Oh! its been so long, since I have come to you miss blogs! not that i did not travel or miss you in the interim, but life's been a roller-coaster.
But then here I am. And today I will share the secrets of Hanoi with you. I visited Hanoi in the December of '12. The city is not something which will make you go all 'wowish' from the onset. But it has something that does stay with you, quite like the fragrance of sandal-wood - it has a lingering effect. It grows on you and is specially sweeter in after-thought.
I stayed in the old-quarter and I would recommend that to everyone visiting the place, because it's the epi-centre of the city's culture and all its happenings. It is very soaked in the vietnamese way of living. Some things strike you as 'alag' - like how the locals huddle on the dining table to slurp their soups and eat their noodles punctually at the designated lunch hours, right in the middle of their shops, all curtains up or how the streets are so structured amidst the chaos and there are these lines of shops selling chinese-wares at one end and just as you take a sharp turn, the next street would be all about groceries and next about flowers and the very next about pots and pans or even knives.
Also, I could not understand the obsession with hair. They may be cleaning up toilets for all you could care but the women are so particular about their hair- freshly streaked, curled, touched up- ah-may-zing!
The people ever so polite, the language ever so confounding, the obsession with Ho-chi-minh so difficult to fathom, the chinese cultural influences so evident, buddhism so different from the one practised in our country makes the city a nice little conundrum.
Will I visit Hanoi again- I can't say, but what I would never forget would be the vegetarian meals at 'Namaste hanoi', the visit to 'perfume pagoda' on that tiny little thing of a boat, the kayaking trip, the 'water puppet' show.
Of memories (Unknown author)-
"Imagine if I was given one moment,
just a single slice of my past.
I could hold it close forever,
and that moment would always last.
I'd put the moment in a safe,
within my hearts abode.
I could open it when I wanted,
and only I would know the code."
The city is now in my memories........
But then here I am. And today I will share the secrets of Hanoi with you. I visited Hanoi in the December of '12. The city is not something which will make you go all 'wowish' from the onset. But it has something that does stay with you, quite like the fragrance of sandal-wood - it has a lingering effect. It grows on you and is specially sweeter in after-thought.
I stayed in the old-quarter and I would recommend that to everyone visiting the place, because it's the epi-centre of the city's culture and all its happenings. It is very soaked in the vietnamese way of living. Some things strike you as 'alag' - like how the locals huddle on the dining table to slurp their soups and eat their noodles punctually at the designated lunch hours, right in the middle of their shops, all curtains up or how the streets are so structured amidst the chaos and there are these lines of shops selling chinese-wares at one end and just as you take a sharp turn, the next street would be all about groceries and next about flowers and the very next about pots and pans or even knives.
Also, I could not understand the obsession with hair. They may be cleaning up toilets for all you could care but the women are so particular about their hair- freshly streaked, curled, touched up- ah-may-zing!
The people ever so polite, the language ever so confounding, the obsession with Ho-chi-minh so difficult to fathom, the chinese cultural influences so evident, buddhism so different from the one practised in our country makes the city a nice little conundrum.
Will I visit Hanoi again- I can't say, but what I would never forget would be the vegetarian meals at 'Namaste hanoi', the visit to 'perfume pagoda' on that tiny little thing of a boat, the kayaking trip, the 'water puppet' show.
Of memories (Unknown author)-
"Imagine if I was given one moment,
just a single slice of my past.
I could hold it close forever,
and that moment would always last.
I'd put the moment in a safe,
within my hearts abode.
I could open it when I wanted,
and only I would know the code."
The city is now in my memories........
No comments:
Post a Comment