Hanoi

There are approximately four million motorcycles in Hanoi. We had a one hour flight from Laos to Vietnam, much better than a twenty-five-hour bus trip we calculated. Hanoi makes Bangkok seem chilled out and slow paced. Everything moves at a hundred miles an hour. Trying to cross the street is crazy - you just have to step out, walk slowly and somehow you get to the other side unscathed as the traffic zips past in all directions. We spent the first night in the historic ‘Old Quarter’ and it’s enough just to stroll the narrow streets to get a good feel for the city. The buildings all seem to be piled on top of each other with no sense of town planning at all.

All the clichéd images of Vietnam are here – conical hats, woman with baskets on poles (anyone know the name for these?)…..Well, most of the clichéd images; we saw no sign of swarms of helicopters or soldiers belly-crawling through the jungle. Most of the relics of the Vietnam War (the most recent one that is – the country seems to have been at war for most of its history) are further south, out of the city. Our ‘time in ‘Nam’ is going to be pretty good.