Vietnam- Hanoi city!

Trip Start Mar 01, 2008
1
18
24
Trip End Sep 2008


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Where I stayed
we got lost and followed some kid to a cheap hotel
(Hanoi hotels)

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Thursday, August 21, 2008

Hello Hanoi!!!  Wow, Vietnam is non stop people and scooters in Hanoi.  When we took our airport minibus to the center of town to look for a place to stay, we were bombarded by thousands of motor scooters whizzing by, it was quite a task crossing the street with our luggage-this was on the main highway, but just getting through ANY street was difficult.  Scooters fly by every direction, seemingly never stopping at intersections, just slowing down a little bit while other scooters come straight at each other narrowly missing a hit.  The sidewalks are also hard to get by on, as people are either eating at makeshift portable restaurants- i.e.- tiny plastic tables and stools, and a portable stove with bowls of condiments and food-people are always eating and people just pack up the 'restaurant' and move it to another area frequently.  There are cigarette stands on the sidewalks, as well as people selling fruit-mainly women who you see walking all over the city, wearing the signature Vietnam 'conical' hat to keep the sun out of their face, carrying a large stick across their shoulders with baskets of fruit hanging from both sides, the older women hunched over from years of carrying their labor Vietnam Airlines
Vietnam Airlines
 . 

As the scooters and old school 70's rusty bicycles seem to be the main form of transportation here, everything imaginable in uncanny quantities is carried on them- it is quite common to see a bundle of 20 foot long metal poles, or 10 water cooler bottles, trees, 10 sacks of assorted goods- anything usually carried in the back of a pickup truck is casually transported on bikes, along with 3 kids strapped in somewhere.  It's amazing how they do it.
The streets in Hanoi are very old, and were originally named after the goods that were produced and sold on that street, many of which have not changed over the years.  Most of the shops were not variety goods, but specialty for one item- a metal store, a bamboo store, basket store, a fan store, a pillow store, a bird store, a sock store, etc. etc.  The buildings were an interesting ecclectic of Asian and French styling, as Vietnam used to be under French ruling.  They would have large windows, lattice work railings, yet many of them now old and worn looking.

We found a cute little French style bar one night, and shortly after we ordered our drinks, the front metal gates were pulled down, as the bars close very early here, around 11 pm.  Shortly after the gates went down, we hear a knock on the gate, and immediately the music was shut off and in a whisper we (about 10 other patrons) were told to go upstairs and hide in a secret room because the police were there.  They turned the light off in the room and we were told to not to make a noise, it was totally nerve-racking when someone looked in the window of the room, but didn't come in.  A few minutes later the coast was clear and the party started again downstairs, but then when we wanted to leave we had to go back upstairs, and check with three different lookouts for the cops before we were let out through a door upstairs and were directed down a hall to leave through a door in an alley down the block.  It was definitely a good time if only for the adrenaline of feeling of sneaking around.

After a few days in hanoi, there isn't alot of activities, and we will take a boat tour to the World Heritage Site of Halong Bay next.
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