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Reflections on....
Apr. 23rd, 2007 01:10 pmAnother stroll down to the Old Quarter this morning; this time via the main road, which is shorter, a bit less crowded, but not of the same character as the lakeside route that I took yesterday.
Once again the humidity was, for me, off the scale; and this time the sun decided to break through about an hour into the trip, just as I was approaching the Hoan Kiein Lake. Since didn't have my floppy hat with me, and since my skin reacts to sun with all the vehemence of an albino's, I decided to head back to the hotel by the shortest route possible. However, it was still a two-hour journey round-trip, which included the purchase of a shirt and tee-shirt, and a tie, since I unaccountably forgot to pack one.
The Rough Guide's guide to bargaining didn't do me much good. I couldn't bring myself to argue over the $4 asked for a silk tie, while the shirt and tee-shirt came to $35 -- probably phenomenally expensive for Hanoi, but they had prices stamped on them and I saw a Vietnamese guy paying the same. And they were imported from Hong Kong. Brilliant. I travel to Vietnam and then pay over the odds for imported goods. I am clever.
I saw some cheaper shirts later, at 70,000 VND (about $5), but they were clearly of lower quality.
As I was paying for the stuff, one of the staff (each shop seems to have about six staff, even if the shop is only five feet wide) ran up and swore blind that I was not a 15 and a half, but a 16 and a half. I tried, through several painful body contortions, to show that the shirt I was wearing was a 15 and a half, but she would have none of it. That would be too small for me, she said, pointing at the shirt I was about to buy. So, showing the utmost faith, I changed shirts. If it comes down to my ankles, so it goes.
Butterflies are sometimes black in Hanoi. I wonder if the haze in the morning is really smog. Just as the road traffic rules seem open to negotiation at all points, it looks to me as if industrialization has its own price when it comes to environmental quality. It doesn't seem that bad an atmosphere to me but, then again, I spend nearly all my time in Central London.
As I walked along one section of road devoted to motorbike repairs, it struck me that there was almost an air of 1950s Britain about the place, where old things were repaired because new things were not available or were too expensive. I also passed a place selling new motorbikes, and the near universal Honda Wave seems to come in at 1.5m VND, which, if my maths are correct, is a fraction under a thousand dollars. So, rather than hiring one, I could, if I wished, just buy one for cash and then give it so someone at the end of my trip. Although this would be a nice gesture, I somehow doubt that I would survive three days or more on a Honda Wave in Hanoi.
Hanoi is, of course, really Ha Noi with squiggles on top of the vowels. Another frequent word on street names is "Pho". Little surprise, therefore, that shops offering photocopying often change the wording to " Pho To Cop Py here", with the words running vertically. If the words ran horizontally, the sign would be too wide for the building.
1.5 Litres of Water in a mini-mart cost 7,000 VND, or about 40 pence. I paid with a 10,000 note and received for change a 2,000 note, a 500 note and a strip of Wrigley's Chewing Gum. That seems a fair assessment of the value of a 500 VND note -- about three cents.
Although there are old people arond, it struck me that this is a very young city. I would guess that more than half of the population is under the age of 25. And westernization is continuing apace. And although many people are very forward when it comes to offering you something that they want to sell but you don't particularly want to buy (such as motorbike rides), attempts to buy "ordinary" stuff achieve less in the way of co-operation. Walking into market shops and looking at trousers, for example (or the shirts that I bought) generated no enthusiastic sales staff and no "can I help you's". This is fine by me, but the contrast is odd. So, anyway, the upshot of this was that I didn't get around to buying any trousers. I've sent off one of my pairs to the valet serice (one complimentary piece of laundry per day on executive floors, it claims. We shall see.) and I've resorted to wearing the knee length shorts I was planning to wear on the boat at the end of the week, and nowhere else. I don't care if Americans parade through Vegas in shorts, socks and trainers. Birks in shorts will not be appearing on the streets of Hanoi (or Vegas). Some standards have to be maintained.
And there is no sign of a tailor anywhere. Clearly I am in the wrong city for the famous "made to measure in two days" kind of thing. The one tailor's that I found (and walked into), just generated a shake of the head and a clear indication that the guy spoke no English and was not interested in serving me. You get that; not often, but occasionally. They save the tourist places for the tourists. f you wander off the beaten track, even in the old quarter, there are places for locals that have no interest in the yankee dollar . Or, well, so it seems.
( More Hanoi pix )
Once again the humidity was, for me, off the scale; and this time the sun decided to break through about an hour into the trip, just as I was approaching the Hoan Kiein Lake. Since didn't have my floppy hat with me, and since my skin reacts to sun with all the vehemence of an albino's, I decided to head back to the hotel by the shortest route possible. However, it was still a two-hour journey round-trip, which included the purchase of a shirt and tee-shirt, and a tie, since I unaccountably forgot to pack one.
The Rough Guide's guide to bargaining didn't do me much good. I couldn't bring myself to argue over the $4 asked for a silk tie, while the shirt and tee-shirt came to $35 -- probably phenomenally expensive for Hanoi, but they had prices stamped on them and I saw a Vietnamese guy paying the same. And they were imported from Hong Kong. Brilliant. I travel to Vietnam and then pay over the odds for imported goods. I am clever.
I saw some cheaper shirts later, at 70,000 VND (about $5), but they were clearly of lower quality.
As I was paying for the stuff, one of the staff (each shop seems to have about six staff, even if the shop is only five feet wide) ran up and swore blind that I was not a 15 and a half, but a 16 and a half. I tried, through several painful body contortions, to show that the shirt I was wearing was a 15 and a half, but she would have none of it. That would be too small for me, she said, pointing at the shirt I was about to buy. So, showing the utmost faith, I changed shirts. If it comes down to my ankles, so it goes.
Butterflies are sometimes black in Hanoi. I wonder if the haze in the morning is really smog. Just as the road traffic rules seem open to negotiation at all points, it looks to me as if industrialization has its own price when it comes to environmental quality. It doesn't seem that bad an atmosphere to me but, then again, I spend nearly all my time in Central London.
As I walked along one section of road devoted to motorbike repairs, it struck me that there was almost an air of 1950s Britain about the place, where old things were repaired because new things were not available or were too expensive. I also passed a place selling new motorbikes, and the near universal Honda Wave seems to come in at 1.5m VND, which, if my maths are correct, is a fraction under a thousand dollars. So, rather than hiring one, I could, if I wished, just buy one for cash and then give it so someone at the end of my trip. Although this would be a nice gesture, I somehow doubt that I would survive three days or more on a Honda Wave in Hanoi.
Hanoi is, of course, really Ha Noi with squiggles on top of the vowels. Another frequent word on street names is "Pho". Little surprise, therefore, that shops offering photocopying often change the wording to " Pho To Cop Py here", with the words running vertically. If the words ran horizontally, the sign would be too wide for the building.
1.5 Litres of Water in a mini-mart cost 7,000 VND, or about 40 pence. I paid with a 10,000 note and received for change a 2,000 note, a 500 note and a strip of Wrigley's Chewing Gum. That seems a fair assessment of the value of a 500 VND note -- about three cents.
Although there are old people arond, it struck me that this is a very young city. I would guess that more than half of the population is under the age of 25. And westernization is continuing apace. And although many people are very forward when it comes to offering you something that they want to sell but you don't particularly want to buy (such as motorbike rides), attempts to buy "ordinary" stuff achieve less in the way of co-operation. Walking into market shops and looking at trousers, for example (or the shirts that I bought) generated no enthusiastic sales staff and no "can I help you's". This is fine by me, but the contrast is odd. So, anyway, the upshot of this was that I didn't get around to buying any trousers. I've sent off one of my pairs to the valet serice (one complimentary piece of laundry per day on executive floors, it claims. We shall see.) and I've resorted to wearing the knee length shorts I was planning to wear on the boat at the end of the week, and nowhere else. I don't care if Americans parade through Vegas in shorts, socks and trainers. Birks in shorts will not be appearing on the streets of Hanoi (or Vegas). Some standards have to be maintained.
And there is no sign of a tailor anywhere. Clearly I am in the wrong city for the famous "made to measure in two days" kind of thing. The one tailor's that I found (and walked into), just generated a shake of the head and a clear indication that the guy spoke no English and was not interested in serving me. You get that; not often, but occasionally. They save the tourist places for the tourists. f you wander off the beaten track, even in the old quarter, there are places for locals that have no interest in the yankee dollar . Or, well, so it seems.
( More Hanoi pix )
