Julia's Travels: Hanoi

After a long 2-day journey, I arrived in Hanoi. The atmosphere of Laos was pretty relaxed, so I was ready for something different, and Hanoi definitely delivered. Vietnam's capital is an amazing city; it is to full of life and energy; everywhere you turn, there are 5 scooters beeping their horns, at least one person selling fruit, another person peddling books, sidewalk cafes, street food stalls...there is never a dull moment.

In addition to the change in pace, Vietnam has a very distinct culture that is unlike the cultures of the countries I've visited thus far in SE Asia. I had a few things to learn:

1) Crossing the street in Vietnam is like playing a game of chicken with the motorbikes; you have to make eye contact with the driver, walk slowly and hope for the best. If you wait for an opening in traffic, you could be standing by the side of the road for hours.

2) Cars and motorbikes honk their horns constantly. This isn't considered rude, it's just a way of letting you know that the vehicle is crossing the street, turning left, about to pass you, parking in the sidewalk, etc. It is advisable to wear earplugs if you plan to walk around during rush hour.

3) The street stalls and sidewalk cafes in Vietnam sell some of the tastiest street food I've had on this trip. The food stalls are everywhere and in addition to cheap, tasty food, they sell $0.12 glasses of beer... a genius combination.

4) Learning Vietnamese is like picking up rocket science, it's not going to happen in a few days, especially if you don't already speak a tonal language. I spent the first few days trying to say "hello", "goodbye", "please" and "thank you" in Vietnamese and just got a lot of confused/blank stares. Now I just stick to slow, clearly enunciated English.

5) When people on the street try to sell you stuff, you have to pretend like you don't even hear them. I know that this sounds impolite, but apparently "no, thank you" is an invitation to start bartering. If you say: "no, maybe later", the little woman selling the bananas will find you later and insist that you buy some bananas.

I got an especially healthy dose of these aggressive selling tactics when Dean and I arrived at the bus station. We hopped in a metered cab, gave the driver the name of our hotel and were off towards town. En route, the driver called one of his friends and tried pretty much every trick in the book to get us to stay at one of his friend's hotels. After about 20 minutes of driving us around in circles and pretending not to know our chosen hotel's address, we insisted that the cabbie pull over so we could find another solution. We piled out of the cab and prepared to hoof it across town (rather than continue the circle-driving nonsense). No sooner had we gotten out of the cab, than the driver stormed off without even asking us to pay (he was more interested in the hotel commission than the cab fare). Fortunately, we were rescued by an English-speaking Japanese family who pointed us in the right direction.

Overall, Hanoi is a pretty cool city. There is a lot to see and do, and the guesthouses are intermixed with the Vietnamese shops, schools and businesses, so you feel like you are getting a real dose of Vietnamese life in Hanoi...not a bad place to spend a few days while planning excursions into Northern Vietnam.

-Julia