Vietnam Part III- Hanoi

The bus ride to Hanoi was pretty miserable. Due to a booking error and a Vietnamese holiday we were unable to get seats on the overnight “sleeper” bus and instead ended up on the “sitting” bus. We were the only foreigners on the bus, they blasted Vietnamese karaoke music all through the night, and I was sitting next to an old lady who had no sense of personal space and had no problem making herself completely comfortable (at my expense). Let’s just say I didn’t get much sleep. The icing on the cake? When we arrived in Hanoi and retrieved our bags from underneath the bus we discovered that our bags were covered in….you guessed it... SHRIMP PASTE. If you don’t know what shrimp paste smells like, consider yourself lucky. It is the most god-awful stench you will ever smell. How our bags got covered in shrimp paste remains a mystery. Luckily after some serious scrubbing we were able to get the majority of the smell out. 555.

Hanoi, much like Saigon, is a crazy city. The traffic here is the worst I have seen. There are thousands of motorbikes everywhere. There are no traffic lights or real cross walks. Traffic is really just a free for all. Constant beeping of horns. Crossing the street is even more terrifying than Saigon. At least in Saigon they would slow down or stop for you. In Hanoi, they just honk at you and expect you to get out of their way. Insane.

Hanoi is actually a pretty interesting city. Each street in the city has a “specialty”. If you need shoes you can go to one street and you will find 30 different vendors all selling shoes. Need sunglasses? Go to another street and you will find an equal number of shops that only sell sunglasses. There are also no real “markets” in the city. If you want fruit or fresh produce, just wait for a Vietnamese woman wearing a conical hat to ride by on her bike carrying pineapple, bananas, fresh flowers, etc.   Quite convenient actually.

I didn’t really enjoy my time in Hanoi. I found the city to be dirty, crowded and noisy. The city is small enough to walk around but you can’t really walk anywhere because there are no sidewalks. I got pretty tired of trying to dodge motorbikes, cars and other obstacles along the street while trying to explore and enjoy the city.

Luckily we were able to get out of the city for a few days on a couple of day trips.