If I hear another car horn I will kill someone ! Again the horns strike "i coming thought so watch out" I stayed in the old quarter in Hanoi in a cosy little guest house amongst the little maze of streets in the city where railway tracks cut through housing and the streets are identified by what they sell (well by me anyway) I was staying on the corner of silver and plastic doll street. Wandering the city was fun just looking at the array of things sold in the little streets was fascinating everything from handmade wooden stamps which you design your self (made to order in 20 minutes)to Ikea bags !!! although Vietnam does not boast a single ikea store a whole street was making the famous blue and yellow ikea bags in a sweat shop style arrangement for export, the blue tarpaulin type fabric was to become a feature of my time in North Vietnam and it cropped up as a waterproof roof covering in many of the village shacks in the northern hill tribes proving that Ikea really does serve a purpose in every household.
Hanoi has a much more 'communist' feel about it than Ho Chi Min city featuring several Lenin statues and the famous flag covers every building and lamppost...but that's just the visual side a scratch reveals a strange mix of values a socialist country with no health care or education system and a seemingly corrupt lexis loving government speeding around the city.
The best entertainment I could find in Hanoi was Lenin Park...a must on any visit to Hanoi. Lenin watches over the very small grassy and concrete 'park' (not really a park in UK terms) where hundreds of people from all backgrounds and ages meet in the early morning and late evening street hip hop dancing (hilarious!) whilst men run about with no tops on acting like wannabe David Beckhams dodging between the 80 year old grannies doing strange aerobic yoga moves and a group of middles aged woman sit and discuss what seemed like poetry avoiding the big feathered shuttlecocks flying around their heads.
Pics show an interesting selection of chicken bits on my menu, hip hop in lenin park and a typical Hanoi street.
1 comment:
I bet you are glad you can cross the street now without being mown down by some crazy moped drivers! What a buzzing place though eh?
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