TALES OF ASIA: Handeling the chaos that is Ha Noi

ON THE 6TH OF APRIL, WE ARRIVED IN VIETNAM.

It was way too soon to say goodbye to Kuala Lumpur, but when you are stupid and listen to people telling you not to spend a week there, you get what you deserve, I guess.


At first glance (on Wikitravel), Hanoi was frightening. The storys there about taxidrivers taking you to the wrong place and threatening to beat you up were endless, and standing outside the airport with little to no knowledge about the country, we started to wonder what the frick we had gotten ourselves in to.

Getting to our hotel was the first task. We were very sceptical to taxis in the first place since we didn't felt like being beaten up today, and also we didn't wanted to pay 500,000₫ VND ($22,5 USD) for a ride. The problem was, we had been up since 4 am that day and our heads were mash, and just before surrendering and getting in a 22 dollar-cab, we found the Vietnam Airlines minivans which was 100,000₫ VND/ pp instead. The ride took less then an hour in to Old Town were our hotel was, the Hanoi Legacy.

We were dropped off right outside the hotel, we paid our agreed amount and we didn't get beatened. That far, Vietnam had been a positive surprise.

When we jumped out of the van, we realized two things.

1:
The climate was heavenly
- shorts weather, warm but not hot
and just slightly humid

2:
We were most certainly going to be
run over by a motorcycle.

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Motorbikes and scooters are everywhere, including parked inside shops and out on the street.
Getting out a while later, we got to our second task:

Learning to cross the street without getting a heart attack. 

Wikitravel also told us about this, and adviced that one should walk in a slow, distinct manner whenever there is the slightest gap, so the drivers get the time to see you.
This turned out to be good advice, and by the end of the day we managed fine.

Next thing to master was to not get lost. Having a former orienteerer as traveling companion did help with this, as I still don't recognize our street but Jonathan now finds it without map.

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First thing on our Hanoi-agenda (except tourmenting my former boss via messenger about how to say 'chicken' in vietnamese) was trying the famous

EGG COFFEE

It does sound disgusting, but everyone says it's to-die-for, and who are we to defy the faceless mass that is internet?
We ate lunch while asking another dear friend (Tripadvisor) about where to quaff this famous drink, and it led us to The Hanoi Social Club, which turned out to be exactly the oasis described.

We stayed for 4 hours in the club, enjoying the hipster-esque interior and the quiet contrasting to the busy streets below - and of course, the coffee.

Two of these landed perfectly in our tummys

and some of it landed on my face as well...

Overly tired, we got to bed early to be ready for next day in the chaos.

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Day 2, and the order of the day was exploring the areas of Hoan Kiem Lake. Since we live in the old quarters, the walk there was only ten minutes.

The day was gray but with pleasant temperatures and the walk around the lake somehow provided a calm scenery as a contrast to the busy streets.

We checked out the Ngoc Son temple on the lake, a place were a lot of locals come and pray in a, for a foreign's eyes, very interesting ritual. We should have done som reading up on that, but our bellys told us it was time for lunch so we headed to another TripAdvisor-recommendation:

WannaWaffle? 

where we drank strong, rich vietnamese Ca Phe Den and ate waffles like there was no tomorrow 

which we actually have since our digestive systems started function normally again. There's been a lot of coffee, sweets, the occasional pizza and the heaps and loads of noodles.

Since leaving Thailand, everything has tasted sooo good.
That actually surprised us, since Thailand is so famous for it's food and yet, it feels like we never tasted anything as well cooked and flavourful as tikka masala and noodles we ate at Kuala Lumpur airport.

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The day after tomorrow we leave for a two nights cruise in Halong Bay. We are so exited!

Anything we shouldn't miss while in Ha Noi?

Let us know be leaving a comment!