Day 254 (March 2): Hello Hanoi

The influence of Chinese culture has grown as we've moved north through Vietnam, as we were told it would. Upon arrival, we were told it was an auspicious day: The eighth day of the lunar calendar, the first day of the month of March and a Sunday. As we drove in from the airport, we saw cars - even those traveling on the highway - festooned with flowers. And I mean hundreds of flowers in elaborate patterns! When we went for a walk around the nearby lake (a novelty in the middle of this crowded part of a crowded city), everywhere we saw people dressed as if for prom, or a wedding but really just for the eighth/first; I haven't yet found out why but the dressed up people were almost all wearing black and white. I'm sorry I took no pictures of this but here are some shots from our walk.

We passed this about three-quarters of our way through the one mile loop around the lake. Henry was very eager to reach it.

Lily's "12 on 6" face was inspired by snagging Henry's chocolate crepe.

Our guide met us on Monday morning for a walking tour of the Old Town. We learned that Hanoi has been a city for over 1,000 years, celebrating its millenium in 2010. An original gate from the old city wall (there used to be 16) was our first stop.

Then we entered the maze of streets that comprise the Old Town's marketplace. We learned that the word "Hang" means "commerce," more or less, and most streets were named Hang X with the X replaced by a word for the speciality of that block. We came first to a produce market and then quickly to seafood, which was apparently available for drive thru orders if you came on a scooter.

We followed our guide through a labyrinth until it felt barely wide enough for my shoulders. I was proved wrong, however, by the drone of a scooter behind me. Here he is, emerging from that alley. If you look closely, the wall has been worn away by the impact of a million scooter handles.

Opposite the exit of that alley was this striking view. Hanoi is built up in narrow, LEGO-like stacks. Our guide told us the French colonizers brought many things but mainly coffee, ice cream and balconies. No argument here.

The next specialty block got us into the bulk section of your local grocer. First there were beans and nuts, then mushrooms and spices.

Then there was a flower market/traffic island:

 With the occasional Miracle on Two Wheels, such as this delivery that we joked was from IKEA:

There was a wholesale district that was like a dollar store the size of several football fields:

 To walk around in all of this was a massive sensory experience. I found myself thinking about our stated goal of "broadening horizons." Surely, though perhaps not obviously, this tour would change the way our kids would think about the supply chain of the food we eat and certain other products we consume. This is the polar opposite of the highly sanitized, fluorescent-lit American grocery store. I think it simply must be the kind of experience that permeates the way one sees just about everything in the world!

It seems that every cubic inch of space is in use in Hanoi. 

Several times on our walk we said something like, "Take that, OSHA!"

After a long stretch of market-peeping, our guide led us to the "Long Bridge," so named because it reigned for a long time as the longest bridge in Asia. It was originally built "in partnership" with the French at the end of the 19th century. It's condition has deteriorated such that it only carries scooters and smaller, though a quantity that probably rivals the weight of cars and trucks at any moment (physics pun intended).

It was not fun at all to walk along. Aside from the seeming likelihood of the whole bridge just collapsing at any moment, the "sidewalk" was only about two feet wide and our youthful companions don't excel at walking in a straight line. In addition to the steady stream of mopeds and bicycles coming towards us (per traffic rules), there were frequent two-wheel vehicles inexplicably swimming upstream, leading to swerving and even more honking than usual.

Our guide told us he has seen a live water buffalo on the back of a scooter. 

You don't have to be a bridge engineer to notice in the picture below that the trusses of the bridge seem to be irregular. During the American War (as it is known here), the bridge was a target, "destroyed" more than 18 times and rebuilt. The original superstructure only remains in a few segments, whereas the reconstruction used a shallower truss underneath the roadway. 

That's about the end of the interesting pictures but not the end of the stories. First, our guide offered to walk us further out on the bridge to some stairs that went down and then back up on the other side so we could walk back that way. We declined, opting to get off the bridge as fast as possible. The concrete segments underfoot were rarely complete and it was beginning to feel like a scene in an Indiana Jones movie.

We had been walking for a long time and the kids were behaving accordingly. It seemed likely to be time for lunch so we refused to by snacks and followed our guide to a restaurant. We arrived before it opened, which was when we realized that it was not even 11 and we had been walking for less than two hours. This is still a long time on little legs so we poured sodas into them and continued on our way. Our next stop was a convenience store where we also acquired (and promptly consumed) oreos, kit kats and pringles.

Note the exhaustion on Lily's face. Then check out the appropriate of the sidewalk. 

I also want to talk about the walking itself. First of all, there really are not sidewalks. As a technicality, there are often curbs and often a few feet between those curbs and the facades but that space is usually occupied by parked scooters. So for most of the miles we walked that morning (about 10,000 steps according to my phone), we felt perilously close to buzzing, honking, squealing motorbikes. Our guide, like others in Vietnam, would call out "sticky rice!" every time we crossed a street. This refers to our effort to contain our mass into a tight blob. We obeyed the commandment to move steadily and confidently across each street, which is totally the opposite of how we usually cross ("run, kids, RUN!")

When we attempted school after lunch, maybe we should have known better. We gave the kids about an hour, watching their beloved Rocky and Bullwinkle on the laptop, to decompress. But when we tried to teach, we confronted the fact that our connected hotel rooms have zero chairs and the only desk is blocked by the rollaway bed. School on a bed is mainly conducive to laying down. It is my conclusion, as a newly professional educator, that if a pupil feels even the slightest impediment to learning, it is magnified by being in a prone position. We beg them to sit up on the edge of the bed but it's really pointless. This doesn't stop us from trying.

Our gold-star student asked if she could research the history of Vietnam!

For dinner we got pizza takeout (from the same place we had eaten lunch the day before). We left the kids with a huge cheese pizza and a movie on the TV and went across the street to eat in, of all things, a French restaurant. All things considered, our kids were alive, partially educated and minimally nourished. As worldschooling goes, our first day and a half in Hanoi should go down as a win, even if it nearly killed the parents.