City of the soaring dragon

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Welcome to Vietnam. We arrived here safely, actually met up with Philip & Elina (Austrian cousins from trek in Chaing Mai-we keep bumping into friends from earlier in hol-its so strange arriving in new city and seeing familiar face-quite nice really-we're all on similar backpacking route so its nice to exchange stories) So our 1st experience of Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam-the traffic! The photos may begin to cover it! Just think crazy, complete free for all, no road markings, motor bikes carrying varying loads everywhere. By loads I mean full families, pigs (often alive), fridges/freezers, basically imagine anything, strap it to a normal sized moped, and u just abt got it. The balance is interesting! Try crossing the roads with these things-an experience in itself-u basically just go, prayer and dodge! There are no pelican crossings obviously! We chose the old quarter, centred around Hoan Kiam Lake or lake of restored sword as our accom spot so headed straight to Hanoi backpackers. Managed to get 2 beds in female dorm named "the nunneries!!" We saw the floor, or lack of it of the boys!! So we braced ourselves for an evening in the city and used our bible ( Lonely Planet) to have a detination to go to (believe me essential when u have a list of things to dodge on ur joureny-crazy motorbikes all going in various directions with horns +++, pineapple women-another story-as soon as u stop to glance at map you have a HEAVY wooden bar carrying hundreds on ur shoulders and before u try to figure out if in fact ur life is in dangwer and there is a bike hurtling towards u, she hsas ur purse open-"money for photograph" and 2 bags of pineapple....hence we have eaten alot of nice pineapple. Ok we're suckers, esp paying 50, 000 dong (2 pounds) but thse women have bone deformities on their shoulders!!!

Spent the following day having a Xe Om adventure. Now let me explain this one now that it is over and you can't all worry (that it was far too dangerous). Yep, I bullied Kat a little it to this one but we siurvived to tell the tale with another "first" in our memory banks! So a Xe om (motorbike/moped) is the main way of travel around the city, the fastest mode of transport and therefore your easiest way of getting to see the sights. Ok, I'll just come out with it.....we chartered 2 to take us to the ethnology museum. ( Chartered meaning flagging a random stranger in st....they are all taxi men, offering rides, ours happened to have black teeth and spoke little english but alot more than my Vietamese vocab, but he knew the ethnology museum so progress and haggelling for a price and then being persuaded by him that we would be fine on 1 bike with 1 helmet) So, that was a hairy ride.....think u guessed without me spelling it out that we took him up on his offer-think there is some footage of that ride somewhere! Perhaps I'll post it after our return. Ethnology musuem was worth a visit and learnt lots about the various tribal groups throughout Vietnam. Managed to get back in time (bonus again of Xe om) for the famous traditional Water Puppet Show at the theatre. I'm a little embarassed to say (but I will anyway) that we made the decision to escape the city trafic for the evening (its scary) and head to cinema complex . For the next 2 hours I actually felt a glimpse of home life-AC, comfy cinema chairs, no horns, popcorn :-) and a girly chick flick-"Bridal Wars"!! That was until we ventured back out into the world of Pho (noodle soup) which we had for supper. Decided to end our evening with another taste of pre-Xe Om transport, The Cyclo. This is basically a carriage powered by a push bike and 1 man's very strong legs....bless, he managed to get us around the lake and all the courting Vietamese "holding hands" couples to the Opera House and back, very strong man!

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Photos

Hanoi after midnight
Add thats not motorbike corner!

Lake
Lake wedding

Cyclo
Guy nearly attacked mw wanting....dong for this photo...he didn't get any but promised him a booking that night

Ethnology musuem
Took this 1 for Craig really-talk about core stability balancing this lload! This might be in musuem but they are out on the road and in the traffic!

Street Barbour
These are everywhere