Hanoi - Part 3 (I've Forgotten How This Goes)

I've forgotten what order some events occurred in, so here're some photos with explanations. As I recall we woke up one day and went to some museums for a while, so here's some of that.

I think this is where we ate the first day in Hanoi, but here it is now. Nice place, a bowl of pho with a beer for about $2.50

My finger at the bottom there. Not sure what or where this was

Museum of Revolution, containing a lot of the weaponry of a few different factions of uprisers, as well as a good bit of captured war prizes like vehicles and uniforms

Captured American military planes and artillery pieces, including the tail-up one in the back there that crashed at some point and was collected and scraped together. A symbol of American defeat I suppose, because they're big on that over there

Before continuing it's worth noting that all in all, Vietnamese museums are a strange cultural experience. While pretty much every form of historical documentation is propagated to some extent for every country, in Vietnam they unabashedly take the opportunity to weigh their displays and commentary on the side of justifying the position and legacy of the current Vietnamese state. That's fine and all, it's their history to write as they see fit, but it's unusual reading the signs for the collected weaponry used by Vietnamese revolutionaries that detail how many people ("enemies") they were used to kill (or "annihilate" as the signs would often read). It was how precise their numbers were that was even stranger, like the combatants were all keeping strict score like a game of laser tag and then handed their weapons in immediately for induction into the museum, lest they be mixed up somewhere along the way and assigned the incorrect kill-count. Needless to say it all felt very artificial and "state approved". 

Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum

At this point we got talked by a xiclo driver (see previous post here) into taking a ride around the city, and it turned out to be worth it not only for leisurely reasons, but also from the unique perspective it gave us of the city during rush hour. None of the following picture from street view do it justice, but it was madness, and with Vietnam having barely anything resembling traffic rules, every turn and merge was a front row seat to their unique brand of chaotic order. I put off discussing it until the pictures were here to provide a visual element, but crossing the street or being driven around in Vietnam is an incredible experience. There are no such things as lanes or even proper directions, there is only functionality in the immediate moment. I never once saw an accident, or felt unsafe crossing the streets once I'd gotten used to how it works. You just sort of walk out into the stream of traffic and assume it'll all work out, which it does. Almost everyone drives around on a moped, and there're thousands of them everywhere at all times, so it's total madness everywhere you look, but because it's so unbound it also feels much safer. In Canada, if you walk out into the road there's a good chance you'll be hit by something because we're very passive drivers most of the time. We have lots of rules regulating how fast we go and where we can be and where we turn, but in the end that just seems to lure us into a state of non-vigilance. We assume everything will be fine because there're rules in place, and surely everyone will follow them, so we're less reactive to the unexpected. Vietnam is hectic, sure, but if you suddenly wander into the middle of a busy road they'll all avoid you without batting an eye, reacting in a group mentality like a skoal of fish. It also helps that they're on mopeds going 40 km an hour, so even if they hit you it's probably not going to kill you or anything. I believe it was the second or third day when an old lady with a cane and traditional Vietnamese dress saw Harrison and I waiting to cross the street, perhaps looking somewhat uncertain as to whether or not we should make our move, and took Harrison by the hand and guided him through the oncoming traffic as if he were a small child. 

Here's a pagoda we visited on our xiclo adventure as it started to get dusky

These are awesome and were pretty common in museum, government, or historical areas. It's basically a big bonsai in a stone trough, but the interesting part is that they make little shrines and steps on a lot of them

Back to the madness. This accurately sums of the experience of being in a xiclo or on a moped

It was getting dark and everyone was heading home from work, and I'm actually surprised by how the pictures do no justice to just how populated the road was at the time

Earlier that same day (because linear time in the blog world, much like that of the waking world, is an illusion) we saw this statue

And this guy, who was friendly and perhaps quite proud of the statue

Him and his buddies were having lunch or something. Perhaps they were working. It's hard to tell in Vietnam sometimes from what I saw. Lots of napping going on

Not sure what this was, but the lotus was a nice touch

The most empty street there ever was

This was the history museum, which contained artifacts from prehistory to the early 20th century. Some of the things on display were suspect as to their authenticity, but that's only because when I see what's purported to be the jaw bone of early man, I have just enough education under my belt to know that we were not at one time horses