How to be a Ho

Hanoi, what a city. A teeming, heaving mass of mopeds and the humans associated with them. We'd heard from a lot of travellers who'd just been here that it was too much: crazy, dirty, polluted, full of hassle and crossing the street is a death wish. But damn we had a fun time! It's such a vibrant exciting place that's just pure go go go. The people were at you the whole time, but they were friendly and funny and easy to joke around with. After the sterility and hideous architecture of most Chinese cities, it was beautiful to have the chaos of ancient buildings and alleys.

After some walking around in the stifling heat, one day we rented rattletrap bikes and plunged into the chaos of incredible traffic for a little sightseeing. Biking in Hanoi makes Beijing seem like a cruise through Centennial park. But there's a sweet order to it all. None of the bicycles can possibly go fast enough to hit one of the three thousand obstacles that randomnly flash into your pathway every second (even without working brakes) and the raging sea of mopeds simply washes around you like a school of fish.

We got to see the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh which was a definite highlight on our "embalmed former communist leaders tour". After seeing a wzxy-looking Chairman Mao in Beijing we were addicted. Uncle Ho looks even better, but I couldn't help a pang of pity for the poor man whose wish was to be cremated after his death, but who the party decided would be better off being stuffed like a civet cat.

Then a long dusty ride through the soup-like heat of the day to the Museum of Ethnology where we learnt all about the Hill Tribes of the region and got to see the traditional dirty sex carvings. Damn I need to find a computer that lets me download photos! Blogging is just not the same without images. I'll have to come back to this one later.