Hanoi
VIETNAM | Friday, 17 November 2006 | Views [458]
Vietnam has been soooo good so far, love it!
It was absolutely nuts when we first got here, really culture shocked, the taxi ride from the airport was such an eye opener.... the roads have about 1 car/taxi/lorry to about 100 scooters and motorbikes. It`s a mad frenzy! and these guys will take anything on the back of their bikes.... their whole family (family of 5!!), a dead and ripped open pig, about 10 crates of eggs, 2 babies, there really is no limit!
Anyhoo, after a couple hours of walking around, we`ve really gotten into it. The people are really friendly, they will ask you if you want a ride on their scooter, but after you say no they don`t bug you, or scorn you. When you cross the road, it takes a while to get into it, but basically all the scooters just weave past you.... all you have to do is walk straight forward! so cool. the locals really couldnt care less how busy the road is before they cross. its surprising how safe you feel, you can continue your relaxed conversation while in the middle of more scooters than ive seen in 21 years in edinburgh!
So, we spent the 17th wandering around Hanoi, visited St Josephs Cathedral, the Opera House, The Temple Of Literature, which was stunning, and just explored some back streets, its so interesting, the city is like nothing i`ve seen before... this is definately one step further than the confines of europe.
Although, having said that, even in Vietnam, which is one of the harder south east asian countries to travel, according to everyone we meet, it is still ridiculously easy. All the restaurants have english menus, everyone speaks enough english to know what you want or how to get their point across (i mean shop owners, waiters etc... not all vietnamese, of course!) Ah, how lucky we are to have english as our first language! (we as in judith and I! not referring to you the reader, haha, as you may not have it as your first!)
Anyhoo, where was I. We went to a restaurant called Little Hanoi for our tea. Delicious food, cost us about 2quid alltogether! sweet!
Not quite got into the whole eating off the street thing yet, although when we get to thailand, and the yellow curries, oh yes! but yea, hopefully we will overcome our fears and give that a try sooner or later.
Thinking of doing some scuba diving in Nha Trang, but we shall see.
Anyways, off to Halong Bay tomorrow (altho im writing this after, so we`ve actually allready been, oops!)
so... yea, until the next installment
adios
x
Tags: Sightseeing
