After a fantastic first two days, we were expecting much of
the same for our third day. We
booked a City Tour and were excited to see all of the sites that Hanoi
offered. I’ll have to back track a
bit to our first day in order to tell this whole story.
Arriving in Hanoi we were anticipating a similar experience
to Ho Chi Minh. While we were
there we walked around and found our own way to multiple destinations for a
complete city tour. In Hanoi, we
found endless tour companies selling trips all over, offering a variety of
different tours. While walking, we
stumbled across a sign advertising a City Tour for roughly half the price of
anywhere else. We ventured in
expecting to walk right back out after hearing about a crappy version of the
City Tour. Shockingly…we listened
to the sales pitch and decided the company was legit. Christy seems to think I had something to do with our
decision because it was cheaper, but I’m convinced that we decided on this
mutually (I’m not sure why she thinks I’m drawn to cheaper things).
Regardless, we woke up on the morning of the tour in time
for breakfast and arrived at the lobby in time for our pickup. We waited…and waited…and waited! The hotel staff approached us numerous
times to confirm that we actually had a tour. I began sweating.
Somehow I knew that this was going to be my fault. I began hoping that the company would
arrive and watched with bated breath as every van or bus passed our hotel. It didn’t pay off!
After over 40 minutes of waiting a guy on a bike pulled up
and let us know that he was here for us.
I, obviously celebrated…Christy on the other hand began to question
him. Through the questioning, it
was determined that things were not going well. The guy seemed to have no clue about what was going on. We eventually went back to the place we
booked the tour with the tour guide and decided the best option was to go as
planned.
We ended up leaving with our “Tour Guide” almost an hour
after the planned time. Our first
stop was the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. We were quickly notified that we were not going to be able to
see Uncle Ho because he was shipped off to Russia for his yearly exhuming and
touch ups. That disappointment was
just the beginning!
Outside of the Museum.
Regardless of not seeing Uncle Ho, we were allowed into the
Museum. There we were surrounded
by lots of quality notes, letters, pictures, and information. Unfortunately, most of the information
was illegible. What was
translated, was written in small manuscript and extremely time consuming. As we were trying to decode everything
we were notified that the exhibit would be closing soon and we needed to hurry
(obviously because we were late).
We were only through a quarter of one of the three floors at this point! We then decided to start asking more
questions of our guide. Hopefully
that would speed things up so we wouldn’t have to do some much reading. Not the case!
As we began asking questions we quickly found out that we
know more about Vietnam History than our quality “Tour Guide’ did (and that
isn’t saying a lot). We ended up
rushing through and not really getting much out of it.
After, we were walking to the houses of Ho Chi Minh, and we
were quickly lost. Our tour guide
was calling people on his phone and making wrong turns. After a bit of questioning the locals,
we headed in the right direction.
However, we were stopped after a short walk so our “Tour Guide” could
find his girl friend, who joined us.
What do you do?...We continued…Not the best choice!
During the next part of the tour, Christy noticed a sign
that stated where Uncle Ho’s house was.
She asked about it and was told that the sign was wrong. We check our pamphlet and went back to
the sign and questioned our lovely tour guide and his response was, “Maybe I’m
wrong…Yes, I’m probably wrong.”
Things continued like this for most of the day.
To say the least, it wasn’t a great day. However, it was a very entertaining
day. I think we came to the
realization during this experience that if something is soooooo bad, it can
actually become funny. At the end
of the day and the horrible experience that our Day Trip was, we were laughing
on the side of the road. All in
all, we got to see everything that we set out to see, and we ended up being
entertained by a horrible guide in the process. We’ve laughed about it multiple times since including today
while writing this. Oh, the
adventures and experiences of traveling abroad!
Pagoda that was closed :)
