travellingonpeanuts

[travellingonpeanuts]

Hanoi

Finally getting my blog started 4 weeks after setting off to the wonderful country that is Vietnam. It was a fairly stressful process on the way here as the change over in Bangkok was shortened due an hour delay. Rowan and I found ourselves running frantically through a stupidly long corridor in Bangkok international airport. Luckily enough we got through bag check (which took way longer than it needed to) sweating (a lot) due to the humid air and sat on a fairly empty plane. With 5 or 10 mins to spare we sat their fanning ourselves with the flight safety cards, whilst receiving a few death stares from other passengers around us.

First impressions of Hanoi were pretty crazy, we got a ‘Grab’ taxi from the airport to our hostel, which was my first experience using this very useful and reliable service/app. We arrived at Little Charm Hostel which is where we stayed for the first couple nights of our trip. We waited until 2pm so that we could check in and then took to the streets for what was our first real taste of Vietnam. Immediately the extreme heat and loud beeping of motorbike horns were main things that stood out, soo many motorbikes flying around! We decided to go and find SIM cards for our phones so we could access the internet whenever and also get some water. A SIM card with unlimited high speed data cost 350,000 dong (£11.60) for the whole month which has served us very well! After that we were walking for 5 or so minutes and we realised just hot it was, sweat dripping from everywhere. Was not a nice experience, I especially figured that a t-shirt and a nice fitting pair of shorts were too much clothing. After moaning to Rowan about the heat we decided to go back have a dip in the lovely pool that was in our hostel and I put on some looser fitting clothes (sports shorts and vest). There were some really lovely places around Hanoi for us to see, so we braved the heat and we got back out for a little wander around the Old Quarter. Loads of small streets with Vietnamese locals trying to make a living, selling knock off clothes, bags, jewellery, paintings and food. It was really busy, motorbikes still flying up and down each street, long continuous beeping of horns where drivers were alerting us and others of their presence (most of the time it was really unnecessary). We found an amazing little cafe out the back of a small clothes shop, down a tight alley. We ordered some spring rolls and the Vietnam specialty; egg coffee which we had read about prior to visiting the country. It’s vietnamese coffee, with whipped egg yolks and condensed milk. I wasn’t a big fan personally it was too creamy and sweet but Rowan loved it. We went for a walk down to the lake that evening as we saw a sky bar that we’d like to visit. As we got to the lake we noticed that the roads were all closed and this is because on Friday evening they close the roads for the weekend. There were almost 10 times the amount of people out and about compared to the day. Crowds of people out eating at street food venders, people dancing, playing games and just having a good time. It looked like it was their time to wind down and have fun after constantly working. It was so lovely to see and a good insight into the culture of Hanoi. We had a fairly pricey drink for Vietnam, 80,000 (£2.60) for a beer which would usually be 15,000 – 25,000 (50p – 85p) in the sky bar that looked over Hanoi city centre and the lake. After we finished we went for a walk back through the busy town centre, we sat on a wall and watched a group of 10-12 people all break dancing to loud music blasting from a boom box. I think if I tried dancing for any more than 5 minutes I would have passed out from heat exhaustion, so I have no idea how they kept it up for so long. Was nice to just sit and admire all the locals having fun, wouldn’t see anything like it back home.

Our last day in Hanoi was unbearably hot and therefore we decided to not do a lot. We took a short walk to the lake again to find some food, we stopped for a breather near the lake and we just sat there struggling in the heat, a local man saw us and had a chuckle as he could see we were clearly distressed. He came over for chat and there was an immediate language barrier but we kind of got the gist of what he was saying, he was struggling in the heat also. He told us he was called Cloud Dragon, we had a chat about where he was from and if he had any recommendations for us to do in Hanoi, he carried on to that he was 75 years old, that he was going to die soon as the average life expectancy was only 75-80 which was sad but he brightened up our day and a hopefully we did his. We said our goodbyes and headed to get some food, we found a little place selling Banh Mi (baguettes) it was called ‘Banh Mi 25’ and I would definitely recommend if in Hanoi. Banh Mi is another Vietnamese food that most locals would eat as a snack, also a perfect go-to for travellers as they are very cheap. They only cost 20,000-30,000 Dong (66p-£1), you choose a meat (chicken, pork, beef or veggie options also) and they come with some sort of pate, cucumber, papaya, lettuce spicy sauce and vinaigrette. Definitely one of my favourite foods to buy as we were venturing around Vietnam. Must try! We headed back to the hostel had a dip in the pool to cool off and chill out for a bit before we had to head off to catch our night train to Sapa....