Star View Hanoi

I am going to Phuket to spend a few days by the beach and plan the nest part of my trip. Travel in Vietnam is testing and the taxis rip you off. For example they have meters but I am convinced that they have been tampered with. On one occasion I paid about 3 pounds, which is a lot of money here to go about two miles. On another nearly 20 pounds for a 10 mile trip whilst searching for a travel agent. I was told to negotiate a fixed rate which the locals do but they but the ...

... et pourtant vrai! La multitude de 2 roues motorises jouant aux spaghettis sur les voies de Hanoi nous plonge dans la perplexite...Ou se cachent-ils s'ils ne sont pas en train de zigzaguer en un ballet 'nouillisant' sur la voie?

Pour certains, ils sont sont sur les trottoirs, gares les uns a cote des autres en des parkings de motos et scooters gigantesques et superbement ordonnes. Mais ils sont aussi et le plus souvent pele-mele sur le trottoir. Pourquoi les pietons ...

... coming down, but no one else going up. I must be crazy, I thought.

After about 35 minutes I reached the top and joined my group. They had ample time to tour the pagoda and it looked like they were ready to go. I quickly went in and snapped some pictures of the scary looking stalactites and the Buddhist altar where two female monks were chanting. I sniffed around for the perfume scent from which the pagoda derived its name, but detected nothing. When I came ...

... them we had no money left. Suzanna had a girl that followed her. We couldn’t communicate and it was only at the end that her mother came up to us and said we should buy something as she had followed us a long way. How guilty did we feel!? They remained unconvinced when we said we had no money. All in all it meant we finished the walk feeling annoyed , partly with the locals, but mainly with our guide. Had he told us what to expect, we could have saved some money for the second ...

... I wondered if our travel insurance would cover out risk-taking cycle tour. Enough said. The day was overcast but dry as we wandered the narrow lanes in the humidity. The streets again changed from 'toy' lined to 'blacksmith' to 'tin ware' then to 'cooking utensils' and so on. The name of each Pho, or lane, is indicative of a particular type of good on sale. We bought a few ...

... awhile. Didnt do a ton of partying in these couple days but we certainly more than made up for it in the next while that followed Orginally we had planned to go to Sapa and then Halong Bay, but we met up with Kat our Australian friend who knew a huge group from her hostel who were going to Halong Bay the next day including the group from Ireland we kept meeting up the coast so we changed our plans and headed off to Halong!

... following day a further 52kms. As we got closer to the border on the 2nd day the km marker boys decided to mess with our heads when 22km became 11km (yippeeeeeeeeeeee I thought) became 20km (****) became 9km (someone got it wrong at the 50km mark and now they're putting it right) became 18km (*******s) at which point we gave up thinking it was the lesser number. We were right to think that. The scenery, however, was stunning, we were riding on a single ...

... Paul jokingly said that they were probably going to send a driver from the city (45 minutes away) and say he was just five minutes away. But after about 10 minutes, a man arrived with a sign bearing our name -- he informed us 5 minutes and the driver would be there. So we waited again -- standing aimlessly due to a shortage of seats anywhere near. In another 10 minutes, another man arrived. But alas his job was only to tell us 5 minutes more again! The reality ...

... book called "The Girl in the Photograph" which was about the girl famously photographed running away from an American napalm strike with arms outstretched) and I'm excited about having a good look around the old 'northern' capital.

Things have certainly changed since the late 60s/early 70s but you can tell that we're still in a very 'socialist' country, there are police and officials everywhere for example.

Hanoi, Vietnam al_fey

... for free. Strangely enough there is a program of music videos playing. The very next song is one by Patti Smith, ‘Summer Cannibals,’ intoning ‘eat eat,’ the pictures themselves all smeary and dis-jointed and exsistential, like some shamanic ritual. I can’t believe it. You don’t see videos by Patti Smith on MTV. When the final credits come on, it reads, ‘directed by Robert Frank.’ Thank you, God, for hearing my call.