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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
a travel blog entry
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“Honda, the power of screams” |
After a brief flight we rolled out of Hanoi airport and into a cab. Told him which hotel we fancied and got dropped off there. Then established it was shut for refurbishment (bloody guidebooks!). We humped our bags to a nearby travel organiser place who within 5 mins had us in another cab and off to another hotel. This place was fine and in the old quarter of Hanoi where we wanted to be. Quite posh and with a full array of football on a saturday night when you're knackered, and the beer costs 30 pence a bottle, perfect.
Bright and fresh (ahem!) the next day we ventured out to what can only be explained as race day at Donnington. The roads are narrow and crammed full of mopeds. There is one bike to every 8 Vietnamese, which makes a total of 8 million bikes. We counted how many went past our nose in a minute, in the middle of the afternoon and the total was over 130. Add to this no visible road rules, and no traffic controls whatsover and the sight is awesome. Horn peeping is obligatory but it doesn't show impatience, just the fact that you are near someone else. As a result of this crossing the road is real event. It requires a procedure of head down ( so as not to scare yourself rigid) and a VERY slow shuffle forwards until hopefully you make it to the other side. All the time bikes zip past you from every direction. On our first day this didn't quite work. I took Lyndsays hand in the "road crossing protocol" set out by Mr Gudgeon and proceeded across. However, on lifting my head when I kicked the kerb at the other side I noticed a lack of loved one in my hand. I turned to see Lynds, stuck, right in the middle with tears welling up in her eyes, and a yearly output from Honda whizzing past her nose. It took 5 minutes of me preaching to her to come across(think of a parent attempting to get their first born to make those first few steps!!) before she came across and stomped past me in huff, due to me not laying myself down infront of the traffic to ease her passage. Parting the red sea would have been easier!! So the new advert must surely be " Honda, the power of screams."
After the road safety lessons, we viewed the city over a couple of days. The buildings are nearly all two story due to an old emperor with vertigo or something. They all look quite "shabby chic" I think the term is and the whole place is rather endearing. The old city surrounds a lake at it's centre in which mythical turtles apparently inhabit. It isn't the cleanest city in the world and the odd rat has been seen running the gauntlet in the streets much to Lyndsays displeasure. She seemed to think that wearing flip-flops was positively encouraging them to venture up her trouser leg! The people are incredibly friendly and always smiling and helpful, with a better grasp of English than many people from Liverpool. The food in the city is far more intercontiantal than that seen in China, and our first night resulted in a very swanky restaurant with an Egyptian chef who cooked the most spectacular food for expats and tourists. The next thing that hits you is how cheap everything is and how poor folks here are. Breakfast seems to cost us about one pound fifty and its apparent there is a pub crawl which costs a dollar, all in! The maximum you can draw from an ATM is seventy-five quid so that gives you an idea of how hard it is to spend it.
After visiting the odd Pagoda and place of interest we got on a bus and headed to Ninh Binh, around which are various sights to see, including some huge stone carsts emerging from a river.
previous travel blog entry
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