time in vietnams capital.

even though today it is the capital city of vietnam, hanoi is rather quaint and has a relaxed feeling about it, as it is built around a giant lake. its easy to walk everywhere, but difficult to navigate. at one corner, each street that comes off of it has a different name, but many streets (and businesses as a result of a lack of copyright law!) have the same name.

the small-town quality made it really easy to meet people, which was nice since the majority of my time in this town was spent in a hostel because meghan had left just two days after we arrived. but for being 'alone,' little of my time here was spent by myself. i stayed in a hostel, which automatically made it easy to make friends, and being one of the "backpackers" chain, it was almost all young people as well.

this meant that days, and often the late part of nights, were spent around the lake, just a short walk from our hostel. and the early parts of nights were spent on the top of the hostel for their happy hour, followed by a stop to the 'beer hoi' corner. a beer hoi is basically a street bar that sells a glass (wouldnt say it was quite a pint) of beer for just 4000 dong, which is about $0.25. this also means that everyone goes to these spots, and by 9 or 10 each night they are out of beer, so at that point we would move on to one of many different spots that are recommended for young backpackers that all have different specials running at different times so that everyone can find something they like.

no mom, i didnt spend my whole time in this city drunk.

while it seemed like i was in hanoi a long time (i arrived on a thursday and didnt leave until sunday morning a week later), i wasnt there that long because it was from hanoi that i left for sa pa, then came back and left again for ha long bay, before coming back again.

there were some interesting things to see in the city. the one that i was most interested in was the temple of literature, the first university of the country. when we were first given directions, they didnt understand where we wanted to go, and sent us to the temple that was in the center of the lake instead. this place was nice, but it was small and the only thing that made it special was its location.

when i finally got around to getting to the actual place, i was very impressed. i learned that in vietnam and most eastern cultures, the turtle is the symbol for learning, wisdom, and education (yay terps!) and that the stork is their symbol for strength. this meant that there were statues everywhere of the bird on the turtles backs, including sculpted into the bushes. but the coolest part was this one section that had many turtles and each turtle had a tablet on its back listing the names of graduates from the university.

unfortunately i didnt have my camera with me that day.

so i stole this picture from the internet.

hanoi was a good spot to end my trip, if it had to end at that time, for every aspect except for the fact that flying back to bangkok was double the price that it would have been to go from saigon. but flying back allowed me to stay until early in the morning of may 16, a day before i had to get back to 'normal' life.