After a massively long flight on the biggest plane in the world(The A380!), with a stopover in Singapore,we finally made it to Hanoi. Our hotel collected us at the airport and drove us to our hotel - which was great because we were both just about ready to collapse! Hanoi was hot hot hot and humid, with an unbelievable traffic system whereby thousands of scooters, bicycles, motor bikes, cars and buses weave in and out of eachothers lane and beep their horns continously to get to their destination! Along the side of the road we saw beautiful, tall, delicate, (french colonial style) houses, and driving over the Red River was amazing! When we finally arrived at our destination - The Hotel Elegance, we were greeted with beautiful fruit (non alco) cocktails and the friendliest staff we ever did see. The hotel room was great with everything we could possibly want (yes at the moment we are posh backpackers but we call it aclimatisation!!)
Our hotel is right in the middle of the so-called 'Old Quarter' which is an extremely busy, interesting place with lots of street stalls, little restaurants, markets, and everything else you could possibly want! As we walk round we wonder why we ever bothered buying anything before we came here - the shops and markets sell everything and for around 20p too! On our first night we dined in a restaurant on a terrace overlooking Hanoi which was pretty spectacular, geckos ran accross the ceiling and in true Vietnam style the electricity went out at one stage (we joked that it might be so that we couldn't see what we were eating!)
On every street we are followed by boys selling lighters, books, wallets, others try to get us on their Cyclos or motor bikes, women try and sell us pineapples - such an atmosphere its wonderful and bustling...yesterday two men followed us insisting that they fix stevie's shoes, after much wlking away and saying no - they eventually wrestled stevie's flip flop off his foot for 'no money no money' and started sowing the thing up mid street - Stevie had intended on throwing them out but they live to see another day!
On our first night we walked around the lake of the restored sword, a beautiful lake with a little temple in the middle and an island dedicated to tortoises (legend has it that huge tortoises live in this lake and if you were to see one great wisdom is bestowed upon you...anyways...)
So far we've been taking it pretty easy as the jet lag and the heat is still taking a bit of getting used to...yesterday we took a Cyclo up to the 'Temple of Literature', a kind of old university dedicated to Confucious - very beautiful, later we went to the infamous 'Hanoi Water puppet theatre', which was also fun and a must see in Hanoi...
We sit a lot on the bench at the lake and decide upon our next place to go or simply to look on the map and find out how the hell we get to the next destination! The little streets are very disorientating, and sense of direction just doesn't seem to work here..
Today we walked up to the Ho chi Minh mausoleum, a very impressive huge building where the body of Ho Chi Minh can be viewed, unfortunately he was in Russia being restored (where he goes every year apparently)so we didn't see him but the complex was impressive all the same!
We also booked our trip today to 'Ha Long Bay' where we shall be going tomorrow for a 2 night trip where we stay on the boat for a night - very very excited about this and it shall also be my next entry..watch this space!
