Advertisement
Published: December 26th 2006
Edit Blog Post
banana lady
the lovely lady next to me sweetly offered for a photo then got very upset when I didn't buy any bananas from her Hi everyone!
It's been quite a while since my last blog. Sorry for the delay - so many deadlines, such a heavy workload! ;-)
The last 3 weeks or so has been spent in Hanoi, with a couple of side trips to Halong Bay and Sapa.
I arrived in Hanoi from Bangkok via Asia Airlines (similar to Jetstar) and upon landing immediately met a three lovely girls, two English and one Aussie girl. We all shared a hair-raising minibus together from the airport into town - there were a few near misses with motorbikes carrying dead pigs or caged chickens and others with very Russian looking trucks. (You wouldn't believe how MUCH these guys can pile onto the back of a motorbike). Anyway, we soon got used to the mad driving and were comfortable in the fact that no, we weren't going to die, but couldn't work out why everyone was honking everyone else - constantly! After some time we realised that the Vietnamese road rules are virtually non existant and consequently as a means of communication they incessantly honk their horns at each other! Anyway, this was something visitors to this city must soon get used to
hanoi streets
like most of the hanoi streets - with the usual hoards of bikes! - as this is the soundtrack of this city from the moment the sun comes up until late at night.
As a very last minute decision, Fletch decided he needed a holiday too and having always wanted to visit the mystical and spectacular Halong Bay he decided to join me for a bit of travelling. I welcomed the company especially because I knew the beauty of Halong Bay and Sapa would be even more rewarding if shared with someone.
But before I get to that, I should let you know a little more about Hanoi. I had pre booked my first few nights in the city...so when I was dropped at a hostel of a completely different name you can imagine that I thought I had been duped. The owner of this hostel I was dropped at told me that this was definitely the correct one and just as I had my hand of the door handle to leave and find the correct place, he pulled up my emails to him on his computer. Realising that this hostel strangely operated under a number of different names this was also my first lession of this country...i.e. nothing is always
the bridge on the famous Hoan Kiem Lake
if you squint you might be able to see me as it seems!
Hanoi can be explained as a high energy sort of city, there is always so much traffic, so much noise, so much air pollution and so many people trying to loan you their motorbike (for a bargainable fee of course) or sell you their bananas, pineapples or baguettes. At first the smells and dirt were a little difficult to ignore, but after a few days there I managed to uncover the old charm, some local Vietnamese charm and some residual French charm - and I really enjoyed walking around the old quarter where each street sells something distinctly different from the last, for example - silk street, shoe street, winter clothes street...it makes finding what you need really easy, but conscious of the fact that whatever I buy I carry - I resisted the temptation of the shopping bug!
During my stay I did the usual touristy things like visiting the Temple of Literature, one of the early univiersities; as well as watching a show of the water puppets, a bit like punch and judy set to a vietnamese musical sountrack and of course I had to see Uncle Ho (Chi Minh) who really does
temple
the temple of literature look like a Madame Tussauds wax figure. One day, at Lonely Planet's recommendation, Fletch and I decided to visit the Ho Chi Minh trail museum so we could indulge ourselves in some more national history. It was a looong taxi ride out there and after more than 30 minutes we really were starting to hope it was worth the long ride and the pollution inflicted upon our lungs. We breathed a sigh of relief when our taxi turned off the road...but soon discovered from the rust and cobwebs outside the building that the museum had been closed for some time - not happy Jan! And yes, thanks Lonely Planet!
Pretty soon I needed to get out of Hanoi, so Fletch and I booked our trips to the amazing and very different areas of Sapa and Halong Bay...which I'll write about in my next blog.
Hope you had a lovely Christmas and are enjoying some much deserved time off. I'm currently writing this from Laos, where I spent Xmas day, but I need to get through a few more blogs before I can let you know about this fantastic place called Luang Prabang.
Take care and lots of
cat
one of the many cats I see on my travels, this one had one green and one blue eye love,
Pip xxx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.114s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0418s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Carolyn
non-member comment
Puss!
Hi honey, really loving your travel stories keep them coming!!! Soooo jealous! and I love that cat!!! Caz xox