Ups and Downs in Hanoi

Posted by Fiz

Traveling presents us with the best and worst of people and places. It challenges us as well as caresses us with different experiences. Hanoi is no exception and in one day I went from nearly getting in a fight, to receiving applause. Here are two stories that show the ups and downs of my time in Hanoi.

Down: Taxi Touts

After visiting the One Pillar Pagoda, which was a royal hassle to find, we decided it would be a good idea to get a ride from a scooter taxi. It probably would have been but we made a crucial error. We simply told the driver where we wanted to go, and hopped on. We realized this moments too late, and when I asked how much, I was conveniently ignored.



After we had been on the scooter less than 5 minutes and successfully, although narrowly, run 3 of the 4 red lights we arrived at our destination, the temple of Literature, we asked once again how much.

Our driver said 500 (at this point I was thinking 500 dong (yes the Vietnamese currency is called dong) which would have been totally reasonable, considering everything else is in the tens of thousands), but no he meant 500k which is about $25.

Kathleen and I both cried “What?” in unison. And he immediately dropped his price to 200k. We looked at each other in shock and awe because a 15 minute metered taxi ride from the hotel to the One Pillar Pagoda was 40k.

After arguing for significantly longer than the ride itself took, and a very intense and intimidating stare down on both our parts, we had managed to drop the price to 50k. I was ready to give the guy 40k just to prove a point, but when I went to give him the money, I accidentally flashed him all the money in my wallet, which for the reasons stated below was outright stupid. Our second mistake.

Keeping small notes in your wallet is a bad idea because:

a) People are much harder to haggle with if they can see how loaded you are, and

b) There is a nasty demographic in SE Asia that likes to run off with wallets when seen on the street specifically in Cambodia.



A couple of minutes later I acquiesced to his request and counted out 50k in smaller notes. And here is where I, specifically, made the third mistake. I accidentally handed him a 100k note instead of a 10k note. ‘How on earth could one mistake these two notes for one another?’ You might ask. Well for starters they are the same shade of green and look exactly the same except for three very minor differences:

a) Ho Chi Minh’s face on the 10k is pink, and on the 100k is the same shade of green.

b) The 100k note has an extra 0 (obviously), and

c) The back of the bill is different as well, but still the same color.



So instead of giving the guy 50k, I handed him a whopping 140k. And once again, I realize my error a moment too late. He had his hands on the bills, and didn’t let go when I tried to pull back. This went on for long enough for me to consider hitting/shoving/outright starting a fight with him, and decide that it would be a bad idea due to the helmet on his head that would knock me out cold if he decided to hit me with it. Fortunately when I gave up and let go he threw the smaller bills at me and walked away.

Noting that we had already gained ourselves an audience I decided to let it slide and not push him for the change he by rights owed me. That and he gave me a look that said I would knife you if it were 11pm. Looking back on it that would have been the perfect time to pursue the matter, because everybody watching was a foreigner under 40.

The lessons to be learned:

A. Settle on a price before getting in any form of transportation, or at least check that it is metered, you will get ripped off beyond words if you don’t.

B. Don’t allow yourself to get talked into going anywhere other than the decided destination. It is uncomfortable, and can be shady, especially if you have never heard of the place before.

C. Spend a good chunk of time in the privacy of your room getting to know the local currency, and organizing where you will keep your small change, the bulk of your daily spending money, and your backup stash. Do this as soon as you can and frequently until you’re comfortable with it, it will minimize the chance of you getting taken advantage of due to ignorance.

D. When haggling, the best method of lowering prices is to refuse to pay and just walk away, you will almost always hear a significantly lower number shouted at your back.

E. And finally, IF you feel unsafe for any reason, pay up, its not worth getting in a tussle for a few bucks, literally, in our case it was a matter of $2.50.

Up: Concert for Ms. Moon

 My Sitar survived the flight! Although it was clear she didn’t appreciate it one bit. Unfortunately the only other option for an instrument of her size is to purchase a plane ticket for it plop her in the seat next to you and buckle ‘er in.



At any rate as soon as we walked into Hanoi Guesthouse she got tons of attention, I was getting asked nonstop question about her, mostly what she was, what she looked like, and what she sounded like. Ms. Hang, an attractive young woman who worked the afternoon and evening shift behind the front desk whose name means moon, was by far the most interested and openly inquisitive. The room we were in was on the smaller side so I offered to play for her and the staff, and man did everyone on duty perk up, it was really quite sweet.

So Friday night after dinner I grabbed her down from our room and went about tuning her up.

It was about then that a string snapped before it was even up to tension and I realized just how unhappy my sitar was about getting flown across the world, and the climate change. (Note to self, give your baby some time to get used to the new environment.) Fortunately for me, the string that broke was the third string, a drone string, that isn’t unnecessary but isn’t crucial to playing.



Once my sitar was tuned up and, well, up to temperature I played for them for about an hour, which was well received, we even got a small applause. I had to turn down a request to buy me a beer more than once, which was followed by a request to make me a coffee or Lipton tea. Although it was passed 10:00 I accepted the Tea, because to refuse such an offer is just not done. So Lipton tea it was for me, with globs of condensed milk added to ‘cut the caffeine’. The young man who worked the graveyard shift, Mr. Hai, was so full of questions it was more than a little challenging to keep up.

To wrap up the night I must have walked around the block a dozen and a half times, ‘cus when I returned to the guesthouse feeling not quite tired yet a solid hour and half had passed.

Basket Case

A woman pauses with her Le thung ( basket and pole)

By: Kathleen Broadhurst

Today was a scorcher, the type of day you do anything you can to find a piece of shade. Looking for some cool we headed out of the Old Quarter to the Museum of Ethnography.

One temporary exhibit in particular caught my eye, it was about the life of a pole-and basket (Le thung)recycling women. These women, and they are all women, carry two baskets balanced on a long pole over their shoulder.

The recyclers, as the museum called them spend 10 hour days buying and selling scraps of metal, pieces of plastic and other rubbish that they either buy from others or collect off of the streets.

The life of these women is hard, working long hours in the heat they return home to a dorm that houses on average, 13 other recyclers. The space where they sleep, eat, wash and cook is about 30 square meters. That’s less than 3 square meters per person. In other words, not a lot of room.

Often these women have no medical access and little free time. The reward, for all their hard work is between 2-5 million dong (100-250$) a month. This money they then use to supplement their families income. The exhibit lets you pick up a pole and try it on. It heavier than it looks. That’s only with recycling in it, not metal scraps.

There are others on the street too, not just those who recycle, but women ( and some men too) selling fruit and other wares.  I can only imagine how heavy two baskets of bananas are. I left with a whole new appreciation for the women who I dodge on the street.

Glimpses of Hanoi

Here are some of the first glimpses of Hanoi, all photos by Kathleen Broadhurst.

Offering at the Ngoc Son Temple on Hoan Kiem Lake

Afternoon Monsoon

Fiz in a tree over the Hoan Kiem Lake

Hanoi traffic is an experiment in spacial relations.

Life in the Monsoon Lane

Posted by Fiz

So we lied in the last post, you can get on Facebook in Vietnam... it's just that 'facebook.com' doesn't get you there.  I'm not actually sure how to get it up as a page, it was up on the computer I sat down at lol. Perhaps there is a government re-direct here.

Anywho, pertaining to the title of the post, I got to watch people walk through an inch of rainwater in the streets today (It couldn't have been raining more than 30 minutes) for the first time ever. I can now say I have been in a monsoon! and man is 'raining' an understatement, it should be called 'sky-falling-so-hard-even-old-ladies-are-run-ing'.

I kid you not, businesses had to turn on their electric signs to be seen from the street. Water was coming down in sheets. It was interesting though, because before it started to come down, an old shop keeper came out side and cleaned the drain in front on his shop,  as soon as he finished unclogging the grate the first drops of rain hit.


As the rain started getting heavier people stopped what they were doing for a second and pulled ponchos out of seemingly nowhere and continued what ever it was they were doing. The pace of everything, picked up dramatically, but it seemed that the only people who hid from the world was the two of us, and every other foreigner around.

When the rain stopped, 30 min after it started, an old lady, came outside of her shop and took advantage of the inch of rainwater by cleaning the sidewalk in front of her shop. 

Not being so fond of getting drenched, it will be interesting to see how I take advantage of the regular rain...

Hiding From The Rain

Posted by Fiz



We have been in Vietnam a grand total of thirteen hours, as I'm writing this, and I already feel ill-ish. Though I think that is due to the shot of super echinacea  plus or whatever the hell it's called. I also had some osha root in the same mouthful... For those of you unfamiliar with these two tinctures, they are vial and horrid, especially on an empty stomach. But they work. I had this dry cough a couple of days before we left, then on the long ass plane ride from JFK to shanghai the seat in front of us was occupied by a grandmother and her granddaughter who was had this deep super wet cough and was clearly sick. I woke up this morning and i was starting to sound something like her. The plane also looked like it was bought used from Indian air

Upon arrival at our quaint guesthouse we tried to log in to Facebook Vietnam and found it is mostly old US political figures... like Ben Franklin and Abe Lincoln.

totally random...

In the time it took me to type this post it went from raining harder than it has this year back home in ma to not raining at all.

On A Jet Plane

We were flying low over the rice patties of Hanoi. The air was warm and the sound of the chopper... woke me from my sleep. It was then I realized that I was actually on an airplane, not a chopper and there were no rice paties to be seen, literally, it was pitch dark below us. Only small little lights glimmered here and there to remind us there was ground below.



We are officially in Ha Noi, Viet Nam. Can't say yet what's it's like as it's been a grand total of two hours and it is 2:30 AM here. What I can tell you is this is a city that sleeps. Not much of nightlife on a Wednesday from what we can gather, and no Facebook access :(



The flights were thankfully uneventful, long, but otherwise fine. We both slept through most of the first(14 and a half hour) leg. I don't think I could recomend China Eastern, the food is terrible and they don't have those nifty personal entertainment systems that let you watch old re-runs of House for hours. But everyone was pleasant.



Glad to be on the road again, the scent of Tropical Asia is heavy in the air. Its an aroma that I love dearly, cigarettes, concrete and the musky odor of palm trees, humidity and sweat. It reaks of paradise.



To sleep now so we can go out tomorrow.

The Move Begins

It really feels like we are moving now. I wake up in the mooring full of nervous energy and have to spend the rest of the day running around doing things in order to get it all out. They design it that way I think.

Almost everything is packed, we are renting a truck tomorrow. Everything for the trip is in a huge pile at the end of the bed waiting to see if it will fit in our bags. There's still some small things to get before we leave. Like a lens cap for my camera and travel insurance, you know little things.

I always get travel amnesia when I get back from a trip so by the time I go to leave again I am surprised at how much effort and work it takes to get  trip off the ground. The sheer paperwork alone is overwhelming. Copies of passports, getting visas, permissions, copies of important documents and print outs of room reservations. I have multi colored folders just begging to be labeled.

At this point I consider planing a long term-independent trip like this one to be about as much work as planning a wedding. Sure some things are easier, nobody is trying to influence what clothes I bring, but the paperwork! Canceling subscriptions and making doctor's appointments ( we've each had three in the last three weeks), buying the annoying things that you need for travel but will never use again, like pack-covers, is just as time consuming.

I have to remember its a labor of love. Truth be told there's a always this wall that we hit where we just want to leave, "the tension is building, lets go!" and I have defiantly hit that wall.

Looking forward to Hanoi, mainly because I will be able to say things like " When I was in 'nam"  at inappropriate times. I should probably go buy that health insurance now.