Hello Hanoi!!!

The Chaos

Taipei x 5 times as many scooters + rickshaws + more construction + more people = Hanoi.

I think the equation above best explains why I love Hanoi. I love Taipei, and if you add a little more chaos I love it all the more. I think it would be very hard to get bored in a city like Hanoi. Tourism adds a great deal to the economy, but it is not the sole boon of the economy. There are thriving financial companies, restaurants, retailers and manufacturers. Vietnam has experienced extreme growth, the same type of growth that countries like S. Korea and Taiwan went through in the early '90s. The estimated growth rate over the last couple years is roughly 8%, which puts it in league with China, but (of course) at a smaller scale with only 85 million people in the country.

Hanoi boasts a wonderful night market with tons of wares, goodies and foods that could even tempt the most frugal or picky person. I spent a great deal of time taking pictures and talking to locals. There are a bunch of wonderful Pho places that charge almost nothing for a bowl of soup with cilantro, lime and chili. Yummy!!

Hostel and Booking Tours??

We stayed at the Hanoi Backpacker's hostel, which is a bit more expensive than the others since it is run by two Aussie expats and tends to fill up early with people. They run tours to Halong Bay and Sapa that are highly recommended, but they are waaaay too expensive for the average backpacker. We went to Cat Ba Island in Halong Bay without booking anything and managed to find a semi-decent tour for $30 including meals, transport back to Hanoi, accomodation, etc. Which was a pretty fair price, since many of the others in our group paid double or up to 5 times as much.

Choosing a booking agency is very important, and it definitely pays to double-check everything. People have no incentive to charge you a fair price when they can get a tremendous amount more from you and if you only come once to Vietnam. Businesses change so fast that reputation also holds little value over time. So far, I have yet to really pay full price for anything in Vietnam :). Especially after a month in China and a couple weeks in Vietnam, my ability to haggle has definitely increased.

Remnants of a Different Era...

I managed to see Uncle Ho, which is quite a surreal experience. Uncle Ho as he is affectionately called in the Lonely Planet has been embalmed since his death in 1969 and still envokes a very powerful sense of pride and admiration from the Vietnamese people. The rules are very very strict and cameras are checked at the door. We only had to wait 20 minutes to get through the long line and took all of 5 minutes to pass by the three sides of the glass coffin of the very short and sensei-like man.

There are tons of other things that you can see in Hanoi, but we managed to see a couple temples and what the American POWs dubbed the "Hanoi Hilton" during the Vietnam War. The Hanoi Hilton has an even longer history that is interlinked with the French occupation. Vietnam's history is pretty scattered, meaning that they have experience wars, occupations and clashes with all sorts of countries over the last 1000 years; including China, Japan, France, Vietnam War, Cambodia, and others. There are a couple museums that explain the history of the Viet people much better than I could do in a couple paragraphs.

Okay, that was a very brief description of Hanoi. I am finding it hard to explain everything in such a short amount of space (only one blog post). I have found that the very small things are the most impactful. These things consist of the changes in food, manners, signs, language, and the like. I will be sure to explain more in upcoming posts. I am currently in Mui Ne and a bit behind in my posts. I hope everyone is doing well and I will continue to stay safe and learn lots along the way. Bacissimi !!