Hanoi

Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam, is absolutely chaotic. A great introduction back into south-east asia but it did test my stress levels. We flew from Tokyo to Seoul and then got a connecting flight to Hanoi. First off, this was a terrible flight. The korean airlines plane was tiny, there was no leg room and the food was shockingly bad. We got into Hanoi at around 10:30 pm and got our visas at immigration. We had accommodation booked in the Bodega Hotel in the Old Quarter and they had emailed me to say that they were sending a driver to pick us up at the airport for free. This would help us to avoid all the touts and scams at the airport that try and lure you into another hotel. I wasn’t anticipating any issues with this arrangement but i was wrong.

The taxi driver was an asshole, there’s just no other way to describe him. Even though he worked for the Bodega hotel he still tried to take us to a rival hotel and no matter how much i roared at him to take us to the Bodega he still tried everything to get us to another place. Eventually he gave in and drove us around the city for about 45 minutes trying to raise the cost of the taxi trip. When we got to the hotel, I had to threaten him again just to get our luggage from the boot of the car and then he asked for $30 for the taxi trip. What an asshole. I didnt pay him a penny. When we got into the hotel we found out that they had screwed up our reservation. Instead of getting 2 single rooms for 2 nights they had reserved 1 single room for 4 nights. This meant that I spent the first night in a dorm room with 2 other guys and a bunch of cockroaches. I was fuming. A terrible introduction to Vietnam.

Thankfully, things improved a lot on the next day. I was given my single room and it was much better, no cockroaches either. I’m realising that the day staff in these hotels are much better and more courteous than the night staff. The weather in vietnam is incredibly hot and humid. It’s tough to even walk a couple of km’s in this heat but we spent the day walking around Hanoi. The streets of Hanoi are cray, all you see are motorbikes everywhere. They don’t seem to follow any rules and just crossing the street is an adventure. A minor miracle that neither of us got knocked down in our few days here but it was enough to get us to go back to the hotel and book some travel insurance asap.

There’s not a lot to see and do in Hanoi. The main attraction in the area is in Halong Bay, 3 1/2 hours east of the city or Sapa in the north. We booked our trip on the Saturday with Handspan travel. We also booked our seat on the train from Hanoi to Hoi An and we got to see Ireland lose to the All Blacks, again, in an Aussie bar. One of the highlights of Hanoi is the cheap beer. ‘Bia Hanoi’ only costs about $1 in the majority of places and you can draught beer for cheaper in some pubs. The food here is excellent as well. The traditional dish is Pho, basically noodles with broth and either chicked beef or pork. You can get a bowl for about $2. Great value. It’s so great to go out on a saturday night, get good food and have 5 or 6 beers and pay only around $10.

Walking down the street, we were approached by local vietnamese people about every 10 seconds. Everyone of them says ‘Hey, guy, motobike’ or “you want book” and then they come up close to you and ask if you want marijuana, heroin or opium. It’s hilarious. Hanoi is just crazy and apparently Saigon is crazier so that should be fun.