Getting Lost in Old Town Walking Tour

We managed to find the meeting point at "Alley 13" for our GuruWalk of the Hanoi Old Quarter. GuruWalks are "volunteers" that you pay a tip to depending on how it goes. A delightful young woman named Huyen introduced herself to us and three other women; one of them was a solo traveler from Regina. Huyen was raised in Hanoi but now lives about an hour out of Hanoi by "beep beep honk honk" motorcycle. She had another tour in the afternoon as it was her "day off" from her usual job working for a motorbike company. Her parents were born in the 60s and remember the bombs dropping in the American War; they continue to be worried about food insecurity to this day. She hopes to travel one day but indicates that you need to prove that you have enough wealth to return to Vietnam before you can get a passport. First stop: coffee in a historical family home. Of interest was a temple is where ancestors are worshipped and typically there is a small shrine in the home such as this one. Going to the pagoda to worship Buddha is not a daily activity for most. We then walked through the Old Quarter seeing various vendors. She had arranged special permission to walk though one of the alleys in the old neighbourhood. These small breaks between buildings connect people to their very modest homes granted to them by the government at the time of Vietnam's Independence in the 1954 Geneva Agreement establishing North Vietnam. About 40 families access very small apartments that are almost more like caves with hardly any space between buildings, almost no light or ventilation. Both the water piping running along the floors and electrical cables are antiquated and there is a significant fire hazard. The new generation is less and less wanting to live in such spaces. The actual land value now is very high ($40,000 USD/sq m) but the families are asset rich and cash poor so stuck. We walked on to view the train that the French built north to south and the bridge that it runs on that was bombed and sort of rebuilt after WWII. Motorbikes and pedestrians only and it definitely shakes when you stand on it. The train system has not been upgraded since it was built; it is very slow and old. Long distance transport is by car with deluxe overnight sleeper coaches or plane.Read more