Anne's blog travel 06-07

Monday, January 29th 2007

St-Joseph Cathedral in Hanoi- This is once again one of the paradox of this place. After months of seeing only Mosques and Temples, I get to Hanoi and hear churche bells. Of course there are also Temples and Pagodas although the meaning of these are different than in other Asian countries. A Temple here is not a place of workship but rather a monument built in honour of a great person in history. A Pagoda is a place of worship and doesn't necessarily store the ashes of the dead.

Yesterday and today start up cool and crisp but clear and the sun is out even early. It's such a beautiful sight to see the big orange ball rise behind the glassy Lake. The day warms up quickly and soon I have to peal off the layers. Truly beautiful days. Yesterday after my sticky rice breakfast and on my way somewhere else I see some ladies in different spots cooking omelets and serving them (on the sidewalk of course) in a nice french bread. So this morning I know what I want for breakfast and I'm on the hunt for one of those ladies. My breakfast almost costs me a dollar (15 000V Dong) but boy is it nice! With a bit of added chilli sauce on the lovely french bread. Yum! A few young women also at the small spot on the street confer between themselves before trying some english sentence on me. "What's your name?" "Where are you from?" so we talk for a bit.

Because of the French influence in Vietnam, you can find great bread here and the coffee is also excellent. Although Vietnamese are not always so keen on deserts you'll find all kind of cakes and patisseries here and of course the croissants. In those respects it hardly feels like Asia. In Thailand, bread is mostly some sweet cake substance. You can now drink decent coffee at Starbucks in Bangkok but Donna and Marc buy their coffee overseas.

Another interesting thing is that in 1910 the latin-based Quoc Ngu (gwawk Nguhr- pronouciation) script was declared the language's official written form, facilitating French rule. This 29-letter phonetic alphabet had been invented in the 17th century by Alexandre de Rhodes , a French Jesuit missionary and today virtually all writting is in Quoc Ngu. So, there is no trouble reading signs (even if you don't know what they mean or can't pronounce them properly) as there are no chinese character or other scripts as you find in Thailand, China, Japan, India, Arabic countries etc).

After some walking around this morning, I get to a street corner around 12pm and find Long sitting having tea on a small stool. He invites me to join him and his brother and I have green tea with them. "Hot or cold?" he asks. Hot please for me. Otherwise the lady serving adds ice to a glass. His younger brother Quit (pronounced Wit) is 27 and ironically (because of the name) also sells lighters. His english is nowhere near the level of Long's. I ask him about business and he says he had a good weekend but Monday is never as good.

He tells me it's not well seen for Vietnamese women to be smoking but he knows that many foreign women smoke. I also hear that few Vietnamese women drink alcohol. I tell him that smoking is becoming more and more anti-social in the western world. Many restaurants and bars now ban smoking and most work places are smoke-free. If you want to be a smoker you must go outside in the middle of winter in Canada to smoke. But many do.

Twenty minutes later when we get up, Long tells me he's already paid for my tea and might catch me later in the day. He tells me the woman serving tea is saying that I look very young for my age. "Hey thanks for telling everyone my age buddy."

Bye for now