More Hanoi

This will be a concise post.

When I started writing all of the words had funny diacritics on them because the computer was in Vietnamese mode.  So, anyway, when I left you last time, I had just gotten up from a nap, and I was eager to explore Hanoi some more.
So, I walked around, and ate some rice porridge from a nice old lady; it was a really small street food operation, just an old lady a pot and a single stool.

I decide I want to get a bus ticket to Halong Bay, and I have to hire a motorbike.  Hanoi is one big 'no thank you' because the guys with motorbikes are always asking to give you a ride.   They sit on the corner all day, just asking to give rides, I don't see how they make a living.  So I hire this guy, and the traffic was crazy, my parents would have had a collective heart attack, but it was really fun.  I wore a helmet.  He dropped me at the wrong bus station, and I take the public bus, the 08, back.  I see a large part of Hanoi with no tourists; but I hear they are not very accommodating to non-Vietnamese speakers.  The lights and densely packed commerce reminded my of New York City.  Hanoi has French coffee culture, and I saw a Cafe called 'Cafe Bodega'.

That night I wrote the previous Blog post.

The next day, I got coffee at an amazing Cafe that had been in business since 1936.  It was tall, narrow, with steep staircases, and short stools. I rode over there on a motorbike with a seriously pretty girl from California, and we had our coffee on the third floor balcony.  She has regrettably left Hanoi.

Later that day I saw the French quarter.  The little public parks were just like those of Washington DC, except that the centerpieces (statues, etc) incorporated Asian elements; Imagine dragons adorning the fountain in DuPont Circle.  There was a lot of French architecture, also similar to Washington, DC.

I went to a temple called the Temple of literature; the roofs were made of terra cotta scales; I can't make heads or tails of Asian roofs usually, so I was glad to see one that I understood.  There were many large granite stones with Chinese inscriptions.  Probably the most lovely Asian temple I have ever been to. 

Went to the prison where John McCain was kept.  Saw his flight suit.  Pictures of American POWs having a good time, an obvious fabrication.  The museum did a good job of explaining how bad it was to be a Vietnamese prisoner under the French, though.

Went to Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, but not the immaculately preserved man himself  Saw guards in seriously good looking white uniforms.


Then did some sort of fun activity by the lake; I had been recruited by some people to help teach some Vietnamese kids some English; seriously fun and enthusiastic program organizers my age; I could never be that cheery and enthusiastic for so long, but I bet I could manage to somehow organize fun activities for kids; when I babysat, the kids thought I was good.  Added some of the organizers on Facebook.

Yesterday, I was eating some great dumplings on the street, got into a convo with the Vietnamese girls to the right of me, she has great English, turns out she studies bioengineering at UC  Berkeley, friended her on Facebook.

Vietnamese is hard; if you don't get the tones right for even things like 'Thank you' or the name of the street you live on, they won't even understand you.  But I hear that the tones come with practice, and once you get them the grammar is easy, and writing is easy because they use the Western alphabet.

Photos coming eventually, my Hemingway-esque descriptions should suffice for now.

Baruch Hashem.