Bangkok to Hanoi

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Finally, we left Bangkok for Hanoi. The flight took only an hour and 50 minutes. The guesthouse arranged a taxi to collect us at the airport (US$10) and it was very convenient. The drive took one hour to reach the guesthouse which was more or less a converted shophouse.

Cloudy, humid, and cool, Hanoi is a pleasant city. Most people motorbike around, honking at everything they see. There are Toyotas, Daewoos, and a few Mercedez. Crossing the streets require a lot of care, but it's not as dangerous as it looks.

So far, everyone we encoutered have been pleasant, which was surprising as we heard so much bad things about Vietnamese. We find people here charming, helpful and full of smiles.

And things are cheap here, cheaper than Bangkok. We are told that most products in Ho Chi Min come from Hanoi - so they advised us to buy things here. It would be a bother to have to carry them along with us for the rest of our trip. So I have to restrain myself.

The food is excellent too. We had tuna spring rolls at Little Hanoi and it was delicious. For dinner, we had some sandwishes at Little Hanoi (but a different place altogether). Once again, they were excellent.

At 4pm, the guesthouse booked tickets for us to see the Water Puppet Show. What a treat! The traditional Vietnamese music is lovely and the water puppets very entertaining - but 40 minutes would be adequate for me. It lasted an hour. However, the show is most suitable for children.

This is just our first day in Hanoi. We are planning a walking tour tomorrow. I hope it does not rain.

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