Arrival in Hanoi

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Kuala Lumpur to Hanoi

Today we arrived in Hanoi from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We left KL at about 6:30 in the morning and arrived in Hanoi at about 9:30, about three-hours' flight time.

Upon arrival, we noticed that people were filling-in a sort of a form. There was no one distributing the form and asking an airport police did not help because he does not know a single English word. Eventually, we managed to find the form and helped ourselves. We were cleared from the immigration in no time and we headed to the Tourist Information Office who did furnish as a copy of tourism brochure which, was of little help.

We have to change at least US$100.00 to Vietnamese Dong and ended up becoming millionaires. I managed to have VNDONG1,555,000.00 for US100.00.

From Hanoi Airport to Hanoi Old Quarter

Knowing from reports of other tourists to Vietnam that airport taxi drivers sell their passengers to Hotels, we told the taxi driver to bring us to St. Joseph's Cathedral. Nonetheless, he still brought us to a Hotel but we declined and insisted on going to the Cathedral.

From the Cathedral we walked our way to the Hanoi Backpacker's but it was pretty full (and by the way, they did not answer my email to them. So don't expect to have your email answered if you haven't paid your reservation). We walked our way arround the old quarters and finally, after being told of full occupancy several times, we found the Hanoi Lucky Hotel which was willing to take us in.

The staff were quite friendly and they gave us the top room (4RTH FLOOR!). Panting and catching our breath, we were more than glad that we have found a room at least.

The Hotel staff told us that we can settle our hotel bills upon check-out but we opted to settle it within the day, just in case we ran-out of money. They also asked that we hand our passports with them, but we took it back when we went out to eat our breakfast for the day. We just told them politely that we needed our passports just in case an immigration officer will look for it.

First Impression

Vietnamese are a real friendly people. Though, being in a city, one can't probably take the safety of one's belongings for granted.

It also appears to me that Vietnamese people like to huddle in groups, squatting while eating and or drinking tea along the sidewalks. If you see smartly dressed men and women squating in Hanoi, dont be surprised, that is pretty normal.

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