Friday 26th June 2009 Hanoi

---

Friday 26th June 2009 Hanoi
The bus arrived into Hanoi at about 7 so was more or less on time; Vietnam isn’t too bad for its estimates on bus times. We again just headed off with a guy from outside the bus and he showed us a room in a budget hotel for $10, ok room, all the facilities but no window and smelled a bit nifty. Price was good though so we went with it. We got straight onto the case of trying to organize our China visas and went and enquired in reception. They informed us as we kind of had found out that they have to issued in HCMC 1000km south for some idiotic reason even though they have an embassy in Hanoi and a consulate in HCMC. It was going to take about 4 working days so with the weekend included we were looking at staying 6 days in Hanoi. We just gave the hotel $85 and they sent them off for us, no forms or anything to full out though which I am very wary about.

After getting that sorted had a bit of a rest, I was fine as I got some sleep on the bus but Mary was wrecked so I soon headed out for a stroll around on my own. I wandered about for around an hour constantly sidestepping mopeds and being pushed off the non existent footpaths by parked bikes and make shift restaurants taking up what limited walking space there was. We were staying in the old quarter which is a warren of streets, its amazing and you don’t have a clue where you are or what way to go most of the time. Every street is dedicated to a different craft or kind of good. You have the funeral street for buying grave stones, the thread street, the Buddha statue street, the hose pipe district, couldn’t find the hammock district though! Outside every second one of these shops there are a crowd of locals sitting on kid’s plastic chairs eating the noodles that a some woman is cooking up on a makeshift stove or drinking tea or Bia Hoi which is traditional fresh beer that gets delivered everyday, it costs the princely sum of about 12cents and is actually pretty good. It’s an interesting city, 6 million inhabitants and a nice sense of life and fun about it.

I went and got Mary up and we headed out for another walk down by the lake which is at the centre of the main city, it’s a nice sight and the only place in the city where there is actually enough footpath to walk on. We bought tickets for a traditional water puppet show later on and went and had a beer somewhere.

The water puppets are a tourist must see in Hanoi, its number one attraction apparently! It’s an hour show of ancient legend of Vietnam performed by all these wooden puppets in a pool accompanied by a traditional Vietnamese orchestra. It was actually very well staged and was quiet entertaining, went on for a bit but we had brought our own beers in so we were happy out. I’d say it is a big hit with the younger kids. We headed off and got something to eat then in a restaurant called Hanoi 69, the menu was impressive but the food wasn’t the best. The beer was fine though so had another one there before going on a wee tour of the surrounding bars near our hotel. We settled in a place called Dragonfly for a while which was ok, we were sitting in an upstairs lounge; there was a sisha room and a dance floor downstairs. Not too bad a spot really, bit smoky but.

---