Day 3 - Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and "Pool Shark"
Today in Nam we had a day to explore Hanoi, The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum followed by an optional Vietnamese massage. After breakfast and coming clean to the people who we had forgotten names (Sorry Lauren and Sam) we made our way onto the streets with Vu our leader.
It was really good having a local directing us because we learnt a few things about Vietnam. Firstly all of us struggled to cross the road at different points but Vu had these secret powers. His secret, walk and put up your hand signalling for the bikes, cars or scooters to stop. Surprisingly it worked, it was like he was a Jedi and was using "the force" to hold the traffic at bay.
Secondly we saw a 3 story house being constructed near our hotel. Since things seem so cheap in Vietnam we all argued the price of the house but most of us thought it would be no more than USD 200,000. Well we were all very very wrong, apparently the building would cost about USD 2 million (yes million as in six zeros)
After a brief tour of Hanoi we made it to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. The Mausoleum is a large memorial devoted to the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh. Once we got to the Mausoleum there were 2 queues. The long one and the short one, well to us it was obvious which one to line up in so we jumped in the shortest queue. After the security checkpoint and whilst waiting for everyone a heated discussion broke out between our tour leader and the security (in fairness a lot of Vietnamese sounds heated to our untrained western ears but I'm sure it's not).
A few minutes of debating followed with us finally being forced to go back outside the security checkpoint and line up in the long line.... Bummer. The long line which really wasn't that long took us about 10 minutes to get back through the security checkpoint. At least whilst waiting we were entertained by a real life version of Medical Emergency - Vietnam. A person had collapsed whilst in line and he had about 4 people working on him.
Once the patient was carried into a makeshift ambulance (a mini van) we got through to the courtyard (again). Now we were all pretty excited because we didn't really know what to expect. So we looked around expecting to see clowns, magicians, acrobats or something cool but all we could see was another really long line. Hoping it wasn't a line to the complaints department we all lined up. So slowly this lined moved until we got to a large building that said "Ho - Chi - Minh" on it. Apparently this is what we were lining up for, whilst walking into the Mausoleum we passed four guards out the front. I wondered what they needed four guards for but I soon realised their jobs. Guard number one was in charge of signalling to us to be quiet, Guard number two was in charge of ensuring we didn't have our hands in our pockets, Guard number 3 was in charge on ensuring we took our sunglasses off and Guard number 4 was in charge of making sure our hats were off. Surely a sign to tell people the rules would be more effective.
When we got inside we walked up a staircase and into a larger room. I'm ashamed to admit I had no clue what was in this building. I knew it was a mausoleum so I was expecting pictures of Ho Chi Minh and some information about him, wow was I about to get a shock.......
We made our way into a large square room with four people guarding a glass box in the center. Once I had a better looked I realised that it wasn't a glass box but in fact a glass coffin with the preserved body of Ho Chi Minh in it. Even then I had my doubts to whether this was a creation from Madame Tussauds or a real body. After exiting the building we met up with Vu who explained it was the preserved body of Ho Chi Minh and gave us some information on the Ho Chi Minhs life. After the visit we decided to visit the Hanoi market for a bit of shopping so in a taxi we jumped.
The market was full of people selling all sorts of things from food, textiles, watches, sunglasses, backpacks, clothes. Taylor (aka Swifty, the nickname which he hadn't yet been granted) decided that he wanted a pocket watch so it was time to try his bargaining techniques. Taylor managed to bargain the girl down to 110,000 but she wouldn't go to the price he wanted. So he used the risky tactic of walking away in hope that the stall owner would change her mind. The problem came when after about 5 steps we realised she wouldn't change her mind. Damn if we went back now the bargaining power was lost.
After admitting defeat and walking away we bumped into other members of our tour group. In that group was George who as a car salesman back home was a fantastic bargainer. So we gave George the task of trying to get the lady to under 100,000 for the pocket watch. George walked over to the stall and after a few minutes he had the stall owner agreeing to 100,000 for the watch. It wasn't as low as Swifty wanted but it was still only $5 AUD.
After purchasing the watch Taylor, David, Christie, Lizzie and myself headed back to the hotel to get some Pho for lunch. During lunch we got to know Christie, Taylor and Lizzie better. David was labelled the uneducated one out of our family from Lizzie since I had a university degree and he worked for a television network. We were indeed getting to know the group a lot better ;-). After meeting Vu at the hotel we made our way to the Vietnamese massage place. We all didn't know what to expect we were just hoping it wasn't going to be similar to George, Mogs and Loz's Thai massage experience the day before (The massage place they attended believed in giving customers the happy ending)
Once at the massage place we were split between girls and guys. After getting changed into a pair of shorts we were provided with our first experience was to sit in a wine barrel full of water and some other oils. Whilst sitting one of the staff came over and gave us some ginger tea to drink. It was slightly concerning that he laughed madly when we took the tea like he had poisoned it but we drank it anyway. We were then motioned to another room to sit in a bath tub of hot water. After 5 minutes of soaking in the hot water the 3 of us made our way into what I thought was a sauna.
It soon turned out that it wasn't a sauna but a gas chamber, sorry I think steam room is the correct term. Dave, Taylor and myself sat in the room with our feet in buckets of water whilst heaps of steam rose into the room. Before long it was impossible to see Taylor who was sitting only about 60cm away. The room was incredibly hot and I had images in my head that we would be trapped. After quickly getting David to ensure the door wasn't locked we sat and waited for the staff to tell us to get out. Eventually after what seemed like an eternity we got directed into another room which was in fact a sauna.
We sat in the sauna for a few minutes and to make it a bit more intense I added a little bit of water to the coals. It was bearable until the creepy staff member came in and decided that nearly emptying the bucket on the coals was a better idea. He gave one of his evil laughs and departed the sauna whilst we were struggling inside to live. Once we were done losing a few kilos in sweat we exited the sauna and got under a cool shower to get our body temperature back to a normal state.
After changing shorts and trying to dry off the sweat we all got allocated to a room with a masseuse and a massage bed. Since I was sweating more than Josef Fritzel no MTV Cribs my masseuse took one look at me handed me towel and walked out of the room. After drying myself quite a few times we were finally ready to begin the relaxing massage.
The massage wasn't to bad but definitely not relaxing like I though they were meant to be. I laughed a few times when she was massaging the side of my stomach (stupid ticklish parts) and when she repeatedly kept trying to ask me a question but her lack of English and my lack of Vietnamese meant we couldn't communicate. After the massage I met the rest of the group downstairs to debrief and enjoy some Vietnamese porridge before heading back to the hotel.
Come night time we had an included activity of the Water Puppet Theatre, a group dinner followed by bed or a bar (ummm tough choice). For anyone visiting Vietnam I do not recommend the water puppet theatre, it was a cheap version of the muppets which told a bit about Vietnamese culture and history but I didn't really get it. Luckily it only lasted an hour and before my legs cramped up to bad we were back outside with Vu on our way to a restaurant.
At the restaurant we enjoyed a 7 course meal of all different types of dishes. It was fantastic and a great way to try different Vietnamese foods.
After dinner Vu took us to a bar called 'Funky Monkey' where he said there would be music and a pool table. When at the bar Vu raced upstairs and quickly grabbed a pool queue, when we finally arrived he started exclaiming that he was a "Pool Shark". Obviously Vu didn't realise that you aren't meant to tell your challengers that you are a Pool Shark but none the less David and I challenged Vu and George. This may be the only time I write about us playing pool in Vietnam because I think it's the only time David and I won any games. The scores ended up: David and Paul: 2 vs. George and Vu: 0
Today in Nam we had a day to explore Hanoi, The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum followed by an optional Vietnamese massage. After breakfast and coming clean to the people who we had forgotten names (Sorry Lauren and Sam) we made our way onto the streets with Vu our leader.
It was really good having a local directing us because we learnt a few things about Vietnam. Firstly all of us struggled to cross the road at different points but Vu had these secret powers. His secret, walk and put up your hand signalling for the bikes, cars or scooters to stop. Surprisingly it worked, it was like he was a Jedi and was using "the force" to hold the traffic at bay.
Secondly we saw a 3 story house being constructed near our hotel. Since things seem so cheap in Vietnam we all argued the price of the house but most of us thought it would be no more than USD 200,000. Well we were all very very wrong, apparently the building would cost about USD 2 million (yes million as in six zeros)
After a brief tour of Hanoi we made it to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. The Mausoleum is a large memorial devoted to the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh. Once we got to the Mausoleum there were 2 queues. The long one and the short one, well to us it was obvious which one to line up in so we jumped in the shortest queue. After the security checkpoint and whilst waiting for everyone a heated discussion broke out between our tour leader and the security (in fairness a lot of Vietnamese sounds heated to our untrained western ears but I'm sure it's not).
A few minutes of debating followed with us finally being forced to go back outside the security checkpoint and line up in the long line.... Bummer. The long line which really wasn't that long took us about 10 minutes to get back through the security checkpoint. At least whilst waiting we were entertained by a real life version of Medical Emergency - Vietnam. A person had collapsed whilst in line and he had about 4 people working on him.
Once the patient was carried into a makeshift ambulance (a mini van) we got through to the courtyard (again). Now we were all pretty excited because we didn't really know what to expect. So we looked around expecting to see clowns, magicians, acrobats or something cool but all we could see was another really long line. Hoping it wasn't a line to the complaints department we all lined up. So slowly this lined moved until we got to a large building that said "Ho - Chi - Minh" on it. Apparently this is what we were lining up for, whilst walking into the Mausoleum we passed four guards out the front. I wondered what they needed four guards for but I soon realised their jobs. Guard number one was in charge of signalling to us to be quiet, Guard number two was in charge of ensuring we didn't have our hands in our pockets, Guard number 3 was in charge on ensuring we took our sunglasses off and Guard number 4 was in charge of making sure our hats were off. Surely a sign to tell people the rules would be more effective. When we got inside we walked up a staircase and into a larger room. I'm ashamed to admit I had no clue what was in this building. I knew it was a mausoleum so I was expecting pictures of Ho Chi Minh and some information about him, wow was I about to get a shock.......
We made our way into a large square room with four people guarding a glass box in the center. Once I had a better looked I realised that it wasn't a glass box but in fact a glass coffin with the preserved body of Ho Chi Minh in it. Even then I had my doubts to whether this was a creation from Madame Tussauds or a real body. After exiting the building we met up with Vu who explained it was the preserved body of Ho Chi Minh and gave us some information on the Ho Chi Minhs life. After the visit we decided to visit the Hanoi market for a bit of shopping so in a taxi we jumped.
The market was full of people selling all sorts of things from food, textiles, watches, sunglasses, backpacks, clothes. Taylor (aka Swifty, the nickname which he hadn't yet been granted) decided that he wanted a pocket watch so it was time to try his bargaining techniques. Taylor managed to bargain the girl down to 110,000 but she wouldn't go to the price he wanted. So he used the risky tactic of walking away in hope that the stall owner would change her mind. The problem came when after about 5 steps we realised she wouldn't change her mind. Damn if we went back now the bargaining power was lost.
After admitting defeat and walking away we bumped into other members of our tour group. In that group was George who as a car salesman back home was a fantastic bargainer. So we gave George the task of trying to get the lady to under 100,000 for the pocket watch. George walked over to the stall and after a few minutes he had the stall owner agreeing to 100,000 for the watch. It wasn't as low as Swifty wanted but it was still only $5 AUD.
After purchasing the watch Taylor, David, Christie, Lizzie and myself headed back to the hotel to get some Pho for lunch. During lunch we got to know Christie, Taylor and Lizzie better. David was labelled the uneducated one out of our family from Lizzie since I had a university degree and he worked for a television network. We were indeed getting to know the group a lot better ;-). After meeting Vu at the hotel we made our way to the Vietnamese massage place. We all didn't know what to expect we were just hoping it wasn't going to be similar to George, Mogs and Loz's Thai massage experience the day before (The massage place they attended believed in giving customers the happy ending)
Once at the massage place we were split between girls and guys. After getting changed into a pair of shorts we were provided with our first experience was to sit in a wine barrel full of water and some other oils. Whilst sitting one of the staff came over and gave us some ginger tea to drink. It was slightly concerning that he laughed madly when we took the tea like he had poisoned it but we drank it anyway. We were then motioned to another room to sit in a bath tub of hot water. After 5 minutes of soaking in the hot water the 3 of us made our way into what I thought was a sauna.
It soon turned out that it wasn't a sauna but a gas chamber, sorry I think steam room is the correct term. Dave, Taylor and myself sat in the room with our feet in buckets of water whilst heaps of steam rose into the room. Before long it was impossible to see Taylor who was sitting only about 60cm away. The room was incredibly hot and I had images in my head that we would be trapped. After quickly getting David to ensure the door wasn't locked we sat and waited for the staff to tell us to get out. Eventually after what seemed like an eternity we got directed into another room which was in fact a sauna.
We sat in the sauna for a few minutes and to make it a bit more intense I added a little bit of water to the coals. It was bearable until the creepy staff member came in and decided that nearly emptying the bucket on the coals was a better idea. He gave one of his evil laughs and departed the sauna whilst we were struggling inside to live. Once we were done losing a few kilos in sweat we exited the sauna and got under a cool shower to get our body temperature back to a normal state.
After changing shorts and trying to dry off the sweat we all got allocated to a room with a masseuse and a massage bed. Since I was sweating more than Josef Fritzel no MTV Cribs my masseuse took one look at me handed me towel and walked out of the room. After drying myself quite a few times we were finally ready to begin the relaxing massage.
The massage wasn't to bad but definitely not relaxing like I though they were meant to be. I laughed a few times when she was massaging the side of my stomach (stupid ticklish parts) and when she repeatedly kept trying to ask me a question but her lack of English and my lack of Vietnamese meant we couldn't communicate. After the massage I met the rest of the group downstairs to debrief and enjoy some Vietnamese porridge before heading back to the hotel.
At the restaurant we enjoyed a 7 course meal of all different types of dishes. It was fantastic and a great way to try different Vietnamese foods.
After dinner Vu took us to a bar called 'Funky Monkey' where he said there would be music and a pool table. When at the bar Vu raced upstairs and quickly grabbed a pool queue, when we finally arrived he started exclaiming that he was a "Pool Shark". Obviously Vu didn't realise that you aren't meant to tell your challengers that you are a Pool Shark but none the less David and I challenged Vu and George. This may be the only time I write about us playing pool in Vietnam because I think it's the only time David and I won any games. The scores ended up: David and Paul: 2 vs. George and Vu: 0
David, Mogs and George outside Funky Monkey
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