Advertisement
Published: June 29th 2012
Hanoi After recovering our bikes and bags we set off in the Hanoi traffic to find our hotel. The traffic is the worst we've experienced on tour, even though not as busy as elsewhere, every motorbike is a maverick unlike Saigon's flowing traffic were the majority rules. We eventually found our hotel to be told it was double booked by highly concerned and helpful staff. We were bumped to their sister hotel which was slightly nicer and more accessible which was again staffed by very helpful people. On this first night it was the turn of inconsiderate Americans to wake us in the early morning, shouting across the hallway for ten minutes in their attempt to catch an early bus.
We ventured out onto the Hanoi streets with little planned. Over our three days we; visited Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum where he lies in state (opposing his wish to be cremated); saw a water puppet show which was slightly underwhelming given the lack of skill in manipulating the puppets (Punch and Judy is often more deftly perfomed!); visited a couple of lakes; browsed the fine art museum; walked the red bridge, continually bombed by the Americans until their POWs
were put to work in fixing it; enjoyed a spa massage (including pressure point massage – ouch!); walked through the old town. While walking through the old town George spotted a street in which every shop was filled with Vietnamese playing PES 2012 (pro evolution soccer). We saw a street selling tombstones with eery pictures of the 'customer's printed on them. We visited what the Lonely Planet called a market street which was now just a street of souvenir shops. We enjoyed the street food, particularly at a street food, food court and managed to fit in a 2-for-1 pizza restaurant 😊
Overall we found Hanoi to have friendly people but whilst pleasant was not a very inspiring place.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.09s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0511s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
