Trip to Hanoi [Photos]

M

Morganstern

Veteran XV
Yes, I'm actually providing some content (pardon the poor photography). Photos from my week-long excursion to Hanoi and Halong (never made it to CatBa Island and ended up eating $136 on the hotel).



Some Viet Honor Guard for Ho Chi Minh's tomb in pretty sloppy formation.



Two guards standing outside of Ho's Bamboo Stilt House (don't really know why they needed to be there, but whatever).



Changing of the guard in from of Ho's tomb, again I wasn't really impressed, especially after the flag ceremony I saw in Tienanmen Square.



John McCain's flight suit at the Hanoi Hilton. I wasn't really shocked to hear four other American girl's in the early to middle 20s commenting, "Who's John McCain?" "Isn't he that senator guy?"



To prisoners playing Rock, Scissor, Paper...



Couple enjoying the shade around Hoan Kiem lake.



Goshin's got nothing on this kid...



Smell something burning?



B-52 Bomber left in some residential lake as a memorial to the anti-aircraft gunners.
 


Back alley leading to the aforementioned B-52



The kinda cops Zool would prefer to have. You can clearly see the fucks given by that one cop...



Ho's Mausoleum...



The 3-hour-long line we stood in to see a guy who's been dead for 45 years. Incidentally, we did this on April 30th, 2015, the 40th anniversary of the reunification of North and South Vietnam.



This looks like a good spot for some Chinese chess...



What the Vietnamese consider a Unicorn.



Ninja Turtles were actually a secret project created by the Vietnamese back in the 1970s.



A dragon vomiting into a carp's mouth. Enough said...



Kid made a mean bowl of pho...



Happy monk...



This picture needs Ride of the Valkyries or O'Fortuna blaring next to it. Vietnamese art was heavily influenced by the war. I would say at least half of the paintings in the Fine Art Museums involved fighting, soldiers, and the like. Many of them, disturbingly, showed men, women, and children crafting bamboo weapons and traps.



Actually my favorite piece in the museum. It had that Norman Rockwell kinda feel, as well as humanizing soldiers in the NVA (at least from my perspective).



There was a huge celebration commemorating the 40th year reunion of North and South.



The iconic Turtle Pagoda in Hoan Kiem lake.



Kayaking in Halong.



Surprise Cave in Halong Bay.



One of the most surprising things we saw and we came upon it merely by accident while looking for Lenin Park. About 500 youths dressed up like Vietcong learning to shoot air rifles at paper targets in a public park. I got this one kid in blue jeans and red shoes in trouble because he started hamming it up for the camera.



Target practice.



Though only these two are in the shot, there were about 20 to 25 soldiers in the park inspecting the kids shooting.



The soldiers just kept coming...
 
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Sorry "guise," can't compromise my wife's integrity like that.

We didn't stay at the Hilton (yes I get your joke), but we did stay at the Skyliner and Tirant hotels in Hanoi. I'd highly recommend both to anyone traveling there; both are in the Old Quarter near Hoan Kiem lake.
 
Fool said:
Whenever a white guy takes a trip to Vietnam, I always assume it's for sex tourism.
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Oh trust me, I saw plenty of that. Creepy story from the trip. So one morning, my wife and I go to eat at the complementary breakfast at our hotel. There is only one guy in there, this older Australian guy (from all my travels, I've found its usually the middle-aged to older Aussies who do this kind of shit).

So as we are eating, this older guy keeps trying to talk to the one female attendant, a young girl about 20 something. The guy starts talking about her "phone" and how much it cost. He asks her if it costs $500. She gets her phone back and nervously says, "No, it....it $1,000 (But from her tone it pretty much sounded like she was just trying to put the guy off).

The guy at first says, "Oh that's too expensive," but then thinks it over and starts asking USD or Dong. They keep continuing back and forth about "the phone." They finally start communicating through the phone using some translation program. Then came the point when I knew for sure he was basically soliciting her. She typed something on her phone and the guy had the balls to read it out loud. She had typed, "I'm sorry, I don't have confidence and am nervous." At this point she tries to spend as little time in the room as possible.

Course I bet that girl was tempted, considering what she was probably making at that hotel.

lemon said:
LOOK MA I'M AN ENGRISH TEACHER
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I'm disappointed Lemon, there were more grammar errors than that. I saw them after I posted it and didn't really feel like changing it. I even wondered how long it'd be till someone caught on. Congrats, you are the first, but you still understand what I meant sooooo :shrug:
 
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Or he could have chosen any of the thousands of massage parlors in the Old Quarter, but I guess that's no fun. No challenge...

Actually the Japanese and Koreans really take advantage of the brothels as well. I'd say they were worst than the old white guys.

Denver said:
Hope you got some suits made! :D
also too bad about missing cat ba it is beautiful.
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Actually I did. I went to this place called Bamboo Silk. I had them make me one custom suit and two custom vests. Picked it up the day before we left and it's fantastic. I asked her if she'd ship to Korea and she said, "No problem." The suit and the vests cost $180. They also had a number of awesome ties for only $6 a piece, so I bought four.
 
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