The Complete Travel Journals Travelling for the easily frightened

Well really not much happened today. Lianyi and I took a Pacific Airlines flight to Hanoi at 10 am. To board, we had to take a shuttle bus from the gate to the plane. On the bus we made friends with Raphael, a middle-aged Australian guy travelling alone. He'd stayed at Luan Vu in Ho Chi Minh City too, and we'd actually seen each other at the guesthouse that very morning during breakfast.

On the bus, when Lianyi and I got on, the only space we had for standing was right in front of Raphael's seat and that's how we got to talking. He initiated the conversation, asking us where we were from. When I said Singapore, he said, "Yeah I noticed you were reading an English book this morning." After a bit of talking we made plans to share a cab from Hanoi airport into the city centre.

The seats on the plane were assigned, so we sat apart from Raphael. Instead we sat next to a Vietnamese woman with an infant. Fortunately he was quite well-behaved. The mother, however, kept waking me up from my sleep. She tapped on my arm every once in a while asking me to do things for her, through hand gestures, like pick up her son's cap from the bag on the floor or buckle up her baby carrier. Perhaps she didn't understand the concept of flight attendants.

Once on land, we caught up with Raphael again and looked around for a cab. But then we realised that Pacific Airlines provided a free bus into the Hanoi city centre, so we took that instead. On the bus with us were a group of 6 Spanish-speaking teens, talking loudly throughout the 45-minute ride.

Our first impression of Hanoi was really, wow. We drove in on a smooth, clean highway, supposedly one of the most advanced highways in Southeast Asia. And from the elevated vantage point of that highway we looked down upon beautiful homes clustered in sprawling neighbourhoods. Two- and three-storey houses in yellows and greens and blues in all manner of architectural styles, all charming. It was so pretty we started talking about having a holiday home there. There was the Red River, unpolluted as far as we could see. We also saw a Singapore-Vietnam industrial zone.

But then suddenly the highway gave way to the tight roads of the city centre and immediately we were back in reality, back on level ground. Sure, Hanoi's buildings were older and prettier than Ho Chi Minh City's, but the traffic was worse! The roads were narrower, infrastructure that was meant for bicycles and trishaws, not motorbikes and cars. The cables drooped lower from the electric poles in thicker, more menacing bunches.

Once we got off the bus it was like in Phnom Penh all over again. Taxi drivers crowded around the bus demanding that we take their cab. After we grabbed our bags, one driver attached himself to us, asking us where we wanted to go. I asked if he had a meter. He said no.

Ok then, I said, and walked away.

Immediately he ran after us and said, yes, yes, I have meter.

"Well wasn't that funny how he suddenly realised he had a meter?" said Raphael.

Raphael was staying at a guesthouse at Hang Bac Street. We were at Hang Ga. Both were in the Old Quarter. Raphael was dropped off first and without really looking at the meter, he gave us some money. I didn't count it but later, when Lianyi and I had reached our destination, I realised he'd gven us almost the full cost of the taxi fare.

We got off at Thuy Lam Guesthouse. Already, the location didn't seem as good as Raphael's spot. Hang Bac had been filled with restaurants, cafés and souvenir shops. Hang Ga had a shop selling bamboo, a pharmacist and grocery stores and street stalls. Nothing that was really "relevant" to us tourists. It was only when consulting a map did we realise we were at the northern edge of the Old Quarter, not as touristy as the centre.

This meant that we were getting a full immersion into local life, which should have been a good thing. When organising my trips nowadays I always try to pick an area that's more "real", not just meant for tourists. Living in such areas means you'll always have to walk a bit more to get to the good restaurants and the areas of interest. I usually don't mind that. I like walking.

But Vietnam. Vietnam is not for pedestrians. More on that later.

We checked in and got to our room. Definitely not as nice as Luan Vu. A bit more run-down, not as clean. My toilet phobia immediately kicked in.(See the entry on Cambodia Day 3 for more info.)

After washing up we went out to look for lunch. It was almost 3 p.m. and we hadn't had a bite since breakfast.

Ok, so this is where our immersion into Hanoi really began.

It was such a shock for me. From everything I'd read and heard, I was expecting Hanoi to be relaxed, calm, a bit like Battambang in Cambodia but with even more character and colour. Instead, it was all motorcycles, all the time.

Hanoi is a city ruled by motorcycles, who use humans as a means of transportation to get around. Motorcycles get first dibs on everything. Humans are second class citizens in this city.

You can't really walk in Hanoi. In Ho Chi Minh City, you can walk on the pavements. But you can't even step on Hanoi's pavements. The pavements are used as parking space for motorcycles. So you have to walk on the road. But often the sides of the roads are also used as parking lots, so quite often, you'll have to walk in the middle of the road. Or you could do a winding dance around the tightly-packed, stationary motorcycles, if you are thin enough and agile enough. Which I wasn't.

A lot of times I would have to perform a weird balancing act, in which I would place half a foot on an inch of bare pavement between two parked motorcycles, stretch out my other leg and place that foot on the road but not too far out in case I get run down by oncoming traffic, then skip and try to make sure my first foot lands right in front of my second foot. Then I would have to stop, look around, take a step onto the road, change my mind, take a step back onto the pavement, realise there's no space, then take a step back onto the road, shake my head in exhaustion, and sigh.  Then finally, take a breath and walk back onto the pavement because knocking over motorcycles is better than death.

And then, there were the road crossings. I never got the hang of it, not after 10 days. It is simply too excruciatingly terrifying for me to cross a road and see a barrage of motorcycles and cars coming right at me with their lights shining right in my face and getting ever brighter... My heart stopped beating each time we crossed a road. Even now as I write this and remember it, I feel my chest tightening.

And Hanoi was dirty. There is no rubbish on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City but Hanoi is really dirty. The gutters are always overflowing with black water that the shopkeepers constantly sweep into their neighbours' territories. Rubbish lies everywhere. 

Given the situation, we decided to eat somewhere near our guesthouse. We looked for a restaurant called Cha Ca La Vong, which was listed in Lonely Planet. But when we got there, we found that it was closed for renovation. We looked for another restaurant listed in the book, and this time we simply couldn't find it at all. It had disappeared. So we walked some more until we eventually got to Hang Bac, and ate at a restaurant called Cafe 138.

This was the lovely view outside the second floor window of the restaurant. See the motorbikes on the pavement opposite? That's what I was talking about:

In December the Vietnamese sun begins its descent from about 5 pm. By 6 pm, it is fully night in Hanoi. We returned to our room after our late lunch, hurrying before it got too cold for us to be out without our jackets. That's one good thing about this city -- it's cold, so even though it's congested and polluted and smoky and dusty, you never really break a sweat, even at noon.

After grabbing our jackets and moaning a bit about not wanting to face the traffic again (mostly on my part), we set back out to discover the city. This time we decided to go to the Hoan Kiem district and watch the water puppet show. It was a long, long walk. Staying at Hang Ga street is really not a good idea for someone who is terrified of walking in Hanoi.

And to get to the water puppet theatre and the Hoan Kiem Lake, you have to cross this huge circle junction. And then another very wide, very busy road. Hoan Kiem was heart attack central for me, but it was also the centre of all tourist activity in Hanoi and a popular chill out spot with the locals too.

The main thing about Hoan Kiem is the lake, of course, and on the lake is a bridge and a temple. Surrounding the lake are restaurants and shops, the water puppet theatre, a tourist information centre and some banks. It is always crowded, as much with vehicles as with people. Tourists outnumber locals here. Souvenir shops range from the high class designer goods boutique to the knock-off stall. What I found most interesting about Hoan Kiem was that on one side of the lake was the Old Quarter, which is dirty and narrow and crowded, but when you walk around it, you get to the upper class part of town on the other side - wide boulevards, fancy new buildings, five-star restaurants, clean streets.

Alas, tickets to the water puppet show were sold out. So we walked some more. We walked by the lake. It was breezy and cool. Calm if not for the traffic surrounding it. We saw a lot of local couples making out, somehow managing to cocoon themselves in a romantic shroud despite the incessant HONKING all around them.

Once we'd had enough of the lake, we did a spot of shopping. Well I bought a bag, that's all. The lock on my suitcase had stopped working after the Pacific Airlines flight and I needed a safer bag. I got a cavernous Kipling bag, really huge and very well-made, for just 30 SGD. Well I think it was a steal.

Then we had dinner at a restaurant called Bun Pho. We ordered too much and couldn't roll our own spring rolls properly. And then we trudged back to our guesthouse, where I bathed only after much persuasion from Lianyi. I just didn't want to enter the toilet!

That night we slept quite soundly despite the fact that our room faced the traffic. I think I really needed the sleep to soothe all the terror and distress I was feeling. I'm sure I snored louder than usual that night.