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Published: June 24th 2009
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When we had landed in Hanoi, collected our bags and been through airport immigration (Vietnam deserves kukos as the only place that immigration have even looked twice at me now I have long hair and my passport photo still shows a skinhead), we went outside to arrange transport to the centre of town. The minibus run by Vietnam Airlines was only two dollars, or the equivalent in the brilliantly named Vietnamese Dong, so we jumped in. When it came to paying however, the guy told me that two dollars was 50,000 dong. Luckily I had done my homework and knew that it was 35,000 so corrected him. He looked embarrassed, his mate laughed but he accepted 35,000 dong, knowing he had been caught out. Scam number one foiled. When we finally arrived at the centre of town the driver asked us where we wanted to go. We'd heard that a particular guesthouse was nice so asked to be taken there. Five minutes later we pulled up in a sidestreet and the driver said that the guesthouse was full. We couldn't even see the place we had asked for so immediately became suspicious. Then, another guy jumped on board and said that
he was from the guesthouse we wanted. He pulled out a card to prove it but gave the game away somewhat by flicking through dozens of hotel cards before he found the one we had requested. Then came the story about how it was full but he conveniently knew another place that was very good and that he would take us there. We politely declined and jumped out, thus foiling scam number two. As we shouldered our bags a third guy came up to us and asked what guesthouse we were looking for. When we told him the name he tried to claim that he also worked for them but would take us to a different place instead, as you do. We ignored him, despite the fact that he followed us for about three roads. Scam number three avoided. Having no idea where in the city we were, we stopped a friendly local and asked him to point out where we were on the map. Fortunately, we weren't actually that far from the place we had wanted so decided to walk there ourselves. 10 minutes later we were checking into the open, clean and reasonably priced Hanoi Sports Hotel, which
actually had lots of rooms free. Funny that.
We freshed up before heading out to a lovely restaurant called H Silk, above a silk shop on the same road as Hanoi Sports Hotel. The balcony view was lovely, looking out between potted plants at the madness on the city's roads below. Unfortunately we had forgotten the camera but I'm sure we'll go back to get a picture another day. We ordered two steaming bowls of pho, the Vietnamese national dish. It is essentially a rather bland noodle soup with beef but you liven it up by adding fish sauce, chillies, lime, corriander and vinegar to your taste. Disappointingly our waitress was rather uninterested and didn't appear to have any of these condiments so our very first pho was somewhat of an anticlimax.
The next morning we decided to head to a cafe simply called Pho, supposedly the best place in Hanoi to get the famous dish. It was rather manic inside, with locals calling out orders among a few out-of-place looking tourists. We sat down and ordered two bowls which fortunately arrived with all of the necessary additions this time. We both threw lots of everything in and
tucked into a much tastier meal!
When we left Pho we tried to take a walk around the city but it was so hot that we had to stop every couple of roads to have a cold drink in a cafe. It's summer in Vietnam right now and the temperature combined with the immense humidity is almost unbearable. Within minutes of leaving each cafe we were drenched in sweat and thirsty again. We eventually made it down to the lake in the centre of the city Hoan Kiem Lake (Lake of the Restored Sword). Legend has it that Emperor Le Thai To drove an invading Chinese army from Vietnam with a magical sword before having it stolen from him by a giant turtle in the lake. The turtle disappeared into the depths of the water and restored the sword to it's divine owners. There are apparentely still a few turtles left in the murky green water but the last official sighting was over 3 years ago. As we walked around the surprisingly peaceful lake we did keep an eye out for any turtles but unfortunately didn't see any.
On the way back to the guesthouse we stopped for
yet another drink at a fifth floor cafe that looked over the lake and surrounding areas. The view was great and we enjoyed several ice cold fruit shakes while looking down at the city before heading back. That evening we had our first cyclo ride on the way to a restaurant. A cyclo is essentially just a tiny rickshaw and the locals seem to use them a lot. We'd seen a few couples on them but when we hailed one and tried to both squeeze on we realised that the seats are clearly made for Asian bums and not our large western ones so we could only fit on by perching precariously on the edge! Undaunted by his unusually heavy load our driver set off to find the restaurant we had asked to be taken to. After a few minutes he found the road we had requested, if not the restaurant and let us off. Seeing as we had been darting in and out of the bonkers Hanoi traffic and were considerably larger than his usual fares we didn't mind and decided to walk most of the way. Only after he had driven off did we realise he had dropped
us at the wrong end of a rather long road! We walked for about 15 minutes through the city at night trying to find the right side road (unnamed on our spectacularly unhelpful Lying Planet map) before we had to ask somebody for directions. When we finally found the restaurant it was unfortunately closed so we chose a rather fancy looking place near our hotel instead and had dinner there with a couple of cold Beer Hanois.
The next morning we had to check out of our guesthouse to move to Classic 1 Hotel where we would meet the rest of the group on our course which we are on now. I'll update you with what we've done so far but may not get a chance to for a while yet so if you don't see an updated blog for a week or two, don't panic, we're just busy having fun!
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Steve
non-member comment
reminiscing
I just read your blog because I'm thinking about taking a short trip to Hanoi soon for some sightseeing. The Halong bay area seems really nice. Anyway, after reading the first part of your blog about all the scams, I started reliving some of the things I experienced on a recent trip to Philippines. We had a layover in Manila on our way to Cebu, and honestly, about 99% of the people I came into contact with had some scam. I wasn't prepared for this, so I did get taken a couple times at first, but I soon caught on. Hopefully I'll do well in Vietnam. Thanks!