Advertisement
So after our christmas cancellation we've finally made it to Vietnam and through the wonders of technology and a cheap bluetooth keyboard I'm typing this blog on the way to Halong Bay.
The flight was long and the food barely paletable but we arrived in Hanoi at 8.30am on very little sleep. This time as we're only on a 2 week trip we're cramming as much in as possible which meant getting out and exploring the city straight away (and staying up as long as possible to beat the jet lag). We were met at the airport by our airport transfer driving (apologies, his name escapes me) holding a "Joe Marsh" sign who took us the 40 minute drive into the city while making polite conversation in his broken English and our zero vietnamese.
We decided to push the boat out and spend £60 on our hotel in Hanoi (The Hanoi Pearl). This is a world apart from our last travels into Thailand! So what will barely get you a night with Lenny Henry on an industrial business park in Slough will get you a room in Hanoi pushing 5 stars!
The first thing that will strike you
about Hanoi (apart from the heat) is the traffic. It's absolutely crazy. Millions of mopeds are EVERYWHERE. I'm still trying to figure out where everyone is trying to go all of the time in all directions. And the roads are chaos. No-one is concerned with stopping, crossings, giving way to traffic, red lights, the correct direction of travel..... They just beep their horn and move into whatever gap is available and go! It makes Bridgwater traffic seem like absolutely nothing! And yet in all of this chaos there's no road rage, no-one giving each other the finger, and astonishingly enough, despite all the near misses, we didn't see one accident. Perhaps that the chaos is just accepted and everyone just gets on with it just makes it work. In fact, it was quicker for us to get across Hanoi this morning in rush hour than it takes to get across Bridgwater on a bank holiday which when you consider their size comparison is astonishing!
When it comes to crossing the road you just have to wait for an opportunity, take a deep breath and go hoping the traffic will stop. Our first attempt saw us standing timidly for a
few minutes before a little old lady put us to shame and without even looking stepped right out into the road and just went for it, calmly making her way to the other side. With our lesson learned and after a few crossings we now feel like pros!
In hindsight it probably wasn't the best idea walking around Hanoi in the midday heat on an hour's sleep. We walked from our hotel in the old town up to West Lake, past the presidential palace (getting told off by the armed guards for taking a photo when apparently it's forbidden), past the botanic gardens and to the B52 memorial in the Ba Dinh district. It was shot down on 27th December 1972 and the wreckage has never been moved.
There is still a strong military presence around Hanoi, lots of armed guards, communist slogans and government propaganda. It doesn't feel a threatening place, but serves as a reminder that although 40 years ago the war hasn't been forgotten and everyone is very proud of Vietnam. One thing that I felt was there isn't that many tourists here. Compared to Bangkok we only saw the odd handful of backpackers walking
around. I was surprised that at the B52 memorial we were the only tourists there and it's not exactly the backwaters of Asia! Not that I'm complaining mind you....
So after a walk that was far too long we sat for some well earned lunch and discovered 60p beer which was well recieved! Having had enough of walking Kim wanted a tricycle ride around the old quater. A small, old man waved us over and said it was 2000 dong (about 6 pounds) for an hours tour around the old quater. No doubt we could have bartered him down for a cheaper trip but we felt bad that this guy looked about 70 and was going to push us around with pedal power for an hour so just went with it. This guy wasn't bothered by any rules of the road. The road was his and we had our lives in his hands! Weaving in and out of the traffic for an hour we slowly made our way through the various streets and around the lake.
There are lots of different sections separated by what they sell. In one street the hawkers will sell clothes, the next shoes,
the next metalwork items etc. If you need something - there's a designated street for it! After our tricycle tour (which blatently wasn't an hour but we'll let him off) we found a bar that had a happy hour! 30p beers - result. Feeling like it must be time for bed we checked the time and it was actually only 4pm.... By this point we were struggling to stay awake in our seats so after a quick walk to book tickets to the water puppet theatre on friday (and a baseball hat for me) we headed back to the sanctuary of our air conditioned room and were in bed by 6pm - such party animals!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.057s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 8; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0288s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb