When we arrived in Vietnam nearly four weeks ago, we basically skipped Hanoi, in favor of directly going to our temporary base in Ha Long. But last weekend we wanted to fill that gap, and took a bus to the capital of Vietnam. After hanging out in Ha Long for such a long time, it felt nice to finally do the tourist thing again, and to actually be two of thousands of tourists from all over the world exploring the city.

There are so many little stories to talk about, I have difficulties stringing them together to a nice blog post. The traffic alone would be worth an entry, and our evolution of getting used to and getting the grip how to cross a road filled with motorbikes and merchant ladies on bicycles and a few humongous SUVs from that rising middle class. Or about the food, the thousands of street food stands, and the variety of Phở (which is not only noodle soup, we learned), and the Bánh mì, the Vietnamese baguette, and the whole culture of sitting on little plastic chairs, eating, chatting, and gulping away the Bia Ha Noi (the local beer), preferably in little glasses with ice cubes.

But mainly, the city in and itself was the thing that was the most impressive. The French occupied and colonised the country since the middle of the 1800s, and built and rebuilt large parts of the city. So one finds impressive huge buildings like the Grand Hotel, or the National Museum in European Style. Or the former prison, built by the French to house political prisoners, and now is a museum, sporting one of the two guillotines they brought with them to the country. Or some arty little cafés, set in aristocratic mansions. And of course bustling little alleys, filled with little shops of all kinds, be it food, clothing, souvenirs, or just everyday household items. And always a motorbike behind you, trying to squeeze past.

And then of course: The whole complex around the mausoleum of Uncle Ho, as the chairman Hồ Chí Minh is called even on official propaganda posters. It is situated right next to all government buildings, and the park around the presidential building sports a little house on stilts - Ho Chi Minh had it built, because he didn't want to his official business in a pompous french palace. How much of this image of him being down to earth, helping his gardeners, meeting locals and foreign officials alike, is true, we can not say. The captioned photos in the exhibition in the park didn't seem to be particularly objective, and it didn't try to be so.

We left Hà Nội puzzled and satisfied. Some mysteries of this country continue to be a mystery to us, like the role of socialism, the tension between being a single party state and glorifying the worker class, and promoting capitalism where one can. On the other hand, as we slowly understand Vietnamese concepts of politeness and way of life, people seem to get friendlier and friendlier.