Historic, Hip, and Hilarious Hanoi

Hanoi is an amazing place. I really enjoy it here. One of the many things I enjoy is all the oddities, the strange sites or sounds or happenings that make up the city and my experience here. So in this post I want to have some light-hearted fun. Not heavy-handed, but light-hearted. Though, hands weighing less than hearts is surprising. But I guess you can have a heavy heart too. Perhaps hearts can change their density.

Edifices

The Tran Quoc Pagoda

Pagoda on an island in the lake

I visited the Tran Quoc Pagoda which is on a spur of land that extends into Tay Ho (West Lake). Here's what's amazing: Today, as I said, this Buddhist temple is on the West Lake. But when it was built between 541 and 543 CE, it was on the Red River. But no one moved the pagoda. The river moved. As I mentioned in a previous post, the West Lake is one of many lakes that are remnants of the former course of the Red River.

I kept hearing chimes but saw no percussionist. Eventually I figured out it was wind chimes.

The pagoda is very beautiful and has lots of people visiting it. It has many people just outside it ready to sell you offerings you can leave at the shrines. It has women who will lend you scarves for your shoulders because uncovered shoulders (and shorts) are not allowed. Though I'm not sure how tightly these rules are enforced.

Closer View of the Central Chedi

I was particularly amused by a series of panels that explained the Laws of Karma. Each illustration explained that if you behave in a particular way in your current life, this is what reward or punishment you can expect in your next life.

You know what they say: Karma's a... well, you know what they say.

Cool architecture

Clever architect

I have no idea what this building is, but I love the design.

Maybe the scene is supposed to represent the very street it is on

Here's another: I was walking through a section of town where the walls along the street had a series of engraved panels. I don't know why, what it was on the other side of the wall that called for them. But how cool that they were there?

Not all the panels are street scenes

Restaurants and Coffee Shops

The Waffle House

Coming from the United States, when I think of a restaurant called The Waffle House I have a pretty strong (and primarily unfavorable) mental picture. I suspect that isn't the vibe they were going for here in a touristy part of Hanoi.

Not that "The Waffle House"

Functionality vs the Vibe

Question for you: What do you do if you have a quirky, trendy coffee shop and outside your building is a weird big standpipe? You paint it to be just as quirky!

Fun character and a bonus hydrant picture! It's a win-win!

Not Exactly The Same

Western Foods

Some "western foods" as they are called are very much like you remember them. Pizza here is excellent. But many are close without quite hitting the mark. Tacos don't taste quite like tacos. Doner kebab is delicious, but not quite like it is served in Turkey or Greece or the Balkans. And even Italian pasta can be surprising. I ordered linguine with seafood and it was delicious. But I didn't expect the linguine to be dark green, so dark, at first I thought it was black.

It was a dark and stormy linguine

Being a culinary adventurer, with my pasta I ordered "salt lemon soda" as my drink. Not my best choice. I don't really get into salty beverages, and the lemon in this one gave it a flavor that I associate with dish soap. This is not to say I drink a lot of dish soap, but I found the closest non-harmful alternative if I wanted to.

All the flavor of dish soap, and a mouthful of salt. What a bargain!

Background Music

Most Vietnamese restaurants don't play music. But some of the Western ones or the higher end ones do. And what seems to be super popular here is covers of American rock songs. But the covers always seem to be a female vocalist who is making the most mellow version of the song possible. Did the original have a driving beat? No more! Were there electric guitars? No more! Was it a power ballad? No more! They don't seem to be aware of what a power ballad is. Just yesterday we heard a cover of Girl on Fire by Alicia Keys. Let me tell you, the lulling melody felt like it was singing "This girl is sitting in the vicinity of a heater." Or perhaps, "This girl is wearing a warm woolen sweater."

Surprising Sightings

Dragons

Not too far from where we are living, there is a business that is like a big play area. It's too small to say it is an amusement park. And it is too big to say it is just a playground. But they seem to have events. Sometimes, those events require dragons.

Is the dragon draggin'?

We happened to be passing when a group was unloading their paper dragon that is on poles that they can carry. So we got a good look at the beast.

We were face to face!

The One Armed, Well, Not Bandit

When I was finding my way to the Red River, I came into an event space. There was no event going on at the time. But I did find this guy there.

I am so unclear as to what you are meant to be.

So yeah, he's wearing a loincloth and he's one armed. But a one armed what? Not really a demon. He has pointed ears. Maybe a red elf? A sunburned Vulcan?

Trees with Accessories

You might think trees are trees, right? But no, not here. Apparently here, the trees are electric!

"I have the power!" - He-Man

Does that seem like a fire hazard? No worries. The next tree over is prepared.

The tree equivalent of a bullet-proof vest

Funny, Random Extras

Translation Error

It's strange to see clothing being sold with English on it in a place that doesn't speak English. But how did they translate this? Google Translate and hope it's right? But why the incomplete sentence? And someone didn't know the word "reins".

What do you think you are supposed to let chance do? Not hold the rains of your life, of course.

Top Tier Trash

Have you ever had a situation where a confluence of events occurs that changes something you were saying mid-sentence and it results in one of the greatest sentences ever spoken? Here's what happened.

Alrica and I had purchased beverages while out exploring Hanoi. Now we were carrying the cups and eager to rid ourselves of them. As we walked past a club, there was a sign that said it was one of the top one-hundred clubs in the world. But I hadn't noticed the sign. Also, there was a couple of garbage cans just around the corner from the club.

So we're walking and Alrica is telling me about the sign that I missed, but turns the corner as she is doing so. And thus, she utters the amazing sentence. "This is one of the world's top 100... garbage cans." Naturally, I was thrilled to toss my trash into one of the most highly rated garbage cans in the world. And I had to get a picture to commemorate it, much to Alrica's annoyance (or is that Hanoi-ance?)

Honestly, not sure what raises this garbage can over its peers, but I can only assume expert judges were employed in the determination.

My Life as a Seven-Year-Old Girl

I have this problem. Some of the letters on my computer keyboard are wearing away (or entirely worn away.) For the most part, that's not a problem, because I know how to type without having to look at the keys. But it can be annoying t times. Particularly impossible to read keys included the A, the C, the E, and the S. I think that's amazing since it happens to be the four initials of the first names of our family. But that may be coincidence, and besides the C, those other letters are among the most commonly used. Still, if I have to type the word "case" (and being a mathematician who does proofs by cases, this is not an infrequent occurrence) I better remember where those letters are.

We were at the store the other idea and Alrica spotted the perfect solution. It was a pack of colorful glittery stickers of the letters of the alphabet. Problem solved! This is what my keyboard looks like now.

I don't know why I doubled the B

Let's just hope the numbers don't go next.

You're Doing it Wrong

There are certain skills in life that you would like to think people just know how to do. But that's not always the case. (Look, I just used the word "case"!)

Here, let me address the women who are reading this. I do this as a service, because the women probably have less firsthand knowledge of one of the many unpleasant features of a public men's restroom. The men who read this will nod their heads, affirming its truth.

The floor just under a urinal is frequently, how can I sugarcoat this, uninviting. But here's the good news. I was recently in a restroom here in Vietnam that attempts to address the issue.

I think this one transcends language. We can all understand it.

So men, please, if you aren't already familiar with the proper technique, please, take a long look at the image above. Internalize it. This is sure to serve you well in the future.

Ha Long Bay

In any list of the most beautiful landscapes on Earth, I would have to imagine that the limestone islands of Ha Long Bay must be included. This past weekend, Alrica and I took a trip to Ha Long Bay which is in north Vietnam, east of Hanoi. We took an overnight cruise and we got to see the spectacle of hundreds of these little karst landscape islands jutting up out of the water.

Islands and Islands and Islands

Not only is each island beautiful and generally covered in thick greenery but with steep sloping rocky sides, but some are closer and some are further, with distance making each hazier and almost ethereal. I talked about karst islands recently when I posted about El Nido. But the waters of El Nido had nowhere near the number and variety of such islands as Ha Long Bay.

Alrica on the Sundeck

The cruise was very fun. The only thing I would do differently, were I to do this again, would be to bring along some bottles of water. Our food was included in the price of the cruise, but not drinks with our meals. And since you are trapped on a boat, it's way overpriced. More on that in a bit.

In addition to lots of islands, there are lots of cruise ships

First, we were taken by van from Hanoi to Ha Long. There we had an hour wait until it was time to go to the boat. But the cruise ship itself doesn't come all the way to the shore. Instead, we were taken by a smaller boat called a tender from the dock to the cruise ship. Upon arrival, every passenger was given a welcome drink. It was watermelon juice, bleah! So Alrica got a bonus second welcome drink. We were told the itinerary for the cruise and then given keys for our rooms. We headed to the room and after putting down our things, we headed to the dining room for lunch.

If you don't want to look out the window, you have pictures of Ha Long Bay to look at instead

The room was very nice. We had a king size bed, a chair, and bookshelf built into the corner. There was an attached bath which included both a shower and a bathtub. And each room had a balcony with two chairs where you could sit and watch the bay and the islands go by. Or really watch them sit still while we went by.

You're thinking, "Erich, it's just a bathtub." Hey, bathtubs are not common in these parts.

Lunch was a buffet and it had a lot of options. I tried to try almost everything, and that was a lot of trying. But it was excellent food. This was when we discovered that we were buying anything we wanted to drink. But a solution later presented itself. There isn't a store on the ship, but a store came to us. There were people on wide bamboo boats full of snacks and drinks that would come up to the side of the ship. They would hand up whatever you wanted and you would hand down money. I bought a couple of cans of Coke and discovered that the outside of the can was coated in saltwater. Not a good first sip. I rinsed the second can in fresh water before I drank it.

That small boat you see is full of cakes, cookies, beer, water, and soda for sale

In the early afternoon, we stepped from the cruise ship to the tender. The tender took us to a floating dock. There we boarded bamboo boats which rowed us out to the light and dark caves.

Bamboo boats arriving at the dock

Basically, it was a karst formation where we went under a low arch with dangling stone. Seated in the base of the boat, we didn't have to duck. But our oarsman, sitting on a higher platform, often did. The dangling stone is somewhat like stalactites. But they aren't really stalactites. Stalactites are more conical in shape and they grow as time goes by. They are formed by dripping water which leaves minerals behind as it evaporates or falls. These stones get smaller as time goes by as they are what is left after the rock around them erodes away.

Inside the light and dark caves

When we returned to the cruise ship from the dark and light caves, it was time for relaxation and swimming in the bay. Alrica chose the relaxation aspect, and I chose the swimming. The water of Ha Long Bay was cold! For the first few minutes, I was cold, but after a bit of swimming, that just became refreshing. This is the tropics after all. After swimming in the bay, I visited the hot tub (which was only mildly hot, and I prefer that. Alrica likes it "turn you into stew" hot.) And then I relaxed on a lounge chair on the Sundeck.

Approach to the light and dark caves

A bit later, there was a cooking class in which we learned how to make Vietnamese Fried Spring Rolls. Mostly what we learned was how to roll the delicious mix inside of rice paper. But it starts by massaging the rice paper on a wet washcloth. This changes the brittle rice paper into flexible rice paper. Then there is a method of folding and rolling the rice paper to enclose the meat and vegetable mixture. We got to pose with our head chef Mister Tam and we got to taste our creations. Pretty good! And I think it was all due to my amazing rolling and folding skills.

Look at that thumbs up. These rolls are Chef Tam approved!

Dinner was exceptional. It was a four course meal. First we had pumpkin soup. Then there was a sea grape salad with duck meat. Sea grapes are interesting, they burst in your mouth like they are caviar, and they have a very umami flavor. I was thinking, "Is this meat?" But no, it's algae. Our main course was grilled salmon served with mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables. And we had panna cotta (served inside a pineapple) for dessert.

That green thing on top of the cabbage, that's the sea grape.

After dinner was squid fishing. It was much like regular fishing, you used a pole. It used a lure, not live bait. A couple passengers did catch some squid. We did not, but once we saw a squid approaching my lure. But I couldn't catch it.

There's Alrica with her panna cotta in a pineapple

I was exhausted and slept well that night. The next day we got both breakfast and brunch, only about two hours apart from each other. We had to check out of our cabins in between. Still, that's a lot of morning food for me.

We said goodbye to our crew, took a tender back to the main dock, and rode a van back to Hanoi. It wasn't a super long trip, but we did plenty. And it was tiring. I needed a nap! I know, even after the good sleep the night before. Absorbing so much beauty takes a lot out of a person.

Puddles with Piercers, Puppets, or Planes

Water, water everywhere. Fear not, there's plenty to drink. Tourists are told not to drink the tap water in Hanoi, but there is plenty of filtered water and bottled water available. Regardless, I wasn't really thinking of drinking water when I wrote "Water, water everywhere."

Dragon Boat on West Lake

Hanoi is on the Red River. Ironically, I had a tough time even getting to the Red River to see it. But I did find a way, and, hey, it's a river. But it isn't one of those rivers that is the central feature of the city. There's no riverwalk district. The walking districts aren't too far from the river, but not on the river. But those walking paths and districts are on remnants of the Red River.

Sorry to disappoint you, but the Red River isn't red

Over the course of history, the course of the Red River has moved. And when it changed, it left lakes behind. Today, these lakes are all within solid manmade walls so that homes and businesses can be built along them without fear of flooding. The largest of these is Hồ Tây which translates to West Lake. Its surface is about 500 hectares (roughly 1235 acres.) We live just a block or two from this lake. I've walked some of its perimeter, but it is 17 km (over 10.5 miles) around. I haven't yet set aside enough time in a single day to walk the entire perimeter.

One of the dragons guarding West Lake

It has dragon guardians, Buddhist temples on its shore, and a stretch of road in which there are four coffee shops, one beside the other. I think my favorite part of that is that the two on the ends are both Highlands Coffee. (Starbucks is a relatively minor coffee company in Vietnam. Highlands is the equivalent. We see Highlands Coffee shops everywhere!) Highlands has a cooler history than you might think. It was incorporated in 1999 by a Vietnamese American named David Thai. David grew up in Seattle, home of Starbucks, and he saw its meteoric rise. Inspired, David started Highlands Coffee in Vietnam. This was the first time in the country's history that an overseas Vietnamese person was allowed to register a private company.

The Ho Tay Temple (on the shores of Ho Tay or West Lake)

While West Lake might be the biggest lake left behind by the river, it isn't the heart of the city. That would be a much smaller lake called Hồ Hoàn Kiếm, or the Lake of the Returned Sword. Sounds like a wild name, right? Well, it comes along with a legend.

Alrica at the Lake of the Returned Sword but lacking a sword to return. Or did she already return it?

In the 15th Century, Vietnam was ruled by the Ming Dynasty of China. The Vietnamese didn't like that. And there were rebellions. But the Chinese were tough. However, that's when a rebel leader named Lê Lợi emerged. He was a great warrior, a great strategist, but most importantly, he had a magic sword.

The Turtle Tower in the Lake of the Returned Sword

According to legend, a fisherman found a long piece of metal in his fishing net. He pulled it out of his net and threw it back into the water, then cast his net somewhere else in the water. Lo and behold, he drew out his net and once again, he had caught that same long piece of metal. Once again, he threw it back. A third time he cast his net, and a third time he caught that same long piece of metal. Deciding this had to mean something, he took a look at it and discovered it was the blade of a sword. It wasn't the whole sword, just the blade. So he kept it. I mean, if it was so determined to be in his net, why not?

Years later, the fisherman joined the rebels. One night he was visited by the general: Lê Lợi. When Lê Lợi entered the fisherman's hut, the sword blade began to glow brightly. Lê Lợi picked it up and beheld the words Thuận Thiên which means The Will of Heaven. Even though a sword blade without a hilt wasn't much use to him, it was glowing and it had a name: the Will of Heaven. You don't ignore that. The fisherman said the general could keep the blade, so Lê Lợi took it.

Good thing, too! The blade itself didn't turn the tide of the battles. Lê Lợi still lost a lot. But one day, while he was running away from the Chinese, he saw a weird light in the branches of a banyan tree. Had this been me, I would have just ignored it, because I am allergic to banyan trees. But not Lê Lợi. He climbed right into the tree and you know what he found? A hilt for a sword, a hilt encrusted in gems. Naturally he thought, "I wonder if this hilt will fit that blade I got from the fisherman." In case you are dying of suspense, let me tell you: It did!

It is said that when he fought with this reunited sword, The Will of Heaven, that Lê Lợi was the size of a giant and had the strength of many men. He rallied the Vietnamese people and they drove the Chinese out of their land. The Ming gave up their imperial hopes in Vietnam and Lê Lợi declared himself Emperor of the newly-independent land.

The Turtle Tower lit up at night

One day after this, Lê Lợi was out boating on a lake. (This is Hồ Hoàn Kiếm, the Lake of the Returned Sword, but it couldn't have been called that yet. It's about to get that name.) A golden turtle surface and swam toward the boat. It spoke to Lê Lợi, telling the emperor to return the sword to the turtle's master, the Dragon King (a demigod.) With no hesitation, Lê Lợi drew the sword and threw it out of the boat. The turtle caught it in his mouth and swam under the surface of the water with it. That's when Lê Lợi named the lake Hồ Hoàn Kiếm. Today, there is a tower in the lake called Turtle Tower to further commemorate the occasion when Lê Lợi returned the sword.

Thang Long Water Puppet Theater

On the north side of the Lake of the Returned Sword is the Thang Long Water Puppet Theater. We went to a show, and it is pretty amazing engineering. The audience faces a shallow pool and you can't see the whole pool. Part of it is behind bamboo screens. On either side of the pool are raised platform with musicians. The puppeteers are behind the screens. But they aren't holding the puppets on their hands. Instead the puppets are at the ends of long wooden rods that stay in the water and the puppets can move along the surface of the water, or dive beneath it, or even jump above it.

The empty "stage"

The show is a series of short vignettes. Some involve intricate dancing. In one of them, boys were swimming. In another, a man on a boat was fishing. And somehow they are able to have him catch a fish (meaning somehow the fishing line part of the man on boat puppet connected to and stayed connected to the fish puppet.) What's more, the man and the fish fight, and eventually, the fish pulls the man off the boat and drags him around in the water. So they are also able to detach the man puppet from the boat puppet. And one of the scenes was Lê Lợi on his boat, meeting the golden turtle, and tossing the sword to him. The Lê Lợi puppet was able to draw a sword, toss the sword, and the turtle puppet was able to catch the sword. I don't know how it is done, but it's impressive.

Our narrator

One more lake that we visited is often called the B52 Lake. Not because it is fifteen miles to the love shack. Not because it if filled with rock lobster. (By the way, if you don't get those jokes, well, you might have grown up in a different era than I did.) It is called the B52 Lake because there is a piece of an American B52 in it. Today, there are residential buildings all around this small lake. But during the Vietnam war it was agricultural land there. The Vietnamese shot down an American B52 and a big chunk of it landed in this lake. And its been left there to this day.

The B52 piece in the B52 Lake

The lake itself isn't that impressive to see. It is a tiny lake with a piece of a plane in it. But the panel that told the story, that was great. The victor gets to write the history, right? The tale of the scrappy but noble Vietnamese who took down the aerial instrument of death sent by the American imperialists was fantastic. I'm sure it is exactly analogous to the way the United States would have written up the story if they had won, except it would be the Americans who were glorious and the Vietnamese who had impure motives.

Bonus picture: I love the Avongars to inftitiy and back

So instead of ending, "Water, water everywhere," with "and not a drop to drink," let's change it to "Water, water everywhere, and a lot of fabulous stories." Slaking my thirst for knowledge.

Hai Van, Hue, and Heading to Hanoi

When Alrica and I left Da Nang, bound for Hanoi, we took a little trip in the middle. We went by train and did it in two parts. The day we left, we took a train from Da Nang to Huế. But let me start with the train ride itself.

This particular stretch of train line is, according to Lonely Planet, the loveliest train ride in the world. I can see why. It was a beautiful sunny day when we were on the train and the scenery (once we left the city and when we weren't in tunnels) was magnificent. In that trip, the train goes over the Hai Van Pass. Here you are on the side of a cliff, and as you look out you see the ocean, a mountain in the distance, and lush greenery.

Taken through a train window

It is truly a beautiful view. This being said, there is one small factor that mars the scene: Construction. Down on the coast, in an area that has historically just been a tiny fishing village, something much much larger is being built. The land has been stripped of its trees and flattened. You can see the outlines of what will probably be roads in the next few years. If I were guessing, I suspect someone is building a town to be full of resorts. Soon it will be, like Da Nang, a pleasure paradise.

Community Car on the train

The train was an interesting experience beyond just the view too. The center car of the train is called the community car. You can buy food there. But they also have musicians who play traditional Vietnamese music throughout the four hour ride. I was particularly surprised by the fact that one of them is playing the theremin. This is an instrument that has only existed for about 100 years. But it has a sound that could have replaced something like a woodwind and so now it is part of traditional music.

Do you recognize this welcome sign?

The train then arrived in Huế. I said previously that Da Nang was touristy. But I wasn't quite right in that. Huế is touristy. Da Nang is expatty. What do I mean? I liked Huế, but it is the kind of place designed for you to be there for one or two days and then go away. Da Nang has some of that, but it is really designed also for foreigners who want to stay for months or years. Consider bars. In Da Nang there are regular Vietnamese bars offering Tiger Beer. But there are also bars with wood paneling designed like English pubs, or there are Irish pubs, or German beer gardens. That way if you have moved there from Europe, you can have a local pub that feels like home. In Huế, the bars and clubs which aren't just regular ones feel more like they are themed than as though they have a foreign feel. For example, one has a Las Vegas theme going on. Certainly that isn't meant to make anyone feel at home, just to be a fun place to play.

The south gate of the Imperial Citadel

Huế is a very cool place to be a tourist though. The Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam, who ruled from 1802 to 1945 placed their capital in Huế. So there is an impressive citadel as well as the tombs of several of the emperors.

A dragon boat?

Some of the sites were within easy walking distance. Others were not. So we did a day tour. First, we took a dragon boat on the Perfume River. A couple of notes here: I think of a dragon boat as a long canoe, a rowboat that is decorated to look like a dragon. That's not what we were riding on. We were on a motorboat which had dragon decorations affixed to it. Also, the Perfume River is named that because of the flowers that fall into it upstream in the autumn. Then the river flowing through Huế has a perfumed scent in that time of year. So we were told. We were not there in the autumn and didn't smell any perfume-like scent.

the Phước Duyên pagoda, the symbol of Huế

The boat took us to Thiên Mụ Temple, or, the Temple of the Celestial Lady. Legends in the region spoke of a lady in red and blue who prophesied that one day a great lord would come and build a pagoda (the Phước Duyên pagoda) on a particular hill and there pray for the fortune of his kingdom. Then she disappeared. Centuries later, when the first emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty came to the area, he was told the story. So he built it, prayed for the fortune of his kingdom, and named it the Temple of the Celestial Lady. This is, to some degree, the antithesis of Greek Tragedy. In Greek tragedies, the hero is told of a prophecy, does everything he can to avoid it, and then by trying to avoid it, he fulfills it. Here, the emperor was told of a prophecy and then did everything he could to fulfill it. And hey, it didn't turn out tragic!

The car which brought a monk to his fiery protest

If you were craving tragedy, have no fear. The temple complex did have a pretty horrible story as well involving a car stored on the temple grounds. Before the Vietnam war, the country of Vietnam was in two halves. The southern half, which wasn't communist, was governed in Saigon. And the government was very anti-religion, particularly anti-Buddhism. A monk named Thích Quảng Đức drove this car into Saigon, exited the car, and set himself on fire in protest. Later, several other Buddhist monks also engaged in self-immolation, though religious freedom didn't come until after the Vietnam War. Today, under the communist government, people in Vietnam are free to worship in any religion. However, there are caveats. If you want to work in a government job, you must be atheist. And if you want to marry someone who works a government job, you must be atheist, your parents must be atheist, and your grandparents must be atheist. (Or have been, if they were not still alive.) Why does it require three generations of atheism to marry someone who works for the government but only personal atheism to work for the government? I don't know. I don't work for the Vietnamese government, so I don't have access to those answers.

Palace of the 13th (last) Emperor

From the temple, we headed to the Imperial Citadel, or the Imperial City. This is a walled 160 hectare (about 400 acres) region on the north bank of the Perfume River. Within it are (and were) palaces, temples, a library, a theater, and more. Many of the original buildings are still there, but many of them were obliterated in the Vietnam War. Now that the Imperial Citadel has become a tourism site, some of the tourist income is being used to rebuild the lost buildings.

The Market - that brown paste on the left is a type of fish sauce

Next up was the market and then lunch. We had a variety of Vietnamese dishes, though I'm not sure I could name all of them. But they were very tasty. And at the end of lunch was a foot washing bucket. I don't know if this is traditional in Vietnam. It wasn't my favorite. The bucket has bumps in the bottom and with my flat feet, that was not comfortable. I guess I exchange mild amounts of dirt on my feet for mild amounts of pain in my feet. Not sure it was the best trade-off. But I think Alrica enjoyed it more than I did. The warm water had been steeped with lemongrass and mint. Sounds more like a drink than a wash!

I know, you're thinking, finally, a picture of Erich's toes!

After this, we left the city proper and traveled out into the surrounding area. Here we visited an incense village. What I mean is that this is a village where they make incense sticks. There were so many sticks in so many colors, they make artistic displays. I'm sure that is for the tourists. I was wondering about the economics of this town. There is shop after shop selling the same thing. How much demand for incense is there in the region?

Alrica making cinnamon incense

Next, we drove to the tomb of the second emperor in the Nguyen Dynasty. But there was an interesting story to this. There is a temple here for venerating the emperor and working ancestors. There are two pillars that are meant to represent candles. There are statues of ministers and elephants and horses that were going to attend the emperor in the afterlife. But then there is the tomb on the hill on an island. Here's the thing, the emperor is most likely not buried there.

The Worship House at the Tomb of the Second Nguyen Emperor

Emperor's were buried with a lot of riches. So they were very afraid of tomb robbers. What's more, when the Nguyen dynasty came to power, one of the first things they did was loot the tombs of the previous dynasty. How do you show you are more powerful than the dead emperors that came before you? By defiling their graves, of course. Naturally, the Nguyen feared that the exact same thing would happen to them when their dynasty ended. (They couldn't know that theirs would be the last dynasty and afterwards there would be French colonialism, civil wars, and ultimately a communist government under Ho Chi Minh.) To avoid this, the emperors (with one exception) weren't buried in their tombs. They were buried somewhere in the vicinity of the tombs. But where is a mystery. This particular emperor was buried by six of his most trusted military bodyguards. Then, they marched out of the tomb area and promptly killed themselves so no one would know where the emperor's body really was. Now, that is a level of loyalty that boggles my mind.

The door to the tomb that probably isn't the tomb.

The other tomb we visited was that of Emperor number twelve. This was very different in style. It still had statues of ministers and elephants and horses. It still had pillars that represented candles. But the structure was heavily influenced by the French architectural style. The last several emperors ruled after the French had conquered Vietnam and before the Vietnamese fought for their independence from France.

Doesn't it feel a bit like Raiders of the Lost Ark?

This emperor is really buried in his own tomb. He didn't think that anyone would ever dig through his impressive French style palatial tomb. And it is beautiful, intricate, and very expensive.

Look at the intricacy of the wall carvings

After a day of touring, we boarded another train, this one a sleeper train taking us to Hanoi. We had booked two of the four beds in a sleeper cabin. We had the two lower bunks. No one ever came for the upper bunks, so we had the cabin to ourselves.

Our room on the train

Sleeper trains are fun. And when you think of it being both your transportation and your hotel for a night, they are very affordable. This cost us $114.57 for the two of us. Now, in the night we didn't get much of a view, but the next morning we saw birds, countryside, and eventually the city of Hanoi as we passed through it. Here's the wild part. There is this segment of the rail line that goes right in between buildings in the city. I mean we are talking maybe a foot or less clearance. And this has become a popular tourist attraction called Train street. Cafes put chairs out on their back landings right next to the train tracks. And people buy coffee or alcohol and sit there, watching the train go by only inches away from them. We got to see this from the other view, from the inside of the train. It is frightening how close these people are from being crushed.

Bonus pic! Incense stick art

The train company hates this. I recently read a news article about it. The train company has wanted the city of Hanoi to crack down on this, but the city hasn't done anything about it. Now there is a proposal to build a new line that skirts around the densely populated sections of Hanoi so that trains can avoid the stretch where people who don't pull in their legs could lose those same legs.

It's funny what passes for tourism sometimes. I will post more about Hanoi later, but I will say this: while there are plenty of tourism related things to do here, this is not a touristy city. Nor an expatty one.