Every other city we’ve traveled to, I’ve been able to get my bearings, figure out where stuff is & find my way around in about a day. Hanoi baffled me for 2-3 days as it took me nearly the entire stay to get a handle on the city. It’s a mass of small winding streets, intersected randomly w larger boulevards and you’re concentrating so much on not getting hit by a car or a motorbike, bc the locals have commandeered the use of all sidewalks (bribes to police to ignore city ordinances) for their own personal storage, motorbike parking or an extension of their house/shop/restaurant, you easily lose track of where you are. It’s madness. Definitely the city with the most frenetic pace, insane traffic & high energy. I loved it from jump.
The food just pushed it over the top. You can clearly tell by all my posts, that I’ve eaten very well over here. When we hit Hoi An, the food ratcheted up a notch but Hanoi has easily surpassed it. Not only is the food ridiculously amazing, it’s also dirt cheap. We only had one proper sit down meal at a restaurant in Hanoi & excluding that, we stuck to street food all visit for every meal.
There were some hiccups on day one, in addition to the near hotel scam. In our first couple hours here walking the city, a biker ran into Amy. I’d say it was a somewhat gentle nudge, as we were walking on the street & he was turning a corner very slowly & we were all trying to squeeze together, but it was a bit of a surprise to her. Later, a street vendor, carrying what appeared to be a shoe repair kit, approached Amy with a glue stick aimed directly for her shoe before she reacted strongly with a “no”. I think he was probably just looking for money as if he “repaired her shoe”. Another vendor later, snuck up behind me with her wooden shoulder bar bearing 2 baskets of fruit & without me seeing, attempted to place it on my shoulder & then asked for money for a picture. I turned, sternly said no & shrugged it off my shoulder. She perhaps would’ve balked were she not worried about it going crashing to the ground, thus losing her pretty fruit displays in the mad Hanoi traffic. The hotel scam, those incidents & the insane traffic would, I think, scare off a lot of people. We just laughed our way through the incidents, didn’t give up on the city & subsequently fell in love with it.
So for a host of reasons, I may now consider coming back here on my extended trip. There’s this lovely place in the mountains, Mu Cang Chai, that I read about online before the trip (it didn’t even make my SE Asia book or Amy’s Vietnam book so that tells you how tiny it is). We didn’t have time to squeeze it in this time as we were told 4 days/3 nights minimum as it’s 8-10 hours north of Hanoi (this is after a guide asked me, intrigued,… How did you hear about that place?) & we wanted to end Amy’s portion of the trip w some beach time in Southern Thailand. Plus we didn’t knock off nearly half of the key Hanoi tourists sites. Prior to the visit, I’d never have dreamed Hanoi could challenge Saigon for culture, food, feel, etc. but it certainly does that ten-fold. It has culture coming out of its ears & I could aimlessly wander the old quarter all day hopping from place to place, stuffing myself full with street food & egg coffees. I love it so much.
Hanoi traffic on a light day
amusemusings 