Good Morning Vietnam!!
Trip Start
Aug 07, 2008
1
23
79
Trip End
Ongoing
Hanoi,
Vietnam
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
We arrived in Vietnam yesterday after a 7 hour bus ride which was not bad at all! We expected to have to find transportation and get ripped off several times before we got here, but we got here fairly easy and only got ripped off once! =)
For the past month or so, all I have been looking forward to was Vietnam and Thailand. Not because of the culture, history, scenery, etc. It was purely due to the food (I am a fatty, I know). So for the past week or so, I was getting even more excited for Vietnam and when we finally arrived yesterday I felt like a little kid going to the candy store! I couldn't wait to drink the iced coffees, beers and all the wonderful food. Byoung told me not to expect too much because he didn't want me to get disappointed, but let me tell you.....the food here is WONDERFUL
A small intersection in Hanoi
! From the moment we arrived in this crazy motorbike city I loved it here. We arrived by bus with an Irish couple and as the bus began slowing down we were bombarded by taxis! This is where we got majorly ripped off. If you break it down dollar wise it wasn't so bad. But the $4 we were charged to get to our hostel was outrageous. It should have cost us maybe a dollar!
As soon as we checked into our room (Hanoi Backpackers Hostel:where we stayed in a room of about 12 ppl and paid $15) we left our luggage and went in search of food. YUM. We had pho, spring rolls, a spring roll-esque roll, vermicelli and of course an iced coffee. The iced coffee was SO GOOD I didn't know if I should gulp it down(which I started to) or savor it(which I ended up doing with the last half). After we felt full, we went back to our extremely noisy and bustling hostel to figure out what to do while in Hanoi. We decided on doing a tour to Halong Bay and checking out the hostel across the street "just to see". We found out that we could have A/C(in this 90 degree 95% humidity), a private room and our own bathroom for just one more dollar. That was a no brainer for us and we booked a room for the next night.
We then took a stroll around the city taking in the sights(mostly motorbikes!), the smells(mostly the exhaust of the motorbikes) and the sounds(mostly horns blaring). We also found an awesome little beer corner where we were able to sit, get almost hit by motorbikes and most importantly...buy draft beer for 3,000 Dong which is equal to about almost 20 cents!!! We were also able to sit with some "locals" and get to know a little more about the city. All in all, it was a great first day in Vietnam.
Second day started off just as great as the first. We had snail pho for breakfast, yummy vermicelli for lunch at a restaurant full of locals and a plate of fried goodness as a snack! Oh, we also went to a couple museums that were pretty cool. =)
Our next update will be when we get back from Halong Bay!!
Comments
did you say snails!?
They put snails in your PHO!?!