After some of the easiest security I have ever been through and a 40 minute flight we touched down in Hanoi. We made our way to the "Vietnam Airlines Shuttle" and crammed into the overpacked mini-bus. The ride took about 50 minutes, but we finally arrived in old town. When we went to get off the driver quickly put his hand up and closed the door. Confused and feeling kidnapped someone finally got in the van and told us "Hello, this is the stop for the Vietnamese, the driver will take you to your guesthouse." Considering we didn't seem to have any choice in the matter we gave the driver a random guest house we saw in our Lonely Planet book. We drove around for about 20 minutes until the driver stopped and another man jumped in quickly asking "Are you Maria?" We replied no and he said "Oh, I am very sorry, but we have no more rooms, only one for Maria, but don't worry, my brother has a new guesthouse for you to stay at." The driver quickly pulled away and we were ushered into the next hotel. Practically pushed into the room we decided to stay since it was clean and kept us from having to wander around Hanoi in the dark. We had heard about this scam before, but we really thought we could avoid it. We quickly reallized Vietnam is a whole new ball game.
After getting settled we decided to venture out and find some food. We walked a few blocks and found an Irish Pub. Now I am usually one to avoid western food like the plague, however I still didn't feel good and all I wanted was some French Fries and Chicken Nuggets (couldn't even stomach a beer).
The next morning we went out to explore the town. We checked out the Military Museum and saw the Vietnam interpretation of the war. It was different and still seemed to contain a lot of propaganda against the Americans. Interesting though to see that side of it. We spent a lot of time just walking around town and trying to get used to the city.
Hanoi was like nothing I have seen before. Cars and people everywhere. There were so many scooters on the road it made it nearly impossible to cross the street. Everytime we stopped walking, scooters and cyclos would pull up and start shouting at us "Hello Moto" "You want Cyclo?" Very annoying really, and hard to avoid since we can't blend in to the crowd.
