Frenzied in Hanoi

We had heard a slew of negative things about visiting Hanoi - "the people are aggressive," "you will get hustled," etc... The Lonely Planet said that scams were common, especially when booking excursions out of the city. We were pleased that during our three days in Hanoi, we found, with an exception or two, people to be extremely hospitable and friendly. The exception or two was getting out of the airport (some random guy, who smelled like booze, followed us around for a while trying to convince us to ride with him to the city - no thanks) and dealing with Hanoi traffic (crossing the street was an adventure - there are very few traffic lights in Hanoi and intersections are pure chaos - Corey nearly got knocked over by a moped going the wrong direction out of his lane).

Corey attempting to cross the street at night

Aside from that, Hanoi was great! It was good to see locals out everywhere and not feel like we were in a strictly tourist zone for once.

We arrived at our hostel to find that it had been fully booked for the night - no worries - we were hooked up with a free upgrade to the owner's hotel a few minutes away. The hotel was extremely nice - we even had our own computer with internet in the room (for a total of $16 US / night).

For dinner we had Pho, a Vietnamese specialty that is a chicken noodle broth with various spices - kinda like Ramen.

The next morning we walked around Hanoi in the blistering heat. The city is chaotic and noisy, but in a cool, culturally interesting way.

Crazy Hanoi at night

The streets are packed with scooters and bicycles, and people walking with baskets of food and fruit everywhere. It was very cool. We went to the Temple of Literature, an important cultural landmark in Vietnam that honors, among other things, Confucious and his impact on Vietnamese culture. At night we went out for some cheap beers (around 80 cents a pint) and sampled some of the nightlife.

Sweet beer-hall

The next morning, we would be traveling to Ha Long Bay, originally the reason we had headed to Hanoi in the first place.

Hanoi, Vietnam