everyone that goes there, including Vietnamese."

When it's all said and done. Thanks, but no thanks.

Back to Wednesday.

Georgia decided she was going to show Emma a bit of Hanoi with just the two of them.

They headed off in the afternoon to the Old Quarter and Tiz and I decided that we might walk down to the Ho Chi Minh Museum and spend the afternoon there.

I remembered it being somewhat Ho Chi Minh centric but quite large and with a lot to see.

This time is was reduced to about 35% of what I saw and all of it was very ..... ethereal.

Weird, would describe it better.