After a brief but fun 48 hour stop-over in S. Korea (where we went to a coffee shop and had our feet nibbled by fish - Weeds-style), we are finally in the 'Nam.
Despite all of Hannah's extensive research (the woman takes OCD to a whole new "As Good As It Gets"-type level) and my watching of Top Gear Specails, we had no idea what we were in for. The culture shock not only hit us, it went to town and knocked us out. There is no way to describe how crazy Hanoi is. Imagine a downtown metropolis squeezed together in half the space and with 3 times the people and stores. Cafes are little child sized plastic chairs on the sidewalk. There are motorcycles everywhere. I cannot even fathom driving in the mess that are the streets here. There are no rules that we can discern of and horns are continually honking to the point where you don't even notice it anymore. We literally just close our eyes and cross the street and hope to make it to the other side in one peice. I have already been almost hit (a high speed Moto driver smacked arms with me as he squeezed between 2 stalls, a car and 4 pedestrians in an alley about 4 feet wide). And people are always hasseling us, aggressively. When we said we didn't want any pinapple to an old lady who was selling on the street she literally cornered us and when we still refused she pinched Hannah on the arm. Actually. And to add to the shock, it's a breezy 75 degrees celcius here. Ok, perhaps a tad exaggeration but that's what it feels like.
So needless to say we were a little shell-shocked last night but after a couple beers and a mid-sized nervous breakdown, we are once again having an awesome time. The food here is wicked and everything is so cheap you almost feel guilty about it - when you're not giggling with delight that is. And the family that runs our guesthouse is awesome. We are going on a 3-day trip to Ha Long Bay tomorrow which we're really excited about. It'll be a nice change to get out the city and not have to worry about getting run over... or changing our money at gold shops.
