Let me first of all wish everyone a Merry Christmas, wherever in the world you are. Here in Vietnam we've experienced a bit of the holiday cheer, mostly from passing vendors who're trying to sell Santa hats. It's been 8 days now since we arrived here and tonight we're moving on from the capital Hanoi to Hue, a 12-hour train trip southwards. I'll be sad to leave this chaotic, elegant city, but a break from the incessant noise might be a relief for my nervous system! Our first day in Hanoi was spent with wide eyes and open mouths, amazed by the incredible hustle and bustle of the old quarter, the fading facades of gorgeous colonial buildings, the strong women in conical hats selling everything from fruit to nailclippers and the thousands & thousands of motorbikes. In a country of 82 million people, about 16 million of them have motorbikes and it seems that they've all made a pact to drive as crazily and with as much noise as possible! The tooting of horns could be called the sountrack to Hanoi, as it keeps going day and night. At first it left me completely frazzled, but to my great surprise you manage to block it out after a while. There's too much visual action to focus on anyway, because almost every street scene seems intriguingly different and worthy of attention. After one day I already officially declared my love and even thought we could move here in the future. Faced with this somewhat insane proposal Vaughan remained calm and realistic as usual and waited untill my enthusiasm made place for common sense. So we're staying in Japan for the moment (yet you never know...)!
We seem to have mastered the art of crossing the Hanoi streets without getting killed, which is: walk as slowly as possible so the approaching traffic can zigzag around you. Slightly nerve-wrecking at first, but it works.
Everywhere in the city you encounter women in traditional conical hats , who moved from the countryside and try to make a living by selling food or other items. They all look pretty frail, but carry these heavy baskets for over 12 hours each day. My hatt off to them...
3 comments:
Ook een "Merry Christmas" gewenst vanuit het ietwat 'rustiger' Vlaanderen te vergelijken met het broeierige stadsleven in Vietnam. Vaughan, take Inge back to Japan, I don't want to visit you in Vietnam.
Hi Inge,
Hope you and Vaughan had a fabulous Christmas and New Year. Vietnam sounds amazing.
I'm just catching up on your blog after returning from ten days in the South Island with various members of my family.
The Dutch village freaked me out a bit, apart from the mountains in the back drop you can't really tell the difference.
It's nice to see that you and Vaughan renewed your vows. Maybe you should try to do so in every country you visit? Or every second country. That would definantly fill your annual wedding quota.
Well I'm off to Napier tomorrow and then back to work on the 16th. My life is about to get very hectic shortly, as I have my 15,000 word reserach essay due in at the beginning of March, so if you don't hear from me for a while that's why (Sorry!)
Hope my Christmas card made it!
Love,
Corinne.
Cool place to have Xmas. Pity you won't be there for Tet. Hope you survive the train okay. One of the reasons it's such a long trip is that the rail guage is so narrow & hasn't really been upgraded since the war.
Still it's a cool way to travel & a great way to meet locals. As I was entering Hanoi I got invovled in a 3 way conversation with 2 Vietnamese guys; one couldn't speak English but could speak French, the other no French but some English & me - of course - no Vietnamese! My bad French got a real work out.
Did you survive the short sleeper beds? I spent the night curled up & trying not to get bounced out of the bunk.
I'm sure you'll really like Hue. You really must try to go up river to the tombs & also hire a bicycle as it's a great way to explore the city.
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