First day in Hanoi

I finally crashed at 8pm Vietnam time last night and didn't wake until 9.30am, it was a well deserved sleep. We eventually got out of the hostel about midday into blazing heat and humidity. I kind of expected Vietnam to be similar to India, but actually it is a vast improvement in terms of dirt and poverty. It is a clean city considering and I have not seen anyone begging or hassling us for money. Vietnamese girls are all very pretty - a lot of them wear ridiculous high heels, hot pants/skirts and small strappy tops, designer bags (probably fake) and long jet black, super straight hair. There was me worrying about being the typical British girl not respecting local people by packing very conservative clothes. Everything I have for both on and off the bike comes past my knees and elbows!

Along the streets, there are hundreds of small temporarily set up stalls that sell either drinks or hot cooked food (some of it unrecognisable!). I know they are temporary because whilst eating lunch, I watched one lady serving noodles, looking like she was there for good, but no, she suddenly started to stop serving, pack everything up in her yoke and off she went, cleaning the spot she has picked behind her. The stalls are surrounded by nursery-sized plastic stools that customers crouch on.

At lunch and dinner times the people sit across the whole pavement, so you have to walk around them in the road to get past - it's great.

Lunch for me was king prawns with chilli and lemongrass and rice and vegetables, it was de-licious and cost just 2 pounds 10p - excellent!


One crazy thing about Hanoi? SCOOTERS EVERYWHERE!!! Jeepers, it is an art to cross the road! Scooters are completely outnumbered to cars and they are quite often seen with a family of 4 on them (a great similarity to India!). To cross the road, you cannot wait for it to clear, because it just never is. You just have to walk and let the scooters determine which way they go around you. There are zerba crossings and a green man light to tell you when to cross, but you still have scooters coming in every single direction possible, you almost have to do a constant 360 degree turn when crossing. There are lots of people on bicycles here too though, carrying all sorts :)

I am also a millionaire now. There is about 30,000 dong to one British pound, so changing up $150 today gave me nearly 3 million dong. It's hard to get used to the currency!

Today, we walked around the 'French quarter', although I have to say, there is nothing very French about it. Then wondered to the Hoan Kiem Lake where we sat on a bench. We were offered weed, various postcards and asked if we could help with some English from a local. Then we walked to the 'Old Quarter' and this is the kind of Hanoi I thought it was going to be. Busy with plenty of hustle and bustle, street stalls everywhere selling everything you could possibly wish for - I loved it, but it was comforting knowing that just a couple of blocks along it was calm and quiet. I have to restrain myself from buying only the essentials on this trip because I have to carry it. It is going to be hard because I saw so many beautiful things that I would love to bring back to furnish my home. I did buy one thing though - a handbag with a embroidered picture of a Vietnamese lady with a conical straw hat on a bike! I had to have it :)