On the 22nd May 1995,
armed with a rudimentary knowledge of the Vietnamese language, I was ready
to infiltrate an unknown and once war ravaged Vietnam. Before I could even
step into Vietnamese soil, I was already tested at the Subang airport when
a Vietnamese returnee approached me and said, "Mai zor zoi?" For fear of
saying the wrong time, I just showed my wrist watch to her. "Cam en ong,"
she said and walked away. MAS departed at 11.15pm and touched down at Noi
Bai airport in the evening. In the plane I had befriended another Vietnamese
and as we emerged from the immigration counter, he offered to give me a
ride in his friend's van. He suggested that I stay at the Institute of
Mathematics guesthouse. About to reach the GH, he insisted that I ought
to pay his friend US$20 for his kind deed. Well, it turned out that my
good samaritan was actually a charlatan bent on squeezing money from tourist,
a phenomena which I was to discover later very rampant in Vietnam.
The GH was quite a disance from the city. Rented
a bicycle and cycled to the mausoleum. No cameras were allowed inside the
mausoleum and a special booth outside was provided to store temporarily.
A guard would then lead a batch of visitors for a sombre trip pass the
glass sarcophagus with Uncle Ho in deep repose.
Made of wood and designed to look like a lotus
blossom, it is situated near the mausoleum. After exchanging US$50 for
554,200 dongs, I continued with my exploration, stopping for lunch at Bao
Long Restaurant for a hefty 81,000dongs.
My next stop. In Vietnamese it is called Ho
Hoam Kiem or "Lake of Restored Sword" Some similarity with the Chinese
language, isn't it? There is a Tortoise Pagoda in an islet in the middle
of the lake. Very crowded in the morning with people doing exercise orr
jogging. Besides this there are other lakes in Hanoi.
Stopped for a bottle of sua (milk) as I sat down and drink
in the sights.
Booked a train ticket to Danang on the
27th May. There were two prices, one for the locals which was very cheap
and one for foreigners in which I paid 463,000 dongs. With so many
dongs in my pocket my dongwith it's two nuts certainly didn't feel lonely. |
