Today we started our Hanoi exploration with a walk around The Temple of Literature, which was founded in 1070 by Emperor Ly Thanh Tong to worship Chinese philosopher Confucius. It then became the first university of Vietnam, also known as the Imperial Academy.
We then visited Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum (outside only because the site is closed for maintenance until 15 August each year) and saw the headquarters of the Vietnam Communist Party which is ipposite. We also wandered around “Uncle Ho’s” house on stilts and beautiful garden. Near the mausoleum is the One Pillar Pagoda, an 11th-century wooden temple built on a single stone pillar in the water. It was designed to resemble a blooming lotus and is said to be a just visit for couples with fertility issues. We saw a lot of women there rubbing the statues for good luck
We stopped at My Nge Hong Ngoc which is a not for profit set up by the government to support second and third generation sufferers from Agent Orange physical side effects. The sales staff are a little pushy (not really a surprise) but I mostly ignored them and focused on the fact 80% of whatever I bought went back into supporting skills, education and home care for these people. I got to talk (and have a photo) with the lady who hand stitched the beautiful silk artwork we bought. She has been stitching these for 28yrs and is one of the only artists who does the lotus flower designs. Similar to the Friendship Village, the cause is a good one even if some of the “sales stuff” is a bit much.
In the afternoon, we walked a bit further into the Old Quarter of Hanoi (where our hotel is) and stopped at Hoan Kiem Lake and Ngoc Son temple to learn about the legend of the lake and turtle tower. I SAW A TURTLE! We then had an arranged cyclo tour back to the hotel. I wouldn’t do the cyclo tour again even though it is an ethical form of tourism here – it’s not our sort of thing and the traffic is stressful.
Dinner tonight was another food tour! Omnomnom. This one was a bit cheaper than the Saigon tour as it was a small group one. It was also someone organised via our northern tour guide and I think I prefer doing my own research for these sorts of things. We met out guide (and random extra member who was an English backpacker) at the hotel at 5:30pm. We were generally happy at the end of this tour as although it was a hit more informal than the one in Saigon, it was all different food that we had not tried yet. We did note it was definitely less organised than other ones we have done. Despite that, we went to special corner shops, random dark and alleys and up terrifying stairs in restaurants of The Old Quarter.
We tried a variety of street foods including Bún chả ( Grilled pork with noodle) which was made famous by Obama on his visit here, Phở bò,gà (a version of Pho which was dry chicken noodle soup), Bánh cuốn (Steamed rice paper rolls), Bánh Mỳ (Vietnamese sandwich) but Hanoi style with dipping bread, Hoa quả dâm (Mixture fresh-fruit with condensed milk cream and coconut icecream) and Cafe trứng
(the infamous Egg coffee).
During the tour the guide told us about Train Street which is literally a spot where a large passenger train comes through and there are heaps of tiny bars on the side so we went for a look. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Aussie OHS would have a fit haha.
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