time out in Hanoi


I've been in Hanoi nearly three weeks, trying to see the sights but also trying to get some 'down time' - what would be days at home just pottering about if I had a home.  Not always easy, as for example this morning I'd planned to do just that, but then before I'd finished my breakfast I got into conversation with a couple of other guests staying at my hostel, and suddenly it was 12:45 and time to go out and buy a bread roll for my lunch.  So right now I'm hiding behind the curtain that screens my bed from others in my dorm; I'd rather like a cup of tea, but that would involve locking my laptop away in the locker, going down four flights of stairs to the kitchen, and risking getting into another conversation.  Not that I'm complaining, as meeting other travellers can be as interesting as seeing the sights, but sometimes you do have to work at managing your time and personal space in this type of life.

You also have to work at being 'present' in the place where you are physically.  Recently I've been working on my Pakistan visa (next country after Vietnam), chatting to a fellow guest about Bahrain (after Pakistan), and I've just signed for a trip in August to some parts of Syria that I haven't yet seen.  Not to mention online discussions with friends who've suggested Sri Lanka and Socotra for the first quarter of next year!  I think I've said it before, but I know I still need to work on slowing down my travels - at least a month in each place, visa allowing - but there are always new opportunities or ideas popping up, and I know that I won't live for ever, and might not always be as fit and healthy as I am now.  A fellow traveller told me a few days ago that I am 'an inspiration' to someone young like her ... I suppose it was a compliment...

I have also, of course, been slowly visiting the various 'sights' in and around the city.  I duly filed past Ho Chi Minh's embalmed body in his mausoleum (no photos allowed), spent a couple of hours in the old prison (the Hanoi Hilton) with its sad and sometimes gruesome exhibits from its days as a prison for the Communist Vietnamese as well as its later life as a prison for captured Americans, spent a surprisingly enjoyable morning in the Ethnological Museum, and have been in and out of numerous small temples.  The latter are rather frustrating as I want to mentally categorise them (Buddhist, Hindu or whatever), but most contain a mixture of icons from those two religions as well as shrines to their ancestors and Confucian-looking guardian figures - nice that there is this openness to different beliefs but difficult as a foreigner to work out what is going on. 

At the entrance to the One Pillar Pagoda are two large boards explaning the practical implications of karma, with many examples of behaviour leading to good/bad karma set out in both Vietnamese and English.  I rather liked this one.


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