Food poisoning in Hanoi
Trip Start
Jan 11, 2009
1
35
53
Trip End
Apr 12, 2009
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Hanoi,
Vietnam
Saturday, February 28, 2009
video of traffic in Hanoi
. We never thought Bangkok could be beat in terms of traffic, but we found Hanoi to take the top spot!That evening we attempted to walk around the neighborhood, but ran into the challenge of not being able to cross the street because of the traffic. We thought that Bangkok was like the computer game Frogger, but that was just practice for Hanoi Frogger which is 5 times as deadly. You cannot just run across in one go, you have to cross in 5-10 pace intervals, as the craziness on wheels veers around you. We spent 20 minutes discussing strategy on how to cross our first street, our first plan was to continually loop the block but that would mean eating nothing but pizza and croissants so in the end we decided to study the locals and then imitate their methods. It worked! The traffic is primarily scooters so once a clean throng of scooters comes (minus cars) you just walk out slowly and make agreeable eye contact with each driver to let them know you mean them no harm. As each driver swerves kindly behind, you are able to advance a few more paces. About 1 in every 20 drivers wants to run you over so the rate of advancement is quite good.
We spent most of our time in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, walking the various shopping and market streets. The street names designate the item sold on that block - Luggage Street, Shoe Street, Ritz Cracker Boulevard, Gizzard Way, Boiled Dog Lane
1 - view from our hotel
. The old quarter is a mish mash of small shops and restaurants selling and cooking anything you can think of. There are many women carrying bamboo pole's with two balanced baskets on each end. Their strategy of selling is very interesting as it consists of thrusting the bamboo pole into your neck and pinning you against the wall while asking if you would like some pineapple. While we managed to mutter no thank you through our stressed vocal cords we found using elbows was more effective in expressing negation. The one peaceful area free of touts was the lake in the center of the Old Quarter, which was quite beautiful and serene. Hanoi took a turn for the worse when A2 picked up a vicious round of food poisoning. Man, it was bad... A2 had a long miserable night evacuating her favorite Vietnamese dish through every possible exit. Strike Bun Vermicelli off the list for a few years. Sigh... Our hotel staff was really wonderful and let us stay late in the room, way past checkout time, so A2 could continue recovering and rest up for a night train out of Hanoi. Just as franchise food (Dominos Pizza) saved us in Istanbul when we were ill and could not consider eating Turkish food, so this time it was KFC in Vietnam.
We wanted to book a private (2 person) sleeper cabin to Northwest Vietnam, but they were all sold out, so we ended up purchasing all 4 sleepers in one cabin. We wanted to be sure that no one would smoke in our cabin and the only way to do this was to buy all four beds. It ended up being a good thing, since A2 was still recovering and we really needed the peace and quiet of our own cabin. We heard that the non-smoking laws are not enforced on the train so we were very nervous about being miserable for 10 hours with smokers all around
2 - side view from our hotel
. The train station had a huge non-smoking sign, and of course everyone sitting under it was smoking. Not a good start to the train experience we thought, but in the end no one was smoking in our car. We attempted to sleep, but there was something seriously wrong with our train car, it made a horrible shotgun firing noise every few seconds at non-regular intervals. We thought perhaps the train company had hired sharp shooters to kill bandits and it was just a busy night. We didn't sleep much and to make sure we didn't miss our end of the line stop at 5:30AM they woke everyone up on the train with blaring traditional Vietnamese music. It was a cheerful song and sounded particularly good when accompanied by the shot gun blasts from beneath the train. After this we took an hour ride through windy roads in a minibus to the hotel, and then we passed out for a 4 hour nap. 
