Fonda Hanoi

On our third day in Hanoi now, the first one without any sort of plan or tour so are wandering around the Old Quarter looking for water puppet postcards, a mailbox and a little more propaganda art.

For the past two days we have been squired around by a nice man named Mr. Tuan, who has been very friendly and helpful, albeit a bit rushed. Everytime we are looking around somewhere he will give us a few minutes to look at the wing of a gallery or a collection of photos and then he will reappear hovering sort of passive aggressively until we make eye contact and then he will say we need to keep going. Mr. Tuan would make a good scheduler.

First day was a whirlwind of vietnamese tourist sites. Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, the Ethnology museum established by the French (I guess after you've colonized a place, it's nice to build a museum to the people you've displaced) and the temple of literature (basically the first university in vietnam). We ended the day watching a water puppet show, which was either too cutesy or very scary or both (imagine the chucky movies, or if you are susan smith burns, the shuffletown people).

Natalie is writing an opus about our 2nd day in halong bay now, so I will be lazy and bullet point some stuff:

1. There are 85,000 people on mopeds at every intersection, very few stop lights and no real stop signs. We have yet to see an accident other than on a long stretch of road where somebody rear ended someone else. People cross streets in a sort of weird interlocking pattern that oddly enough, works.

2. Vietnamese tourist hucksters are far nicer than Thai tourist hucksters. I don't know if it is that they speak less English but they generally drop their entreaties after one attempt.

3. We have started every morning watching either a debate or one of the baseball LCS. It's kind of strange to watch the phillies or obama before 8 am.

4. Internet is $1 an hour. Coke is $1 a can. I know that there is an economic theory that explains it but I still find it weird.