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Published: August 7th 2007
Arriving into Hanoi we were a little dubious that our pre-arranged visa on arrival may have been a scam, but it worked out great and within half an hour we were on a $2 bus journey to the Old Quarter area of the capital. We were both beginning to come down with flu when we arrived and phew was it hot...45 degrees and very humid, it was the hottest we had experienced so far on our travels. Not only was it hot but it was noisy, particularly the traffic which never seemed to stop beeping. This leads us onto our first observation of Vietnam.
The Traffic As mentioned on other people's blogs, the Vietnamese beep to let everyone know the vehicle is there or, as we experienced, just because the driver likes the sound of their own horn! The vehicle with the biggest and loudest horn seemed to get through the traffic quicker, so buses and lorries scared people into letting them through first. If you are a pedestrian and you don't have the/a horn then you have no right of way whatsoever and so crossing the busy roads is like playing Russian roulette on an automobile scale. Forget zebra
Neil washing his jeans in the shower
Sooooo much easier (and ahem...cheaper) than the laundry!and pedestrian crossings and traffic lights, which are ignored by all, the drivers here - rather than drive around obstacles (ie pedestrians) - we swear drive towards you and the only thing you can do is look straight ahead at the other side of the road and walk at a steady pace whilst preparing to run if a vehicle gets too close!
As with the rest of Asia the Vietnamese seemed to be able to fit many people on one bike with no concern as to their safety ie no helmets. However, the people in Hanoi seemed particularly adept at carrying a hell of a lot of stuff on their bikes, look at the pic of the ladder and we even saw a double mattress and two big sacks of potatoes being carried on one bike with two people hanging onto the mattress!
People on bicycles were everywhere in Hanoi and they seemed to fair the worst on the roads so you would often see particularly old and young Vietnamese people being wobbled off their bikes because of some guy with a very loud pimped up horn scaring the bee-jeezers out of them! However, catch the Vietnamese cyclists
Hanoi cafe bar area
Lovely little streets of Hanoi. So many people still wear the traditional conical hats..Very asian!...nice in a quiet street and they look very graceful with the women elegantly and effortlessly cycling along in their conical hats.
So walking around Hanoi you have to avoid bicycles, motorbikes, cars, buses and lorries, but then you have cyclo drivers deliberately blocking your path saying things like '$1 for 1 hour' whatever that meant? and old women sellers with baskets balanced on a stick (like a set of scales) blocking your path saying things which were clearly not English. Additionally, personal space is non existent in Vietnam so the locals will quite uncaringly push you out into the path of an oncoming truck or smack your bum to move you out the way. This mayhem is topped off because the few pavements that there are, are blocked off by parked motorbikes or plastic chair restaurants so you inevitably end up having to dice death by walking on the road.
An hour of hunting around the narrow traffic congested streets of the Old Quarter, Donna found us a great hotel in a quiet (ie no beeping!) area. The flu had now hit us fully and although we didn't feel like doing anything but sleeping Hanoi was too enticing
Teacher with megaphone
He had the smallest megaphone in all of Hanoi...let's hope he didn't deafen the kids! not to explore. This leads us to our second observation:
The Speciality Streets Many streets in Hanoi seemed to have one theme so you would have a street of shoe sellers, a street of sweet sellers etc and even a street of birthday card sellers (again see the pics). We wish the UK was like this, it would make shopping a hell of a lot easier! Sorry to dog lovers, but there was even a dog restaurant speciality street, which we happened upon. It was really strange seeing a chihuahua dog on a spit glazed in honey. We have been told it tastes like a mix of beef and pork, but we didn't try it as it looked a bit too boney for our tastes and besides we prefer Labrador! Only joking everyone!
The streets are very colourful and unlike many cities in South East Asia the Vietnamese have managed to retain an Asian feel to Hanoi and at times you really do feel like you are walking through streets which have not changed much at all in the past 20 years. The Old Quarter has marvellous French colonial/Chinese/Vietnamese buildings and what was nice was that you could
people of Hanoi
Smiley happy people all around...very colourful too! actually walk around the streets and see the Vietnamese living their lives around you. All too often in Asian cities, the locals live way out on the outskirts separate from the tourists. Not only this but unlike Thailand and Cambodia the Vietnamese seem to be able to mix and integrate very well with the tourists, choosing similar restaurants and places to drink. Which leads us onto our next observation which deserves a title of its own as it was so good!
The BEER Hoi After spending three days in bed recovering from the flu (the hotel must have thought we were very, very boring tourists!) we managed to find a speciality street for very cheap beer. At first we thought it was some sort of Asian scam when we saw the 2000 dong (that's 6p or 12 cents) a glass, beer Hoi for sale. Turns out it was no joke and within seconds two plastic chairs and a plastic table had been pulled up and we sat drinking the cheapest beer we had came across on our travels so far! Beer Hoi is freshly brewed and doesn't last long, so when a keg is brought out locals and tourists
our Hanoi room
had free wi-fi, balcony, king bed, hot shower, cable tv, fridge and everything for $12US! sit together to people watch and make sure the beer doesn't go to waste.
Sitting at these beer places we also experienced something we had not seen before in Asia. Usually when you sit in a restaurant or bar you have a circus of street sellers and beggars coming to your table to bug you to buy things or give them money. Usually the restaurant or bar staff do nothing but look on; however, in Vietnam, the staff were very keen to protect their customers from the hassle and gladly shoo-ed them away or as was the case with our beer hoi battleaxe old woman seller, shall we just say she liked to get physical with the sellers. You may think this sounds harsh but sometimes in South East Asia it's as if the locals have been trained from a very young age that whenever they see a westerner that they should hold their hands out for money...grrrrrr.
We also noticed that the Vietnamese have an uncanny ability to squat just about anywhere and regardless of age or medical condition and often prefer this position than sitting on a chair. Yikes, the Vietnamese are big drinkers, this is
2 Vietnamese girls driving and chatting
they drive alongside each other talking without a care in the world. ...oh shouldn't we be watching where we are going? probably due to the cheapness of the beer (it's cheaper than water) but even under the influence they are still able to perfectly squat balance.
The Water Puppet show A big 'must-do' in Hanoi is to go and see some puppets on water at the theatre next to the Hoan Kiem lake and for a mere 20,000 dong (60p) it was a bargain. After some intense shoving and pushing from the 6-10 year old Vietnamese children who were there to watch the show we found our seats and were not quite sure what to expect, although Neil was convinced it would not be as good as the Punch and Judy puppet show he saw as a child...but this was no ordinary puppet show! We had a Vietnamese orchestra with singers and puppets that breathed fire and water and everything. It was magically weird...we couldn't understand a word of it as the story was in Vietnamese but you could get the gist ie sacred turtle gives sword to King so he can win a war etc.
The Counterfeit Culture Walking around Hanoi you soon realise that orientation is not very easy. This is because: a. the Lonely
Planet city map was incorrect and it took us several days of going around in circles before we realised this and; b. orientation markers such as hotels, restaurants, bars, tour agencies etc have all been copied so that there are 17 versions of a particular tour agency or hotel which not only makes it impossible to navigate the streets but makes it impossible to find the genuine and original of whatever you are looking for. As an example, we tried to find the Sinh Café travel agency which was recommended in the Lonely Planet only to walk around in circles whilst being able to count at least 30 so called 'Sinh Café' travel agencies around the Old Quarter. This is yet another version of Russian roulette because only the genuine travel agencies could be trusted to provide a decent service. This counterfeit culture is so convincing because the copy outfits have identical signs, logos etc. So watch out travellers!
So about 4 days into our Hanoi stay we went out looking for the train station to book some tickets to our next destination Hue. No! the train station hadn't been copied, however, Neil managed to take us on a
Street where our hotel was located
best to choose a hotel which is not on a main road because of the infuriating beep beeping!...Arghhhhh little exploration of the outer reaches of Hanoi city where we felt very uneasy at the many Vietnamese staring at us with open mouths. It was immediately apparent that not many tourists had been to this residential area of Hanoi and it was only when groups of people began to surround us we thought it was best to follow the railway lines and hope for the best. After all of this, it was the wrong train station...yet more dodgy info from Lonely Planet and even they are copied here!
To summarise, we really enjoyed our time in Hanoi despite being ill. Great food, cheap beer and the people are very friendly. With a likeness to Cambodian children, the kids are super cute too (saying 'ello to us as they passed much to the embarrassment of their parents). We had been told by other travellers to be careful of Vietnam because there are so many scams and tourists getting ripped off. But so far our experiences have been only good ones. We were able to book a two day one night tour of Halong Bay (sleeping on a Chinese junk boat) and so this is where we were headed next...
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