Ho Chi Minh, Confucius and Humidity

This morning I was up at the bright and early hour of 4 AM due to jet lag. Brad was able to sleep a little bit longer, but both of us were up by about 5:30 in the morning and ready to get going. Our hotel, as it’s the first stop of our tour, has a continental breakfast, which is very different here than it is at home. For example, there was rice, sticky, rice, noodles, porridge, pho and many other accoutrements. I indulge in lots of noodles, sticky rice, and a couple eggs over easy which the chef made in front of us. It was a delicious way to start the day!

We felt it was already 30° at about 6 AM that we should get moving and maybe spend some time in the afternoon cooling down. We started our walk towards the Tran Quoc Pagoda, and found a cafe along the way. Finally, the moment was here to try Vietnamese iced coffee! We had one of those as well as a coconut iced coffee, which was amazing! We also got to sit on a little bench with a little table just like all the locals.

We continued our walk, and we discovered that no one really walks in Vietnam. I think the reason that no one walks is because a) it’s so hot and b) everyone just drive scooters. We also discovered that the traffic rules are even looser than previously mentioned. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to anything going on, including the little green man that tells you it’s safe to walk because it is definitely not safe to walk!

Nonetheless, we reach the pagoda and checked it out. The trees around the pagoda were enormous and provided some much-needed shade after our walk. It was also especially beautiful, because it was on the edge of a lake. After checking out, the pagoda all the offerings inside, we started to make our way to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. We didn’t really plan to go here necessarily, but it was on our way to the temple of literature so we stopped in and bought tickets. We didn’t we didn’t line to see the actual body of Ho Chi Minh; however, we were able to check out the grounds of his residences, as well as the vehicles he drove, house on stilts that he lived in for a while and his other accommodations, which were pretty cool.

After seeing the sites, we continued on to the temple of literature. The Temple of Literature is one of those famous sites in Hanoi. It’s where students were taught the works of Confucius and other Chinese philosophers. The students had to write grueling, high stakes exams, in order to pass the test and get their name forever engraved on one of the big slabs of rock. The slabs are mounted on turtles which represent permanence, which I thought was pretty cool. There were very few students at pass these high stakes examinations. The temple itself is split into different areas that represent the idea of contemplation and spirituality and synthesis. It was a very beautiful and meaningful temple.

By this time it was starting to get pretty hot, so we decided to try and go to the famous beer street. However, it seemed that the beer street was not open yet, and it was very unclear as to when it was ever going to open. That is one of the differences we have found so far about travelling in southeast Asia is that everything is pretty nebulous, and Google is often not much help. On the bright side, I did find a hat to protect me from the sun!

We decided to head back to the hotel to stock up on some water and beer from the convenient store across the street from our hotel and make a game plan for where to eat some lunch. As it is so hot here neither of us are very hungry after a big breakfast, but we know we will be.Read more