Well after leaving cold and snowy England we arrived in cold and wet Hanoi! Dave's face was a picture as he watched the pouring rain from the taxi window.
We had a long trip from England, travelling by bus at 4 am to Heathrow, flying to Bahrain, Bangkok and then to Hanoi. Tired cold and hungry we booked into our quaint hostel, dropped our overflowing unwieldy back packs [yes I know we should have left the iron, hairdryer laptop and half the clothes and toiletries at home but you never know...] and ventured out onto the busy streets of Hanoi.
Crossing the roads was an experience in itself but we were determined to immerse ourselves into the culture and we chose a street restaurant where lots of the locals were eating. We squatted down on tiny plastic stools at tiny plastic tables [which brought back many nursery memories], Dave wasn't so practiced and grunted a bit on the way down and again on the way back up but was fine once he had his large bottle of 30p Tiger beer. It wasn't until we had ordered goodness knows what from the menu that we noticed the filth under the tables and the washing up facilities, a bucket of cold water in the corner [Eat your heart out environmental health inspectors, I wonder if they ever come somewhere like this for their holidays?] Needless to say we have eaten at many places like this since and, touch wood not one poorly tummy yet. We are travelling on a shoe string and on average we are paying about 3 quid between us for meals and drinks each time.
Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam, our accommodation was in the old quarter which had hundreds of little streets of houses, hostels, cafes and shops. Mostly each street is a specialty street where each shop sells pretty much the same as the next shop. We even went down one street where virtually every shop was stuffed full of rolls of every size of sellotape you could ever possibly imagine, we are kicking ourselves that we didn't take a photo because you just won't believe it. Another street, for example, would have a good dozen shops all selling identical sweets or hose pipes or towels.
We visited the Hoa Lo Prison Museum, used as a prison throughout various wars. It was the American service men who nicknamed it the 'Hanoi Guest house' when they were imprisoned there during the American war.
The more we travel in Vietnam we see examples of the horrors experienced by the Vietnamese over the course of time. We look at shrivelled old men and women and imagine what they may have gone through, now they are barely scratching a living from the land. There are no pensions or benefits here, families have to care for each other the best they can. We have spoken to simple people in their late thirties/early forties who remember the horrors they experienced as children and those who lost their parents or siblings throughout the war.
Hanoi is vibrant, and fast paced with the Hoan Kiem Lake at its heart. On an early morning stroll around the lake you see 2 of the many faces of Hanoi; residents practicing early morning Tai Chi, summoning up a tranquility from within and a stampede of motor bikes, of which there are 3 million in Hanoi [Cue for a song]