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Apr. 26th, 2007 02:57 amSo, after a hard day at the office, so to speak, I ventured out into the (relatively) cool open air and caught a cab to the French quarter, which sits below the old quarter.
A person with whom I work had said that Hanoi was like Paris, whereas my experience so far had been that it was like Nairobi. However, I guess that, since he was staying in the French quarter, while I was staying to the north of the Old quarter, it was first impressions that count.
I said previously that Hanoi was “early to bed, early to rise”, and certainly you do not see a great deal of electricity being burnt in the outlying parts of the city after it gets dark. However, around Hang Kiem Lake at 10pm or thereabouts, you are at the equivalent of Leicester Square. Plenty of activity.
Only as one approaches the Old quarter (sitting on the south side of the lake, does the “Nairobi-feel” return. You can’t walk 10 paces without being offered a motorbike ride; the atmosphere is different and, to be frank, less pleasant.
I saw a couple of examples of men sleeping on their transportation. Sleeping on a moped can’t be easy, but these guys seemed to manage it. Do they spend the entire week looking for fares and then head back to the country at the weekend? It’s quite possible, I suppose.
I also loitered for an hour in the “Half Man, Half Noodle” bar, as mentioned in The Rough Guide, it being a bar I felt obliged to visit, solely for its musical connotation. Three other Europeans were in there when I arrived, and the same three Europeans were there when I left – hardly the bustling piece of night-life portrayed in the guide.
I walked back to the main road running north-south in Hanoi that bisects the Red River and the town. Finding a cab was easy, although it was not metered. He said it was 40,000 VND to get back to the Plaza. Since I was rather nearer the hotel than the Opera House, and the metered fare to the Opera House had only been 32,000 VND, it was clear that this was a rip-off and I could get away for less. I half-heartedly said “30?”, and he shook his head, holding up four fingers. Oh well, I was to tired to argue between $2 and $2.40. And if there’s one country in the world that merits the west giving something back to the economy, I would guess that North Vietnam is it.
The good thing about the conference is that you get to talk to the movers and shakers, so to speak, in the political and economic worlds of the host country. Vietnam is quite open about the balls-up it made of things between 1975 and 1985, how it became clear that centrally planed economies didn’t work, and how it had changed things, in an Asian kind of way, since then.
It was hit badly by the Asian financial collapse of the late 1990s, but it has still increased average GDP per capita from $70 in 1994 to $781 last year. That’s a fairly staggering rate of change. They should send representatives from Uganda and Kenya here rather than us.
However, that average GDP hides a skewed distribution. Eight per cent of the population still lives on less than a dollar a day. So, leave the countryside, come to the town, and quadruple your income to two bucks a day.
In the cab back, there was more evidence of a nightlife not mentioned in the guides. Between the north and south-bound lanes, there was the Hanoi equivalent of New Covent Garden Market, but at 11.30 at night. Presumably this was where the fresh food was brought in from the countryside and sold on to the distributors in the town. A weird, surreal experience.
++++++
Oh, and this isn't worth a separate entry, but I'm going to put it here, because I'm damned sure Wintermute will delete it when he sobers up. A quick bit of background here. After spunking off a hundred thousand or so of his winnings, he's now entered that phase recognized by many an old hand - when you can't win a pot at your favourite game, but you are doing well at other games (in this case, PLO8OB and 30/60 respectively). So far, so sober, until he posted this:
AAMP'D MOBILE BITDH
I WOULD CRUSH HER.
NOT FRIENDLY SLIKE.
DIE WHORE, DIE OF CARPUL UTNNERL.
Go figure.
( Hanoi by night )
A person with whom I work had said that Hanoi was like Paris, whereas my experience so far had been that it was like Nairobi. However, I guess that, since he was staying in the French quarter, while I was staying to the north of the Old quarter, it was first impressions that count.
I said previously that Hanoi was “early to bed, early to rise”, and certainly you do not see a great deal of electricity being burnt in the outlying parts of the city after it gets dark. However, around Hang Kiem Lake at 10pm or thereabouts, you are at the equivalent of Leicester Square. Plenty of activity.
Only as one approaches the Old quarter (sitting on the south side of the lake, does the “Nairobi-feel” return. You can’t walk 10 paces without being offered a motorbike ride; the atmosphere is different and, to be frank, less pleasant.
I saw a couple of examples of men sleeping on their transportation. Sleeping on a moped can’t be easy, but these guys seemed to manage it. Do they spend the entire week looking for fares and then head back to the country at the weekend? It’s quite possible, I suppose.
I also loitered for an hour in the “Half Man, Half Noodle” bar, as mentioned in The Rough Guide, it being a bar I felt obliged to visit, solely for its musical connotation. Three other Europeans were in there when I arrived, and the same three Europeans were there when I left – hardly the bustling piece of night-life portrayed in the guide.
I walked back to the main road running north-south in Hanoi that bisects the Red River and the town. Finding a cab was easy, although it was not metered. He said it was 40,000 VND to get back to the Plaza. Since I was rather nearer the hotel than the Opera House, and the metered fare to the Opera House had only been 32,000 VND, it was clear that this was a rip-off and I could get away for less. I half-heartedly said “30?”, and he shook his head, holding up four fingers. Oh well, I was to tired to argue between $2 and $2.40. And if there’s one country in the world that merits the west giving something back to the economy, I would guess that North Vietnam is it.
The good thing about the conference is that you get to talk to the movers and shakers, so to speak, in the political and economic worlds of the host country. Vietnam is quite open about the balls-up it made of things between 1975 and 1985, how it became clear that centrally planed economies didn’t work, and how it had changed things, in an Asian kind of way, since then.
It was hit badly by the Asian financial collapse of the late 1990s, but it has still increased average GDP per capita from $70 in 1994 to $781 last year. That’s a fairly staggering rate of change. They should send representatives from Uganda and Kenya here rather than us.
However, that average GDP hides a skewed distribution. Eight per cent of the population still lives on less than a dollar a day. So, leave the countryside, come to the town, and quadruple your income to two bucks a day.
In the cab back, there was more evidence of a nightlife not mentioned in the guides. Between the north and south-bound lanes, there was the Hanoi equivalent of New Covent Garden Market, but at 11.30 at night. Presumably this was where the fresh food was brought in from the countryside and sold on to the distributors in the town. A weird, surreal experience.
++++++
Oh, and this isn't worth a separate entry, but I'm going to put it here, because I'm damned sure Wintermute will delete it when he sobers up. A quick bit of background here. After spunking off a hundred thousand or so of his winnings, he's now entered that phase recognized by many an old hand - when you can't win a pot at your favourite game, but you are doing well at other games (in this case, PLO8OB and 30/60 respectively). So far, so sober, until he posted this:
AAMP'D MOBILE BITDH
I WOULD CRUSH HER.
NOT FRIENDLY SLIKE.
DIE WHORE, DIE OF CARPUL UTNNERL.
Go figure.
( Hanoi by night )
