Hanoi Vietnam

Trip Start Sep 06, 2007
1
9
28
Trip End Sep 04, 2008


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Flag of Vietnam  ,
Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Up at 4am to catch our flight. Arrived here at 9am. We met up with a Swiss girl Anouk and she stayed with us for the next couple of days.We ended up at the Prince guesthouse which turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. There was an old man asleep in the bed as we got to our room, looked like he lived there but after much giving out to the hotel dude we got the whole bedroom re cleaned! Not the best start you would think.

Anyway Hanoi is mad! One word to describe it is noisy!!!  Cars and motorbikes are constantly hooting their horns, the smaller the vehicle the more it beeps!!!.  We thought the dude who brought us from the airport was a bit reckless turns out the whole population of Hanoi are a bit reckless. You can't imagine it, they don't keep to any side of the road, they don't take heed to traffic lights. If you are crossing the road you are just walking into a sea of scooters and hoping for the best but in fairness to them they are great avoiding colisions! Even when you are walking on the road the people here just walk into you, its a bit mad but you get used to it pretty quickly! I just run behind Sheila when she is braving the Vietnamese safe cross code!

There are 3 million people in Hanoi, 2 million of these have scooters! The footpaths are out of bounds pretty much for pedestrians they are the parking areas for the scooters they even bring the scooters into hotel lobbys and their homes!

Vietnamese is a great city but they are not as partial to the old haggling business as the Thai's but they are lovely, friendly and genuine. Minus the really annoying dude who followed us for ages when we arrive this morning! 
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