Hanoi = Happy Days :)
After flights from Kathmandu to Nepal, Nepal to Hong Kong, a
luxurious afternoon by the pool of W Hotel in Hong Kong with fab company and
awesome people watching, and then a flight from HK to China, evening in
Guangzou (all in 30 hours)....I finally arrived in HANOI, Vietnam!! Excited was
putting it mildly, as Vietnam is somewhere I have dreamed of visiting for so
many years, a really big deal for me. Also the first country where I am really,
truly alone on this adventure and even more excited about this!
I LOVE arriving into a new country :)
I arrived at midnight in the pitch black, and without any US
dollar to pay for my visa (with the ATM being located in the departures
lounge…note to self in future, always carry US dollars in daypack), which was not a good start! Thankfully I got talking to an American
guy who very generously offered to lend me cash to cover my costs. So kind! I
paid him back immediately on the other side, and we shared a taxi into Hanoi
old town with another guy we had met.
The next morning I got up early and set off to explore Hanoi. I
was so very excited to be here! I really needed this change of pace in my
travels. I just love Asia – the smells, the sights, the sounds, the colors, the
fresh food and juices, and the coffee. Hanoi bombarded my senses and I loved
that feeling :)
Even though there was craziness around every corner – with endless
amounts of hawkers selling things, and school kids trying to sit with me to practice their English, I have never felt calmer. I spent my days walking around the streets and exploring every nook and cranny of this amazingly active and alive city. So much fun. I found a 3.5km suggested walking tour in my Lonely Planet so I used that to guide me around the Old Town. It was a really good walk, it took you through all the main areas, and through areas you wouldn't have even known were there. Just fabulous. It took me through windy streets, along the lake, past entire streets selling toys, or silk, or herbs, or coffee, or shoes. Each street name in Hanoi is linked to the product it sells. So for example Hang Gai is literally translated as Silk Street.
I would walk for hours in the evenings, which is when Hanoi really came alive. The street food vendors would line the streets, the lanterns and lights switch on, the streets became impossibly full with people, and the number of scooters multiplied massively!! Friends who have been here before weren't joking when they say you take your life in your hands just crossing the street in Vietnam. It is hilarious. The advice is "Keep walking, don't hesitate. You hesitate, you die". No jokes seriously they mean it! If you keep walking confidently forward (as in all matters in life actually...) the sea of scooters will drive around you, however if you hesitate the riders of the scooters don't know what to do with that and also hesitate and that leads to a nightmare! Only once did I ever hesitate and that was enough - lesson learnt, don't do that again LOL. I saw my life flash before my eyes and my heart was in my mouth haha.
Many an evening I got lost, in true Caroline fashion, walking those crazy streets that somehow looked nothing like the maps I ever tried to carry around. But I always found my way home. By getting lost I found so many awesomely funky little streets that I never would have found and would have totally missed otherwise. I did a lot of extra shopping as a result of those little streets! Just such amazing energy in this bustling city.
Everywhere you looked there was beautiful artwork, photography, gift items, clothing etc. I wanted to buy so much to hold onto the memories of the city, instead I took photos in the realization that my backpack is fit to burst already ;)
I stayed at Hanoi Hostel which was in the Old Town also. It was fabulous for just $16 a night for a room with private bathroom. I was nicely surprised :) I can highly recommend it to anyone traveling through. Every morning I would start my day with breakfast in the hostel surrounded by my Lonely Planet and pieces of paper trying to make a plan for the rest of my stay in Vietnam. I only have 3 weeks so I was keen to make sure I planned the trip carefully, squeezing in as much as I possibly can, which I realise is a bit ambitious after speaking to other guests and seeing just how big Vietnam actually is now I am here.
The staff were amazing. They saw me puzzling through different plans, and eventually one morning one of the girls stopped me and asked if she could help me lol! She gave me a total plan for my trip, telling me all about each place along my itinerary and what she liked, what was popular with other travelers, and just helped me so much with fine tuning my experience. She even sat me down with a local map for Hanoi and told me her favourite coffee shops, and places to have Pho - the local noodle soup, which is amazing. She marked everything on the map and set me off for the afternoon on a local walking tour to get to see various temples and local areas. Just awesome, that was such a fun afternoon for me. I gave the locals a surprise turning up for Pho in an area where there really weren't any other westerners at all. To begin with they didn't serve me as they figured I must be confused and not meaning to be there, then an old lady slowly began preparing my soup leaving out the spices deliberately. Then she sat back and watched me eat with curiosity. It was delicious. I have no idea what was in it, but really amazing good :) And all for the pleasure of something like 50 cents, if that even.
The tour that the girl from the hostel gave me saw me walking for 6 hours straight around Hanoi. I saw government buildings with the most amazing French architecture, I found cafes galore, saw the One Pillar Pagoda, Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and museum, the Temple of Literature and Quan du Pagoda (which was stunning and highly amusing as men played badminton in front of people worshipping in the background). My favorite place of all time in Hanoi to hang out was the Temple of Literature. Such a cool place and it had such a positive energy vibe. I could have sat there for hours just people watching and looking at the beautiful architecture :) Of course I managed a handstand photo here too.
The staff also helped me to organise a 3 day trip to Halong Bay which looks amazing. I have wanted to visit Halong Bay for years and years and the photos make me so happy, so I can't wait to see it in person :)
Something I noticed quickly as I walked the streets in the evening were the french bread stands everywhere. The french stick is a national favourite, and people fill them with beef, pork, chicken and cucumbers and tomatoes... They are so, so fresh and made the perfect thing to buy for a long bus journey - of which I have MANY coming up, which I am strangely very excited about.
The beer is insanely cheap in Vietnam and I have realised that each city has its own brand so obviously in Hanoi it is called Hanoi Beer. It costs like 30 cents a bottle, which is just insane to me and I enjoyed it very much indeed!!
I think I quite quickly decided that parts of Vietnam would be flashpacking and parts would be backpacking. When it came to food, I really wanted to experience the best available options as I had heard so many amazing things about Vietnamese food. WOW it was just out of this world amazing, every single thing that I ate during my stay in Hanoi. I asked friends who had been before for recommendations, and quickly came up with a long list of places to eat and things to eat! In searching for one place on a rainy night that Janosh had recommended I managed to stumble upon another place which I had seen in the Lonely Planet guide called 69 Bar Restaurant. Honestly the Lonely Planet was my bible in Hanoi, I had so many cafes and restaurants I wanted to try out and not enough meal times to fit them all in - will have to come back for sure!!!! 69 Bar Restaurant quickly became my 'go to' place and I ate many meals here...and it was here that I was introduced to Bun Cha Ha Noi - a local dish in Hanoi made of pork, rice noodles, an enormous pile of fresh herbs and vietnamese spring rolls. It was something Hilda had mentioned to me previously as a 'must try' and I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I ate it! It was so, so good. I also tried beef and papaya salad here, and it was mouth wateringly amazing. The staff were gorgeous and made me feel so welcome, always saving the seat in the window for me so I could people watch while I often skyped friends and family :) Love skype - what an amazing creation! So nice to be able to speak to people far away when you need a good old gossip.
Vietnam is the first part of my trip where I have been truly alone, and I am loving it and fully embracing it every single day. It's good to test how you cope with being alone, and being able to enjoy alone time. I had craved alone time since India days as every day in India and Nepal was with other people. I loved it, me time galore :) I met lots of backpackers in the hostel and spent a good amount of time chatting and swapping travel plans so that was really nice, but really being alone, planning my travels alone and then actually traveling alone was so refreshing.
Ah Vietnam, you and I are going to be lifelong friends, I can feel it already :) Sure the hawkers can be annoying but I just smile and they stop and smile back at me. I expect a smile confuses them when they normally get ignored or frowned at lol. I love this city - Hanoi - the crazy, windy streets, the fact that every time I get lost I find something even more amazing which makes me believe that I got list for a reason. The smells, the energy, the colours, everything about it makes me have so much faith in how amazing this trip is going to be.
SO happy to finally be in Vietnam :)
xox
Many an evening I got lost, in true Caroline fashion, walking those crazy streets that somehow looked nothing like the maps I ever tried to carry around. But I always found my way home. By getting lost I found so many awesomely funky little streets that I never would have found and would have totally missed otherwise. I did a lot of extra shopping as a result of those little streets! Just such amazing energy in this bustling city.
Everywhere you looked there was beautiful artwork, photography, gift items, clothing etc. I wanted to buy so much to hold onto the memories of the city, instead I took photos in the realization that my backpack is fit to burst already ;)
I stayed at Hanoi Hostel which was in the Old Town also. It was fabulous for just $16 a night for a room with private bathroom. I was nicely surprised :) I can highly recommend it to anyone traveling through. Every morning I would start my day with breakfast in the hostel surrounded by my Lonely Planet and pieces of paper trying to make a plan for the rest of my stay in Vietnam. I only have 3 weeks so I was keen to make sure I planned the trip carefully, squeezing in as much as I possibly can, which I realise is a bit ambitious after speaking to other guests and seeing just how big Vietnam actually is now I am here.
The staff were amazing. They saw me puzzling through different plans, and eventually one morning one of the girls stopped me and asked if she could help me lol! She gave me a total plan for my trip, telling me all about each place along my itinerary and what she liked, what was popular with other travelers, and just helped me so much with fine tuning my experience. She even sat me down with a local map for Hanoi and told me her favourite coffee shops, and places to have Pho - the local noodle soup, which is amazing. She marked everything on the map and set me off for the afternoon on a local walking tour to get to see various temples and local areas. Just awesome, that was such a fun afternoon for me. I gave the locals a surprise turning up for Pho in an area where there really weren't any other westerners at all. To begin with they didn't serve me as they figured I must be confused and not meaning to be there, then an old lady slowly began preparing my soup leaving out the spices deliberately. Then she sat back and watched me eat with curiosity. It was delicious. I have no idea what was in it, but really amazing good :) And all for the pleasure of something like 50 cents, if that even.
The tour that the girl from the hostel gave me saw me walking for 6 hours straight around Hanoi. I saw government buildings with the most amazing French architecture, I found cafes galore, saw the One Pillar Pagoda, Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and museum, the Temple of Literature and Quan du Pagoda (which was stunning and highly amusing as men played badminton in front of people worshipping in the background). My favorite place of all time in Hanoi to hang out was the Temple of Literature. Such a cool place and it had such a positive energy vibe. I could have sat there for hours just people watching and looking at the beautiful architecture :) Of course I managed a handstand photo here too.
The staff also helped me to organise a 3 day trip to Halong Bay which looks amazing. I have wanted to visit Halong Bay for years and years and the photos make me so happy, so I can't wait to see it in person :)
Something I noticed quickly as I walked the streets in the evening were the french bread stands everywhere. The french stick is a national favourite, and people fill them with beef, pork, chicken and cucumbers and tomatoes... They are so, so fresh and made the perfect thing to buy for a long bus journey - of which I have MANY coming up, which I am strangely very excited about.
The beer is insanely cheap in Vietnam and I have realised that each city has its own brand so obviously in Hanoi it is called Hanoi Beer. It costs like 30 cents a bottle, which is just insane to me and I enjoyed it very much indeed!!
Vietnam is the first part of my trip where I have been truly alone, and I am loving it and fully embracing it every single day. It's good to test how you cope with being alone, and being able to enjoy alone time. I had craved alone time since India days as every day in India and Nepal was with other people. I loved it, me time galore :) I met lots of backpackers in the hostel and spent a good amount of time chatting and swapping travel plans so that was really nice, but really being alone, planning my travels alone and then actually traveling alone was so refreshing.
Ah Vietnam, you and I are going to be lifelong friends, I can feel it already :) Sure the hawkers can be annoying but I just smile and they stop and smile back at me. I expect a smile confuses them when they normally get ignored or frowned at lol. I love this city - Hanoi - the crazy, windy streets, the fact that every time I get lost I find something even more amazing which makes me believe that I got list for a reason. The smells, the energy, the colours, everything about it makes me have so much faith in how amazing this trip is going to be.
SO happy to finally be in Vietnam :)
xox
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