Vietnam: Hanoi

Scott and I arrived in Hanoi at night-time and had a terrible first impression of it due to combined factors of culture shock and our lack of research and preparation... I hadn't looked up how to get from the airport to the Old Quarter, and all we had was the name of a hotel where our friends were staying but no map or guidebook or address for it! We jumped off the public bus from the airport with no idea and no-one speaking English, and asked directions to Old Quarter where we hoped to find an internet cafe to look up addresses and maps etc... but do you think we could find a single computer with internet?! No-where! Our moods were disintegrating by the minute as we trudged through the packed streets looking for an elusive hotel nobody had heard of, evading all the cyclo, taxi, and hotel touts who wanted to take us other places, soaking in sweat under all our packs, getting nicked by motorbikes on the roads because the paths were packed with Vietnamese people sitting on tiny stools... And everywhere just horns honking and terrible smells and junk being thrust in our faces to buy.

We couldn't catch a break that night as we finally gave in to a lady offering a good price for a hotel room with wifi (so we could contact our friends) but she ended up driving us to another one, which was full, so we were put in a little room behind reception, and then the power went off for ages... and then we went out for food and got given FISH springrolls (and you know how much Scott and I love fish) when we ordered normal ones... it's funny in retrospect but at the time it wasn't!!!

Luckily the next morning we found Matt and Nadeane straight away and suddenly the city changed to being fun! We walked around all day and I took lots of photos, everywhere I looked was an awesome photo op; old ladies in conical hats carrying fruit on a pole over their shoulder, men sitting on tiny chairs on the street smoking pipes and playing some sort of checkers game, little kids playing with little puppies amongst the parked scooters, and so much street food being cooked, stirred, chopped, sprinkled and slurped at every corner.

Matt had been here for a couple of days so knew his way around really well which was great because the little streets were so confusing and copies of the same shops popped up all over the place so it was hard to find landmarks to go by. We walked to a MASSIVE park in the evening where it seems the entire population of Hanoi exercise and play games and socialise at the same time; it was so fun to watch the soccer games, badminton, foot-volleyball, really old skinny men stretching, young built guys working out on outdoor gym equipment, ladies hoola hooping, etc. That night we went to a restaurant and shared a hotpot where you cook your own meat, noodles and veg in a sort of fondue thing which was yum, and then took videos of crossing the main intersection which last night was hell but tonight was exhilarating! The theory is just to walk and let the traffic swerve around you but it's so hard to get into that mindset and not to stop and start when a wall of motorbikes is heading towards you!