Our introduction to Hanoi

First of all, apologies for the slow post here. We've been a bit distracted. A teaser below, but more on that later...

Arrival into Hanoi was in the evening, and we had prearranged a car to take us into our hotel in the city. This turned out to be an adventure all on its own. We had our hotel booked in the old quarter, which has very narrow roads and is quite busy late into the night. It turns out, we were in "beer street", which is pretty much totally insane. The driver wasn't super impressed, the roads were clogged with people and restaurant tables and chairs and the whole thing was like a claustrophobia nightmare playing out in real life. We were dropped off with one big scratch left on the car from a table, and checked in after a few issues with finding the booking. The picture below was the typical night scene outside our hotel, we still don't know how we made it there in a car. It was an interesting introduction to Vietnam!

We ventured out early the next morning to find a totally different scene awaiting us. The old town during the day is less crazy and the opportunity to walk the back streets and watching everyday life unfolding is just fascinating. Watching newly arrived tourist trying to navigate the waves of people, traffic and heat also added to the fascination. It is hard not to wonder what the locals think of all the tourists, we suspect they also enjoy the people watching over their morning coffees. 

Hanoi is an interesting place, and the first really noticeable feature (at least in the centre part of the city) is the traffic. Crazy traffic is nothing new in Asian cities, with a whole bunch of motor scooters flying everywhere, of course. However, in the narrow streets of the old town a new element is added, especially when mixed with a variety of other traffic, including cars, buses, small tourist buses and jeeps, as well as bicycles and rickshaws ("cyclos"). There are vehicles moving in every direction, no quarter is given (and very little space) and crossing the road turns into an exercise in raw courage. We got the hang of it, more or less, and had at least a couple of breaks in coffee shops overlooking the road just to watch the traffic. The worst accident we saw was the scrape down the side of our car when we came in from the airport, and this is clearly due to a sophisticated sonar-based traffic flow management scheme. Everyone is constantly hitting the horn on their vehicle, not so much in anger as for position locating, and they then proceed to dive and duck around each other with unrealistic efficiency. Traffic signals mostly are just vague guidelines, and there are few lane markings (again, only guidelines). Somehow it all just works, although even after 3 days it still induced a lot of head shaking.

We spent most of our time moving around on foot, trying to get an "on the ground" feel for the place. The city is a fascinating place, with a clear European (French) influence with the buildings. There are many grand buildings, including the Presidential residence and the Opera House, but that influence is still clear on the ordinary residential buildings as well - although the do seem to be very narrow, which was perhaps just a function of the part of the city that we were staying in. Further out from the Old and French quarters, the city has a more modern feel, although the traffic remains mostly the same (just slightly less crowded!). 

And of course, Gillian insisted on getting a picture outside the National Assembly building. Unfortunately plans for a tour were derailed due to the impending celebration of the 80th anniversary of the "Successful August Revolution". Which had the Assembly building (and Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum) closed during our stay.

Naturally, having arrived in a new country, we took full advantage of the new food (and drinks) on offer. Coffee in Vietnam is a different thing from anywhere else we have been. Even a straight black coffee has a distinctive taste, which is partly due to the fact that they use predominantly robusta beans, and then roast them with ingredients like sugar and butter. It gives a chocolatey/caramel flavour which is quite distinctive - and that James approves of. They also have new variations on the coffee preparation, including salt coffee (topped with whipped salted cream) and egg coffee (topped with beaten eggs, sugar and condensed milk). Both of these would be easy to dismiss, but they're actually really tasty, and the egg coffee could almost be treated as breakfast in a glass. 

We couldn't resist doing a guided food tour, which was a very worthwhile experience. Our guide, "Rik", introduced us to a variety of street food around the Old Quarter, from long established businesses, often run by multiple generations of the same family who live and work together. It was great to explore some places we never would have thought to visit, and see some of the traditional food on offer. as well as chat about daily life in Vietnam. The rest of our meals were a mix of street food and restaurants, with two meals a day being the default - if you're not counting the afternoon ice cream/iced tea combos. Of course, we tried the staples of banh mi and pho, but also a huge variety of other new and excellent food, trying to stick with traditional Vietnamese tastes as much as possible.