Hanoi

Today is the last day of my organised Vietnam trip. Tomorrow night I am heading to Sapa which is near the Chinese border for 4 nights and 3 days of trekking through some of the highlands, and what I'm told is some of the most beautiful scenery in Vietnam. But I'll tell you about that later.

So Hanoi is quite a compact place - for a major city. The Old Quarter is packed with tiny streets choked with motorbikes and cyclos. You can sit on the footpath and if you wait long enough everything will come to you. Food, water, transport, sunglasses, clothes, travel agents and a number of people selling items that I'd struggle to name, let alone know their purpose...

The traffic here is manic, yet usually works. You drive on the right - if there is room, or traffic is flowing OK, but this is not set in stone. If you are going faster than someone else you pass on the left while vigorously tooting your horn (which you have previously modified to make your vehicle sound bigger than it is). If you actually are in a bigger vehicle you may pass on the left, crossing over into oncoming traffic, which will move, unless of course the oncoming traffic is bigger than you. Footpaths are optional road lanes, because of course, smaller people will move. Its great. You just have to cross the road moving slowly and consistently and for a brief moment the traffic will swallow you up before you emerge miraculously unscathed on the other side. It's possible that I've even closed my eyes on occasion...it definitely gets your heart rate up.

Hanoi is also quite a nice city, there are several lakes scattered around, and the city itself is surrounded by rivers on at least 3 sides (although constant expansion may be making a liar of me as I type). There is a story about the main lake here similar to Arthur and the lady of the lake, however I believe in this case the lake took back the sword of the Emperor, or something like that - I have not quite got that one down yet.

We actually arrived in Hanoi on Wednesday morning after a long, long overnight train from Hue, departing at 3pm Tuesday afternoon, and arriving just before 6am. I HAVE lost the ability to sleep in. Our group leader thought it best to do an orientation walk of the city immediately, before the bikes and horns made it impossible to a group of 11 weary westerners to get across the roads in one piece, and then hear the directions for the way back to the hotel. To be honest, I didn't do much. I wandered around the lake and strolled up the main drag for 'genuine original copies' of designer jeans. Unfortunately no purchases of this quality merchandise was made, while I actually feel quite tall here, I also feel quite fat - the reinforcement of which by most shopkeepers flatly stating "No big sizes!" upon entry to most stores does not help my fragile ego...

I like the Old Quarter - while we are staying in a tourist hub, its still obvious that the locals are still completely ensconced in their day to day lives here as well. There is a local market in the block behind our hotel that still sells the fresh fruit, meat, fish and various fast food items (including roast dog) that is purchased everyday by the women of the households. I quite like the idea of getting up every morning and getting just what you need for the day, and its so fresh, I mean the fish are often still alive until you buy them. There are barely any supermarkets around, and if you do find them, there is never any fresh produce, there would be no point in stocking it. In the evenings you can sit at plastic tables and chairs (that we would consider to be made for children) on the corner of almost any street and buy a freshly brewed, no-name beer for 2,000 Dong per glass (lets see, that's about 20cents for a handle of beer).

The food here is a great mix of Western and traditional Vietnamese. I don't know if I'll ever get sick of spring rolls, and I know I've mentioned the seafood, but honestly, its so good and really, really cheap. I'm feeling very proud of my new found skill with which I can now pick up peanuts and the like with chopsticks. I'm not saying I've mastered them by any means, and will not be catching flies any time soon, but as I have not yet hit China, I'll keep myself open to the Chi...

Thursday we jumped on a bus bound for Halong City, and of course the famed Halong Bay. We had a private boat (one of the great advantages of being with a group, I have to say!) waiting for us that somehow made its way from the middle of the marina to the open waters of the bay. Now when I say the middle - please take me literally. Boats are not moored individually and logically, they are moored often to each other, with the first boats in tied safely to the pier. Somehow - perhaps I can liken it to Moses and the parting of the red sea - boats do find their way out to open water.

Unfortunately we only saw one traditional junk boat (they old ones with awesome orange/red sails that look so majestically imperial floating out in the water), and unfortunately the weather was c.r.a.p. I don't know whether you would call it a sea fog, a cloud of polluted haze or what, but there was no clearing it, no matter how much wishing I did. I still have to say that despite the haze the bay was pretty amazing. There are about 3,000 islands in the bay - most of which are just sheer limestone rocks that burst out of the water for no apparent reason other than that they can. We cruised for about 4 hours (again, gorgeous seafood lunch on board) before we docked at Cat Ba island - the largest of the islands populated by about 12,000 people. I could not actually tell you how many people lived in the floating villages in between the islands, along with their pet guard dogs, guarding their floating fish farms I guess. I was not a huge fan of Cat Ba Island, but you can not argue with the view.

Friday morning I joined a few from the group on a little paddle around the islands. 'Little paddle'. It felt like I could have paddled home! We crossed a few big channels, passing bobbing jelly fish the size of small children. Many plastic bags, the size of...plastic bags, and thankfully no shark sightings, which was obviously what my paranoid imagination interpreted anything other than water as - no wait, sometimes even water, before my right, rational brain reassured me. It was a good morning's exercise, even if I am struggling to lift a water today...

At 12.30 we jumped on the public ferry, with a couple of motorbikes for good measure, and headed back to Hai Phoung on the main land. Bussed it back to Hanoi for our last supper together and that was that.