Pete & Rach's Big Trip: Hanoi: 12-17 and 21-26 Oct 2013

With friends from our hostel at Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum

Pete says:

We weren't sure what to expect in Vietnam and as we drove into the city I thought it looked horrible - really dark and not the safest of places. However, we stayed in the central 'Old Quarter' and it turned out to be the best place to be.

I liked all of the food and drink places which were just basic concrete rooms with tiny
plastic stools and tables on the street (like primary school furniture). Sometimes, the bar owners would come around panicking because they heard the police were on the way and they aren't supposed to have people sitting in the road drinking. At this point we would all go through the process of squeezing on to the pavement and a battered van containing two policemen would park up and just sit there laughing at the commotion they caused before driving off. The police just look like locals with a shirt on.

Eating, drinking and socialising in the street

And so began the Hanoi to Saigon food tour.

I found the money hard to adjust to. Most of the time I had about 4 million dong in my wallet! £1 is equal to 32,000 in their money. It takes a while to get used to being told your bill is 300,000 and then taking a moment to realise that is just under £10 so no need to panic.

What you get for £10 a night in Hanoi

Everything is very cheap - much cheaper than China. £10 per night for a room at the Little Hanoi Diamond hostel (a good room with cable tv, breakfast, free bananas, etc, - this paid off while I was laid up in bed for 4 days), £1-2 for a meal and bottled beer around 50p. Some places sold 'Bia Hoi', which is a general name for home brew as far as I can tell, but it tastes fine and costs between 15 - 25p a glass.

Bun Bo Nam Bo, breakfast of champions.

The best food was Bun Bo Nam Bo, a local speciality - a bowl of noodles, bean sprouts and various leaves (coriander, mint and other stuff), some slices of fried beef and crushed nuts and some sort of broth poured on top. We ate this for breakfast a lot and any other time we didn't want a big meal. It only cost a pound or so for a portion.

The weather was savagely hot, around 32 - 34 degrees, and extremely humid. We kept going out for walks, getting too hot so stopping for a drink, then downing beer after beer due to a combination of heat and the beer being 25p. Often we would then find we had little energy to walk further. I ended up buying some vest tops to cope! Luckily they were only about £2 each.

From what I had heard we would need to be careful about robbery and scams in Hanoi, but the only thing that really annoyed me was the taxis. They are all criminals! Every hotel warns you not to use them and they inevitably take you on a ridiculous route to rack up the meter. We only used them on one occasion and got out after a short while as I knew he was driving us the wrong way but he kept going on about "one way systems". I don't understand how they remain in business when they are so widely known to be dishonest. Other than taxis the other would-be con men were pathetically obvious. Sometimes a motorbike driver would go to shake my hand, whilst giving a really obvious signal to someone else to pick our pockets. As soon as I looked round a couple of men would quickly turn about and try to look nonchalant. It was quite funny and only happened a couple of times but I expect some people must fall for it.

Rach says:

It was 32 degrees and already dark when we arrived at Hanoi airport at 6.30pm, so we knew it was going to be scorching. Thankfully we were looking forward to taking it a bit easy, after finishing with our China schedule (we had to produce a day-by-day itinerary and book up all our hotels and flights before we could even apply for our Chinese visa).

There's a pavement under there somewhere...

We loved the Old Quarter in Hanoi and barely stepped outside it even though we spent 10 nights in the city. It's chaos! The roads are chock-a-block with scooters (often 3+ to a single scooter, including babies without helmets), pedestrians and street sellers wearing the traditional conical hats. The pavements are full of shop wares, parked scooters and people sitting on tiny plastic stools enjoying their Bun Bo Nam Bo, Pho Bo (beef noodle soup) and Bia Hoi. There is no choice but to walk in the road, narrowly dodging speeding scooters as you go. We did learn that it was essential to maintain a slow and steady pace, so that they can (hopefully!) negotiate around you.

Old Quarter

Butchered dogs on a Hanoi street

Shopping is split by street, with every shop in that street selling exactly the same items, from funeral flowers and coffins to toys, tacky jewellery and clothes to metalwork...and even butchered dogs. Just like in China, everything is fake. There is even a street selling the card tags for various shops and brands (H&M, Gap, Versace etc.) to add to the clothes that are made here, along with the sew in labels for Levis jeans.

There are parts of the city where the train track passes directly through the residential area and people's front doors are within a metre or so of the track. I found this quite fascinating as it is so different from home. We walked the whole stretch of track and determined that the locals must know the times of the daily trains very well (or maybe they just jump out of the way?!), as they are hanging their washing out, sitting on the tracks and even watching their children play there.

Life on the tracks

One of the few genuine artists

We had thought Hanoi a very arty city - shops with amazing original artworks are everywhere - that is until we discovered a concept that is new to us, but very real...mass produced artworks made in China! The skilled real artists are paid paltry amounts to copy famous paintings and create imaginative originals. These are then bought in bulk and sold by these sham artists on the streets, who always have a painting 'on the go' and pretend to the painting it.

It was in Hanoi that I finally started the blog! The 6 week delay (blame China's internet laws) is partly the reason why we are still SO behind with it now; we have also had real difficulty finding computers and decent internet (next time we travel we will definitely take a laptop!). So whilst Pete was laid up in bed after our jaunt to Bac Ha, I was typing away, uploading, downloading, and developing a taste for Vietnamese-style Lipton tea with condensed milk, downing cups and cups of the stuff until beer o'clock rolled around at about 4pm.

And lastly, I officially blend in with the locals...I was told for the third time so far on this trip that I have an "Asian Face" (by our hotel receptionist). (First time: Mongolian farmer on the Great Wall said I look like her daughter, Second time: a lady in Chengdu asked if I have Chinese heritage.)