Days 116-117: Hanoi, Vietnam

We returned to Hanoi after our Halong Bay cruise to do some more touring around the city. Whereas we spent our first few days in the city mostly wandering around, we did a bit more targeted walking in our remaining couple days, visiting Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum, the Ho Chi Minh Museum (one of at least 3 in the country!), West Lake, and a few other sites. We tried to find the famous One-Pillar Pagoda but failed due to a bad map! Our favorite was the Temple of Literature, an ancient university and temple with a very peaceful feel. It had a beautiful courtyard that I could just see students studying in, practicing their calligraphy and writing poetry. Or perhaps they just goofed off and flirted with the girls – some things never change, I suppose.

There was one sight that particularly made us miss having our camera. A woman had a huge “tree” of pinwheels mounted on the back of her bicycle, probably a hundred pinwheels in all, of dozens of colors, all spinning rapidly as she biked along the river. We bought a couple pinwheels in memory of the sight, but what I would’ve given for a camera!

The Vietnamese really do eat everything! Although we’d heard that before arriving, we didn’t see immediate evidence of it. On our way to one of the museums we stopped at a noodle shop to get a bite to eat, expecting to grab a simple bowl of pho. Listed on the menu:

• Beef penis
• Intestines
• Dog
• Rat
• Ox blood, Ox tail, Ox brains
• Chicken feet
• Cockles
• Assorted cartilage

We ended up getting the fish.