Hanoi

Vietnam

October 2006
4 days

We landed in Hanoi at night and our hotel were there with a board at arrivals to drive us to the old quarter. We checked in smoothly to our backpacker hotel place, although they tried to sell us a tour as soon as we arrived - we declined and went to our room, on the 6th with no lift.

Hanoi is a mental place, very busy crazy architecture (every building is different) very noisy, sometimes smelly but totally interesting.

We mastered crossing the road while there are millions of motor scooters zooming around us, the trick is to go very sloooowly so the bikes can swerve to avoid you. We did see some old guy get hit by a bus, we were eating lunch and heard a bang, looked around and saw this guy and his bike literally under a bus - it was pretty scary but the bus rode high so he wasnt badly hurt - i think we saw him having a massive go at the driver after pedestrians helped him out from under the bus.

We did some very touristy things in Hanoi, we bought a lonely planet from a street vendor - it was 3quid brand new (i think its fake, but who cares, its even got colour photos) - armed with our guide book we wandered around alot. We did a walking tour in the book which was interesting, and we went to a couple of temples.

The Temple of Literature is so beautiful and peaceful - it was the first university in vietnam and has amazing architecture.

We also discovered something called Bia Hoi, which is vietnamese for 'fresh beer' - beer produced by a local micro brewerer with no preservatives which is 7 pence a glass! you sit on the street on little stools outside bia hoi shops and drink away - awesome, well the price is right and it tastes nice, distinctive, but nice.

We booked a tour with our hotel in the end, we sorted out a 3 day tour to Ha Long Bay, 3 hours north east.

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