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The Hustle
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Arrival in Hanoi is characterised by hassling cries from left, right and centre "motorbike", "buy something", "come in please", etc. Prices tend to be high for tourists and non-negotiable, we found the people to be far less friendly than elsewhere in the country and probably for that reason we didn't like the city much. It is however the capital of Vietnam and the place to organise tours of the north and spend all your money. The old town is a sprawling mass of narrow alleyways and small streets which are constantly driven by screaming motorbikes and cars (there are in fact more cars in the north!). Needless to say this makes navigating the streets a pain since one can hardly move, at least not very rapidly. Another thing to say about town is the number of lakes, they are everywhere but hardly clean even though people are constantly fishing in them.
We set out to visit Hanoi by foot and came across the Ho Chi Minh Complex, it contains stilt temples, a palace and Ho's mausoleum. Not really being interested in the mausoleum (a gray square building) we found some exit signs to follow, unfortunately this put us in the line to enter said building and the guard wouldn't let us leave. So of course we saw Ho's body or a wax version of the same thing - all very creepy.
From here we organised a boat trip to Halong Bay which is a sea of karst peaks, we say organised but there was nothing organised about this tour. You get picked up in a mini-van with some other people, driven to the bay, separated into other groups, wait around for a while, board a boat with a varying number of people and have nothing explained to you by the "english speaking guide". The bay itself is amazing, the rocks jutting out of the sea, some 2000 of them, are designated islands 900 of which have names and include the symbol of Vietnam found on the 200,000 VND note.
We landed at Cat Ba national park for the first night and partied with some people from our boat before the next day setting out on a trek for some views over the park. The trek was pretty simple but the youngsters obviously drink too much :) and took forever. Anyway we sailed off again for another nights partying on the boat, had a great time after downing 8 beers and a bottle of rum. We did have to fight the crew off our money though since they tried to charge 5000VND extra for the privilege of drinking our own beer!! The next morning kayaking around the islands was a killer since it started at 6.30am.
Latest Comments (1)
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Hanoi (reply)
Jan 15, 2008 10:12 EST by baroudeuse
Je garde pour ma part un très bon souvenir d'Hanoi !!! Allez voir le spectacle des marionnettes sur eau c'est vraiment bien..
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