Advertisement
Published: November 27th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Streets of Hanoi
I don't know how they stop themselves crashing into eachother Crossing a road in Hanoi
- Wait until the road you are going to cross is mostly mopeds and fewer cars.
- Take a deep breath and step off the curb (avoiding the river of god knows what in the gutter)
- Keep a constant pace, don't speed up or slow down no matter what happens, just let the traffic deal with you.
- Arrive at the other side and change your underwear.
I arrived in Hanoi from a very brief overnight stay in Singapore. I 'd love to write all about Singapore, but I was feeling really rough and all I really saw was the inside of the 20 bed prison like dorm I was staying in. I was up at 5am (again for the second day running) to catch my flight to Hanoi.
Still feeling quite bad I missed out on the Singapore airlines plane food (which actually looked quite tasty) and arrived in Hanoi some time in mid afternoon. I was bundled into a tiny minibus which for US$4 will take you the hours drive from the airport to anywhere in the city. The drive from the airport was terrifying, I don't have
enough fingers to count the number of times a moped nearly ended up under our wheels, you also soon get used to the sound of horns. Once at the hostel I went back to bed for a few hours then decided I should make an effort and go for a walk, but roads at night made me think again and I only ended up walking around the block.
The next day I was determined to see more of the city so I followed other people until I got the hang of the road crossing thing. I got ripped of buying a photocopied lonely planet guide book (that smells of fish), I thought I was paying £1 for it when I actually paid £10. Got a much better grasp of the exchange rate now (around 25,000 dong to the pound).
All the streets in old town Hanoi have a different theme: silk street, toy street comb street, clam worm street etc. each selling exactly what it say on the tin. This didn't make it any easier to find my way around, I managed to get lost for about 2 hours after I popped out to the supermarket for shower
Streets of Hanoi
Mopeds everywhere gel.
I spent the rest of the day at the Hoan Kiem Lake getting hassled by the street touts who try and sell you anything they can and once they get up close and out of earshot of anyone else they offer a whole different range of products (I'm sure you can guess).
I also watched the water puppet show which turned out to be really funny. Seven puppeteers stand waist deep in a very smelly green pool and operate puppets from behind a screen whilst a live band plays along, I don't think there was much of a plot to the storey, but it was really enjoyable.
I've met up with the guys I'll be spending the next few weeks with on the first of my tours. They all seem nice enough, there's 2 young Australian couples, an Austrian mother and daughter, an American mother and Daughter and a family of Americans. We all went out for quite a posh Vietnamese dinner which came to all of £4
Next stop is Hanlong Bay which looks amazing from the photo's I've seen. Hopefully I'll get a couple of good HDR's.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.256s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 19; qc: 95; dbt: 0.1085s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
lizzyw
Lizzy Williams - My Travels
!
Vietnam sounds hilarious in its scariness!