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Published: January 27th 2007
We arrived in Hanoi yesterday at about 7:30 after an hour and 20min flight from Bangkok. We were met at the airport by a very snazzy looking car with leather seats and a driver in a suit! We hoped into the car and were slightly thrown off as the steering wheel was on the wrong side! It’s the weirdest thing! The drive into Hanoi was...interesting. Turns out they all use their horns every second (apparently if they stop honking they die...it’s like breathing??) and our driver was a fan of pressing the accelerator...then releasing it...then pressing it...then releasing it....you get the drift. Apparently pedestrians and push bikes can use the freeway too...we saw a bunch of factory workers walking to work on the freeway.
After about 1/2 an hour we reached the outskirts of Hanoi...it was basically as I expected...lots of really cute French looking SKINNY long houses (taxes were charged by the amount of street frontage as a result everyone resorted to having very narrow houses) which are all pretty low (most aren't above 2 stories as they weren't allowed to be higher than the Royal Palace although a few of them are a bit higher now). As we
reached the Old Quarter (where our hotel is) the traffic slowed and the number of scooters, motorbikes and cyclos multiplied like rabbits!! We reached our hotel about 45mins after we left the airport.
Our bags were carried up stairs by two hotel employees....thank god...even they were exhausted by the end! Turns out we're on the 4th floor...that's 75 very steep steps to climb up every time we want to go to our room!
Our room is really nice....we have a double bed and a single bed and it’s quite a big, especially in comparison to our room in Bangkok which was basically a bed and a bathroom. It also made us realise just how much cheaper Vietnam will be! In Bangkok we paid about 38USD a night...here we are paying 22USD...and it’s much nicer!
After we admired our room we headed out to find the market we had seen on our drive to the hotel. With pure skill we managed to find the market, which unlike Pat Pong, was not full of prostitutes and men saying 'ping-pong show', but instead was mostly full of locals...very pushy locals. We spent about an hour and a half looking at
the stalls. Hanoi fashion is a lot more backward than it was in Bangkok...although there are still quite a few really cute finds and all the 'designer' jeans and coats...you can even find yourself a pair of Mobil service station undies! All the locals were really rugged up in coats and scarves...we were wearing shorts and a jumper...it’s about 16degrees.
We headed back to our hotel at about 10:30 then went to bed. Sleeping here is easier said than done....the honking I mentioned before didn't stop all night!! They also play random music when they feel like it and we think it was about 7am when we got woken up by a huge voice
booming over the PA with what we think was communist propaganda which started and then stopped and then started again etc.
We decided to spend our day doing a Lonely Planet walking tour of the Old Quarter, which started at the Ngoc Son Temple (dedicated to the scholar Van Xuong (the patron saint of physicians)) and then wound through the various streets in the old quarter. There is heaps to look at in Hanoi...it’s all very pretty and quaint. A lot of the streets
are named after the trade the specialise in...Which basically means Shoe Street, Clothes Street, Gravestone Street etc....very handy when you want something specific!! I managed to find a cute handmade Vietnamese silk wallet which cost me a whole 1AUD...I decided it wasn't worth bartering! We stumbled across a fresh food market along the way...there were heaps of fresh veggies, meat, seafood (they were making crab paste from live crabs!!), flowers, herbs annnnd DOG. We were walking along thinking wow that meat is a weird colour, and then looked at the head and it was a dog. We know dog was a delicacy in the North but we didn’t really expect to see it on the first day.
We stopped for lunch at a local restaurant which was really yummy...and cost a whole 5AUD! Very excessive. We continued our walking tour until about 3:30 when we stopped at the famous Vietnamese bakery "Baguette and Chocolat"...YUM...Scott had a croissant and I had a yummy white and milk chocolate tart....mmmm....cost us about 2AUD (including drinks).
We made our way slowly back to the hotel looking at coats and shoes and just about anything else along the way and arrived back at
about 5...and decided that after our hard day we should go get a traditional massage!! It cost us 12USD each for a 75minute massage....I think that Viet massage is better than Thai, it was really nice (except for when they massaged your bum).
We had dinner at a local street kitchen which was really nice and, as with everywhere else; cheap....we had 4 dishes and 2 drinks which came to a bit under 8AUD.
Tomorrow we are planning on seeing more of the Old Quarter, including a HUGE market (which employs about 3000 staff) and perhaps a few of the Viet-American War museums.
Enjoy the photos....we shall keep you updated!
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Chloe
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whoohooo school tomorrow
hellllo bianca and scotty! thankyou so much for the regular updates, you are keeping me entertained at work which is very quiet. christie loved reading your blogs and it got her very excited! she leaves tomorrow for thailand! i patrolled on friday which was very boring cause noone drowned. a little boy cornered me for about half an hour cause he was paranoid there were sharks in the water! i also got verrrry sunburnt, my nose blistered and nearly peeeled but i packed on the aloe vera and moisteriser and it is nearly back to normal. i also still have sunglasses on my face. i start school tomorrow which sucks and i am so not looking forward to it! becasue i keep on getting emails from you guys which make me very jealous, especially the one about the kookai shop as i can imagine how cheap it would have been! grrrrr have fun! everything is so bloody cheap over there. remember to get me family guy:) much love chloe xoxoxxo