Middle-aged flash packers

I felt as flat as a pancake today.

This is only to be expected, a usual reaction of mine when saying goodbye to loved ones and moving on. I always feel like just going home.

This time also not helped by a sad anniversary and the bloody awful weather. 

The weather! Foggy, wet and cold. Bye bye 39 degrees and blue skies, how I miss you. Hello fleeces and rain jackets. To be fair, I wasn’t expecting hot weather but this is supposed to be the dry season.

We are staying at the GM Premium Hotel which is in the old quarter of Hanoi, less than 10 minutes walk to the lake. They had kindly upgraded us to a suite but the noise from outside was too loud for us so we downgraded ourselves to a more modest room with no windows. A comfortable cell if you will. I think the manager must have thought we were nuts.

Anyway, we are happy in our self-imposed prison and the breakfast here is very good. The view from the restaurant less so, looking over the ramshackle collection of concrete buildings that is typical of the Far East.

Kylie (SİL) has now put a stop on all travel to Asian cities , so fed up is she with the pollution and disorder that they hold.

I’m beginning to see her point. What started off being novel and interesting has now become tedious and irritating. Pavements for instance. Or sidewalks if you’re American. The clue’s in the name. Walk on the side. Not in the middle of the road because everyone parks their motorcycles where I  should be walking. It’s bad enough crossing the bloody road, trying not to die – now you fancy your chances knocking me over on the highway. And as for using the pavement as your workshop to mend your lethal weapons….I’d better stop, I’m spiralling into a rant, but you get the picture.

We ambled down to the lake which looked pretty despite the fog as the Tet flowers were still lining the shores and brought some colour to a gloomy day. Sadly the authorities are collecting them up , no idea what they’re doing with them, throwing them away probably. Shame they can’t leave them. 

We stopped at the Huc Bridge on the lake. It joins the sword lake and the Jade Mountain Temple. The story of the Sword Lake is that Emperor Le Loi was given a magic sword by a giant turtle which he returned to the turtle after he won an important battle. No one knows if the divine turtle existed (seems unlikely what with it having a sword and all) but a huge turtle did live in the lake and can now been seen in the small museum on the bridge. It has been “impregnated with chemicals” to preserve it. (Haven’t we all?)

It was interesting watching local people at the Temple. Many older people believe in “folk” religions, based on worshipping ancestors and animism. Gifts are brought and gongs banged to let the ancestors know they are there. Watching an old lady do this, it was as if she were chatting to them. 

Next, the money pit. Vietnamese burn money (fake) so their ancestors can use it in heaven and the money burners can expect good fortune to come their way. It’s surprising that people are permitted to do this as Vietnam is still a communist and therefore atheist country. 

I think it’s a very natural thing to want to remember our family members so in partial Vietnamese style I burnt a couple of josticks to say hi to Mum and Dad and tell them about the amazing great grandchildren they have.

Onwards to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. There’s a bit of a theme going on here.  It is  the anniversary of my mother’s death today but I hadn’t thought about doing these things beforehand. Strange.

Anyway, Ho Chi Minh wasn’t having any of it and the mausoleum was closed which was a shame as it was quite a long walk from the lake. 

We then decided to visit the Hao Lo prison museum. It’s one of the top attractions in Hanoi but I found it underwhelming. It makes much of the bravery of the revolutionary comrades and the awfulness of their French colonial oppressors and I’m sure it was awful. But the bias is childlike and diminishes the facts. Also the prison museum is only one fifth of the original as the rest has been sold off to build the very capitalistic Hanoi Towers. However this is just my opinion and many other visitors seemed to like it. 

To cheer ourselves up, we found a nice hotel with a fancy looking spa and booked ourselves massages for tomorrow. We had a sundowner in their sky bar and suddenly the metaphorical cloud lifted. 

Dinner was round the corner in a little restaurant, very tasty and very cheap. £15 for both of us. Can’t knock that.