During the last school break I regretted not blogging about our travels through India. I wish I could have shared with you all some of the weirdest and most amazing things I’ve seen yet during our time in Asia but the circumstances just didn’t permit. Everything about the country was just so overwhelming to begin with but with only the use of old slow computers in cafes, and limited time in each place it just wasn’t going to happen.
And on top of that ever free second I had I needed a mega-BREAK from everything I had just seen instead of just re-playing it in my head. To make up for it the lack of sharing though I vowed I would at least write about our travels through Vietnam and Cambodia. And already the trip has proved to be much more leisurely affording me lots of time to write. SO HERE WE GO!
We got picked up in a song thaew (open truck with benches) and of course after driving around for a few hours after the set pick up time we finally got to the bus station. Felix and I had been very worried about getting a seat on this bus as we had heard that sometimes the bus is overbooked and people end up sitting in plastic stools in the aisle for the whole ride. This would be a pretty torturous scenario given the bumpy Laos hillsides. It was my duty to grab whatever small bags we had while Felix took the big ones and I bolted onto the bus to save us seats. Things however got a bit confusing when we got there. I was immediately grabbed and rushed to someone who then told me to go to another person who then told me to go back to the other person. There were obviously two buses going to Hanoi. One was already packed with people and was the bus we were scheduled to go on. The other beside it was empty and you could tell it was a sleeper bus, a luxury that for $45 instead of our $18 we opted not to do. I kept being told to go to one bus and then one there was told to go to the other. Finally I headed towards the sleeper bus confused, as I knew it wasn’t my bus, but hopeful they would in fact keep us here. Meanwhile, a fight had broke loose by where I was standing as the bus men were fighting over luggage and who got to carry it to the bus. Everyone was pushing and yelling in a language I didn’t recognize (apparently already Vietnamese) and I inched my way through the crowd a little startled and no idea which bus Felix was sent to. To my relief, Felix made his way through and kept showing the man our tickets and he said it was O.K and changed our tickets to look as if we paid $45 for the sleeper (to the objection of some foreign passengers who did actually pay the $45). We jumped on the sleeper thrilled that we somehow managed to get a nice bus for this long journey ahead! The sleepers were nicer than other ones we have taken in Thailand, in that you could totally lay down, or have your seat propped up. Your feet went into a wide hole in front of you so you could stretch out, and there was a good amount of room. The bus was barely full which was also great, and it showed some O.K movies so we were happy to be entertained for part of the one day stretch to get to Vietnam.
Overnight I kept waking up and understanding why this bus may be called the “Death Bus”. I could tell the bus was making quick turns over sharp curbs left and right continuously. If I looked down I could make out in the darkness that the road dropped off into a giant mountain valley. The bus was constantly blaring it’s horn as we still were on a two lane road turning blindly around each corner. I’ve been used to this kind of thing, but I have to say this was a more extreme version of some bus trips I have taken. Luckily, I was drowsy enough to just drift back to sleep each time and didn’t worry too much. We got to the border late and since it was closed parked the bus right in the middle of the road to wait. All the air was shut down, and luckily it was a cooler night. It was confusing to wake up several times and be startled why we weren’t moving, and pretty much sucked since that was 9 hours that we could have been driving. We finally woke up at around 5:30am and waited for the next 2 hours getting stuff checked at the border before being allowed to continue on to Vietnam.
We FINALLY arrived in Hanoi around 7pm, and honestly the 22 hour ride (at least with the luxury of the sleeper) turned out to be not a bad trip. It was raining in Hanoi, but we were already impressed with what we saw. The whole town was filled with lights, every tree had colorful lit up lanterns, and every street post had some kind of whirling light display. When we approached the backpackers area in the Old Quarter this only intensified. The little lanes were all draped with colorful flags, banners, and light displays of all kinds. The trees had long blue strings of lights that hung above your head, and the alleyways had twinkling lights crisscrossing from building to building. I guess since traveling in India, I had the expectation that Vietnam would be the same for some reason. I thought we would be arriving in an area that was full of dirty hostels and streets and busy screaming people everywhere (but was O.K with this) and didn’t expect this whole impressive décor of the area. Around the hostels there were posh clothing shops with pretty dresses on display everywhere. The restaurants and cafes all had some kind of trendy theme and offered just about any kind of food you wished for. We headed up to our room in Especen Hotel, and lugged our baggage all the way to the top 5th floor. This struggle to get our bags up soon made me notice the architecture of almost all Vietnamese houses. They are all very narrow and just shoot straight up with as many floors as they can fit. The Especen only had two rooms a floor, but the narrow stairway lead you up 5 flights. Happy with the room (which was already nicer than anything we had stayed in in India), we wandered into the street, and picked a pretty decorated café with a street view to grab some food before calling it a night.
The first morning we got up early and headed out to explore Hanoi. There was a map in the guidebook for a walking tour so we decided we would do that. It didn’t have many significant sights but the best way to see a city is just to wander through it so we were excited to see what was happening in the streets of Hanoi. We headed towards a central lake, which had kind of a park around it. It was a Sunday, so the park was packed with families and couples strolling around in their Sunday best. We saw a huge crowd and heard music so headed towards it, and saw some kind of show going on with women dressed up in tradition outfits and playing instruments. The music was beautiful and not just the synthesized music that I became used to in Thailand. Looking around behind me I took in just how FULL of people Hanoi was. Thousands of motorbikes raced by us on the streets, and hundreds of people walked through this park. Instead of it being a bad thing though, I thought it was pretty exciting. We continued to walk around the lake, and came to the first stop on the walking tour which was a famous temple on a island in the lake. To get to the island you crossed a wooden red bridge that was filled with brightly colored flags. Some Vietnamese girls and boys had grabbed us before and excitedly said hello and asked us some simple questions (“How are you?” “Where you come from?”) and as they were posing for pictures on the bridge their family grabbed us and asked us to join in. They were really cute and we were happy to lend our peace signs to the picture as they happily squeezed our arms and exclaimed thank you’s repeatedly.
On the island there was a temple surrounded by lots of pretty trees. The view of the city from here was really nice, and you could see another set of ruins on an island in the distance. Starved by this point, we made our way across and found a little outdoor café to eat at. It was right on the water of the lake where we could watch the people pass by. After brunch it was time to get into the heart of the city for the tour. This would also be the first attempt at walking into the insane traffic. You always think that if you want to cross the road with oncoming traffic, you need to run. This would not work at all in Vietnam. The trick is basically, no matter how much traffic is coming at you, just step into the road and without stopping much walk slowly across. This was a little hard for me to get used to. The need to run or freeze when you see 50 motorbikes coming straight at you is hard to overcome. The thing is though; the motorbikes are used to this and they know how to avoid you if they see you crossing so all you need to worry about is getting across. We jumped right into the throws of hundreds of motorbikes coming at us, and just strolled our way across. You stop for a bit if you see one coming but then if it passes keep going and repeating this method until you make it across. And it was pretty easy! And a lot less nerve-wracking than trying to run across and dodge everything, which would certainly be impossible. The fact that a motorbike or car might cross right in front of you, literally an inch from your feet or body, and if you were to stumble you were be a goner is a little daunting, but the act of cross the road in full traffic was in the end, actually kind of fun.
In our tour of the city each street had a designated kind of item they sold. We strolled through block after block selling everything imaginable. The first was a book bag street, followed by a shoes street, one with all lanterns and kind of Vietnamese party supplies, a street full of art galleries, a counterfeit money street used for burning in funerals, a blacksmiths street where they crafted iron and metal goods right on the sidewalk, a musical instruments street, and even a kids toys street. The walk took us about 2 hours and it made me love Hanoi even more. Every road was so festive. There wasn’t a single shop in the lines of hundreds that didn’t have a hanging red Vietnam flag with the star in the center. Each street also seemed to have a different theme of lanterns. On one street lotus shaped lanterns hung at every post, on another Chinese looking red lanterns, on the next colorful round ones. Often colored flags hung across the width of the street, or banners announcing a approaching celebration for the 1,000th anniversary of the city of Hanoi. The houses lining the streets were the same architecture we saw before, extremely narrow and tall full of balconies and windows and cascading vines down their façades. After all the walking we were pretty exhausted and took a long break in our room.
After taking a breather, we headed back towards they area we walked around in before to get dinner. Along the way we noticed how all the Vietnamese were eating on the sidewalks. There were itsy bitsy stools, they kind a kid would sit on, and miniature tables covering whole sidewalks. People were packed in the seats and eating nuts and the local beer Bia Hoi (which is about 5th of the price of other beers, and brewed locally). Everywhere we looked we saw baskets full of snails to eat and other things we couldn’t yet identify. We weren’t quite ready for all of this on our first day so we settled in at another rooftop pub, and enjoyed some fried noodles and Bia Ha Noi (Hanoi brewed beer). After dinner we headed towards the Water Puppet Theater, and old Hanoi tradition. The show was a pretty stage set with a body of water in front of it with a curtain behind it where people pushed the puppets out on sticks to control them while a live orchestra played. All in all, it was kind of silly. It would have been something awesome for a little kid but we were kind of just laughing at it and waiting for it to be over. When we got out of the theater the traffic was INSANE. I have never in my life seen so many motorbikes or even traffic like this. There must have been thousands of motorbikes all going in the same direction. We think the traffic had to do something with the anniversary of the city. We were headed to an ice cream place, but we only had to stay on one side of the road so it wasn’t too much of a problem for us. When we did have to cross however, it got a little crazy. The motorbike traffic was so heavy that they started driving on the sidewalk right where we were walking. So while motorbikes buzzed past us on each side we had to try our best just to walk straight forward and not get hit. Finally we got to the door of the ice cream place and couldn’t actually cross the 2 feet of the sidewalk to get in because so many motorbikes were going by. Felix had to make a little plead and point to the door to get someone to let us scurry across. There were policemen standing by but nobody had any objections to motorbikes on the sidewalk which was pretty funny. Safely in the ice cream parlor we watched the insanity outside, awe-stricken. After ice cream we immersed back into the pit of motorbikes and realized there was loud music being played throughout the city and some kind of show about to happen. We made our way over to the lake and saw a giant laser show was taking place. There was orchestrated music and lasers on all sides of the lake dancing in the sky. We sat on the stone bank and watched the show, musing at how awesome Hanoi had been so far.
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