So we arrived at the hotel, took a little nap and in the evening we had a water puppet show booked, one that has been really recommended as the best show. Well.. i could argue that the best show is the one in Hoi An (but not a waterpuppet one), but this one was also very interesting to watch. There are singers on both sides of the stage. The stage is basically a pool with water and some props in there, like a typical Vietnamese house with doors that would open and puppets will come and tell a story about how people of Vietnam do fishing, wedding traditions, and other things. Sadly, the show was only in Vietnamese, so we were trying to make sense of it from the puppet show alone and listened and enjoyed the singing and music. We were dead tired after the show and also quite hungry, but first, we had to go and see the famous train tracks where the train passes right next to you while you drink a coffee in a cafe next to the tracks. Unfortunately though, the side of the tracks where the coffee places were, was closed, they only let local people there but not tourists, so the only way for us to see anything, was at the side of the road close to the tracks where locals would cross. The train passes at certain scheduled times, however, despite the fact we knew it’d pass around 19.30, we waited for a whole hour and.. nothing. Then we gave up because we were starving at that point, and.. guess what.. IT PASSED.. we heard it as we were walking down the road, but we couldn’t see it from where we were 😀 Murphy’s law i guess. Oh well.. i was a bit sad, but not a big deal. This is what we were supposed to see (photo from the internet)

The most surprising and shocking thing, however, was the traffic. The traffic is INSANE in Vietnam, especially in the big cities like Hanoi and Saigon (Ho Chi Minh). Literally thousands of motorbikes, all of them having 4-5 people on them, bike riders literally entering the traffic from all directions, at the same time not a single crash happened, or at least we didn’t see one. Everyone kind of looks around but at the same time the traffic is CRAZY! C.R.A.Z.Y!! I read about it before going there and they said that when you decide to cross the road, just.. GO and don’t look back. Like it’s very dangerous to actually start backing, once on the zebra, just keep going, the traffic will go around you and that was true. Just make sure before stepping on the zebra that the closest rider has seen you and is far enough to not crash onto you and then just keep going. Crazy stuff! In Hanoi, there are ~8 million people and approximately 5.6 million motorbikes. It took us around 1h to get from the center, around the Hoam Kiem lake to our hotel and the distance was around 5.7km. All the bike riders wear facemasks or a scarf over their mouths. Since it was still pandemic time (kind of) I thought at first that this was the reason why, but soon came to realize that it was because of the gasses and dust, because you’d feel it inside of your lungs – a very heavy feeling and you’d spit grey stuff. Not pretty.

An interesting thing was how people dine there, it was full of these teeny-tiny plastic tables and chairs, almost like the ones you’d put a kid to sit on, people used to eat there, the restaurants were cramped with people, all eating Pho and noodles and other interesting things. We wanted to sit at one of these places but it was the beginning of our trip and we were a bit worried still as to hygiene and these kinds of things, even though we had hepatitis A shots done, but we chose a more western-looking restaurant and gave it a try. The food was really great and interesting, the only downside was the spiciness, they seem to love spicy food and it’s a bit tough to find something non-spicy.
We wanted to catch the mausoleum of Hồ Chí Minh open, but well.. i didn’t consider that i cannot expect places to be open till late just because i’m on vacation so.. it was closed 😀 Sad, but we did see it from the other side of the gardens in front of it, I’d love to get inside but maybe next time 🙂 Vietnamese people love and respect a lot their President Hồ Chí Minh, he founded Vietnam, he adopted Leninism-Marxism and applied it to the country back in the days of early Viet Nam. Hồ Chí Minh was born on the 19th of May 1890 and died on the 2nd of Sept 1969 in Saigon. This is why the city of Saigon changed its name after him – out of respect for him. He founded the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam in 1945, again, sept. the 2nd.