Good morning Vietnam!

Trip Start Sep 10, 2008
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Trip End Sep 03, 2009


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Flag of Vietnam  ,
Friday, June 26, 2009

As always, it seems, the trip from the airport to the hostel certainly threw up many unexpected sights. That was, at least, once I had managed to locate my taxi driver. At first I just thought he was late. But after everyone else from my flight had disappeared off, I decided to call the hostel. This proved to be a lot of hassle in itself as I ended up having to buy a sim card and of course, got totally ripped off for the privilege paying about 3 times its worth and the woman was refusing to barter. Calling the hostel the lady told me to go and wait by the meeting point. The meeting point turned out to be non-existent. Asking a couple of people they all said there used to be one and told me a different place as to where it used to be. I decided to go back and stand by the gate. After a while a security guard came along, amongst all the usually taxi drivers drumming up business and asked me what I was doing. Eventually he made me go and sit down, obviously he felt some sort of urge to assert his authority. Can't have foreign tourists standing in the airport can we now?!

Eventually, after many phone calls, both to the hostel and the driver, who spoke no English, calling me, somehow he managed to find me. Driving past 3 bikes each with a huge tree on the back (thick trunks and probably not much shorter than me) I wondered how on earth they were going to be transported, and how they got the things to stay on in the first place, and how the bikes hadn't fallen over. I also managed to spot 5 people riding on one motorbike, and a family of 3, who whilst the Dad was driving the motorcycle down the highway, the mother was changing the baby's nappy. As we got closer into the centre I got my first glimpse of life in Vietnam, everything, from restaurants to barbers, is conducted in the middle of the street.

It turns out that this makes it pretty difficult to walk down the street, with having to avoid the people sitting on the tiny stools, the kind they use for reception class, every 2 metres, meaning you have to step out into the road a chance it with the huge volume of motorcycles driving down the street. Crossing the road is certainly a challenge. Basically, wait for there to be no cars and then just step out, staring the oncoming motorcycles in the eye and praying that they will swerve round you, which they will as that is how things are done here!

Once I got over the culture shock, I began to really like Hanoi. Commercialism certainly isn't present here, which is pretty refreshing. People are very friendly, if you sit by the lake, people come and talk to you to practise their English and find out a bit about your life compared to theirs. And here, they genuinely are practising their English rather than just trying to sell you something/get your money in some other way. An IT student started chatting to me one day whilst I was sat here. It turns out, our lives have more in common than I thought they would. The big noticeable difference however, was the opportunities. In the UK, we have huge opportunities to get a good job, to travel, to live how we want to live if we are willing to work hard enough for it. In Vietnam, those opportunities are a lot harder to come by, if present at all.

I had enough time in Hanoi to have a good walk around, the old quarter isn't too large. The markets are bustling with life, motorcycles squeezing down narrow alleyways, dodging women balancing baskets attached to a pole on their shoulders, piled high with food. The classic, conical hat is everywhere here, cheap, lightweight and effective, you possible couldn't buy a more practical hat!
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