First day
I am in Hanoi. This is amazing. It's 8:13pm here but my body thinks it's morning.
We got into Hanoi at 2pm yesterday and took a taxi ride in to town. It was the most phenomenally Asian taxi ride ever. There were actual people in actual Vietnamese cone hats doing something to paddyfields, for heaven's sake. The taxi driver asked me my name and when I said "Catriona" he threw his head and laughed like "What the hell kind of name is that? They're all mad." It was excellent. Cars were just wantonly driving in the middle of the two-lane road and the taxi driver had to beep at them to move over. But there was no malice to it and they didn't glare at us when we passed or anything, so this is obviously just how they do things. One man on a motorbike with a child did swerve just in front of us, but he was the exception. The continual mad tooting seemed to keep everyone else out of the way.
Anyway, we went to the place we'd booked over the internet in a last-minute fit of worry that we'd be too tired and hot to be bothered wandering around trying to find a place. It seemed fine -- spartan but clean - UNTIL...
Let me set the scene. Amy is in the bathroom, having a shower and therefore unable to readily spring to my aid. I am trying to separate the beds, which are currently right next to each other forming a sort of double bed that I just can't cope with in the heat. So I go to move the beds to put the bedside table in between when out from behind on of them comes THE BIGGEST CENTIPEDE I HAVE EVER SEEN. And not only is it huge (maybe three/four inches long and quite thick) but it moves so quickly I don't even see where it goes. Not only that, but it is obviously as at home on the wall as on the floor as it moves from one to the other a la Trinity in The Matrix which means it could climb the walls and drop on our heads as we sleep. I scream something and jump on the bed. I shout through to Amy that there's some sort of giant insect thing under one of he beds. She points out there a minimal amount she can do about that, being naked. I say I don't want her to do anything about it, I'm just telling her.
She emerges from the shower a few minutes later to find me perched on top of one of the beds scanning the room for the devil. We move our stuff off the floor so it can't get into our bags and start poking towels under the bed, trying to get it to show itself so we can, I don't know, shoo it out the door? Anyway, we can't find it. Amy points out that it sounds like it could have climbed up the bed legs. I want to be sick.
We conclude we won't be easy sleeping in this room with that thing lurking, and anyway the a/c isn't strong enough for two unacclimatised Westerners who really need to sleep, so we wander out into the street in search of somewhere else.
I've glanced at the guidebook before we left and found a nice-sounding guesthouse. I think I remember it being on Ma May. Amy advocates crossing the road and getting a motorcycle taxi who is waving at us. Both of these concepts terrify me. Hanoi does not appear to have what you would call "a traffic system". People on little motorbikes just breeze merrily through the streets, beeping to let others know they're there, slowing down to go round people, parked motorbikes, etc., and regularly having near-collisions. It's amazing to watch, but to cross the road you basically have to wade out into the middle of it.
I tell myself internally to stop being crap and cross the road. It goes surprisingly well. When we get to the taxi man I say "Ma May?" and he becomes very enthusiastic. I decide I should check the book again to make sure but the man takes my bag and puts it in front of him. I'm not willing to lose it so I jump on after him and off we go. Amy follows on another taxi.
It's only once we've set off that I remember you're meant to always sort out the fare before you go. Never mind.
So we're travelling through the streets of Hanoi's old quarter, part of the sea of traffic, and it's amazing. Initially I'm terrified, because we do regularly pass far too close to other vehicles going the same way and I fear for my life, but I quickly realise the taxi man does this every day and anyway, I'm not getting off til we get to Ma May so I might as well enjoy it.
It's very easy to enjoy, anyway. People wearing Vietnamese cone hats go by carrying those big scales of fruit that you see in postcards. There are groups of people huddled on stools round street kitchens. Every junction is negotiated in a symphony of small miracles. The warm air and the smells blow past me -- thankfully, in the case of some of the smells, they don't stay too long.
I decide motortaxis in Hanoi may well be my favourite mode of transport ever, through a riverboat down the Rhine does come close.
Anyway, we find Ma May, which is an excellently small and winding street. The taxi man suggests we stop and I say "khong, khong", which I think means "yes, yes" but later find out means "no, no". That whole exchange now makes so much more sense.
I finally get him to stop with hand signals. He asks for $4, which we know now was daylight robbery, but at that point we hadn't slept in a very long time so we just gave it to him. Obviously this showed every other tout on the street that was were idiots who just threw money around so they harassed us quite a bit.
We ducked into a restaurant to avoid them and spent, like, a year drinking two diet cokes while we realised that the place we'd wanted was actually opn the other side of town, and we'd paid far too much to go the wrong direction.
However, closer inspection showed that, while the guesthouse claimed to be on Hang Be and on the other side of town, Hang Be was marked as being just a few streets away from us. We decided to go and check it out before we paid for another journey (although obviously I wouldn't have minded that either. I might yet pay a taxi man to just drive me around for a bit for no reason). We went for a wander and found the place in question, but it was undergoing construction so we had to wander the streets a bit longer. We found the Classic Street Hotel, which wanted $10 a piece from us for a room (the other place was $3.50) but had really strong air conditioning. We decided this was what we wanted from life and took it. There was a wee lizard, but I like wee lizards so this is fine. It reminds me of Florida.
We then watched Private Benjamin, dozed most of the night and only felt properly sleepy around 8am Hanoi time, so we slept til about 5pm and only then felt ready to face the world. We're aware this is the exact wrong thing to do for jet lag. We don't much care.
So, this evening we went to a nice pub and had chicken with roast pumpkin, tomatoes, hummus and pesto. It was up there with any meal I've had in a restaurant at home and it cost the equivalent of 1 pound 50. I found this so phenomenal I took a picture. I also had a cocktail, which was yummy, and learned about Iran's perparations for the World Cup from the bigscreen projection on the wall. I was more interested than I perhaps should have been because I'd never have expected Iran to play football. And apparently Angola got their first-ever World Cup point today, which made me happy. We left before Portugal/Iran started, but the place we're in now is playing it anyway.
After tea we tried to find somewhere with internet and ended up on a street composed entirely of scores of shoe shops each selling hundreds and hundreds of pairs. As Amy remarked, "Wow, they really like shoes." Then we remembered that this is the old merchants' quarter of Hanoi and there are lots of streets that still sell the goods they've been famous for for five centuries, so this must be the shoe street. It was so cool.
Anyway, we then found the internet and here I am. Asia is excellent so far, although who knows how I'll feel about that come tomorrow, when for the sake of our budgets we have to move to a non-air-conditioned room. I may die. Hopefully not, though.
We got into Hanoi at 2pm yesterday and took a taxi ride in to town. It was the most phenomenally Asian taxi ride ever. There were actual people in actual Vietnamese cone hats doing something to paddyfields, for heaven's sake. The taxi driver asked me my name and when I said "Catriona" he threw his head and laughed like "What the hell kind of name is that? They're all mad." It was excellent. Cars were just wantonly driving in the middle of the two-lane road and the taxi driver had to beep at them to move over. But there was no malice to it and they didn't glare at us when we passed or anything, so this is obviously just how they do things. One man on a motorbike with a child did swerve just in front of us, but he was the exception. The continual mad tooting seemed to keep everyone else out of the way.
Anyway, we went to the place we'd booked over the internet in a last-minute fit of worry that we'd be too tired and hot to be bothered wandering around trying to find a place. It seemed fine -- spartan but clean - UNTIL...
Let me set the scene. Amy is in the bathroom, having a shower and therefore unable to readily spring to my aid. I am trying to separate the beds, which are currently right next to each other forming a sort of double bed that I just can't cope with in the heat. So I go to move the beds to put the bedside table in between when out from behind on of them comes THE BIGGEST CENTIPEDE I HAVE EVER SEEN. And not only is it huge (maybe three/four inches long and quite thick) but it moves so quickly I don't even see where it goes. Not only that, but it is obviously as at home on the wall as on the floor as it moves from one to the other a la Trinity in The Matrix which means it could climb the walls and drop on our heads as we sleep. I scream something and jump on the bed. I shout through to Amy that there's some sort of giant insect thing under one of he beds. She points out there a minimal amount she can do about that, being naked. I say I don't want her to do anything about it, I'm just telling her.
She emerges from the shower a few minutes later to find me perched on top of one of the beds scanning the room for the devil. We move our stuff off the floor so it can't get into our bags and start poking towels under the bed, trying to get it to show itself so we can, I don't know, shoo it out the door? Anyway, we can't find it. Amy points out that it sounds like it could have climbed up the bed legs. I want to be sick.
We conclude we won't be easy sleeping in this room with that thing lurking, and anyway the a/c isn't strong enough for two unacclimatised Westerners who really need to sleep, so we wander out into the street in search of somewhere else.
I've glanced at the guidebook before we left and found a nice-sounding guesthouse. I think I remember it being on Ma May. Amy advocates crossing the road and getting a motorcycle taxi who is waving at us. Both of these concepts terrify me. Hanoi does not appear to have what you would call "a traffic system". People on little motorbikes just breeze merrily through the streets, beeping to let others know they're there, slowing down to go round people, parked motorbikes, etc., and regularly having near-collisions. It's amazing to watch, but to cross the road you basically have to wade out into the middle of it.
I tell myself internally to stop being crap and cross the road. It goes surprisingly well. When we get to the taxi man I say "Ma May?" and he becomes very enthusiastic. I decide I should check the book again to make sure but the man takes my bag and puts it in front of him. I'm not willing to lose it so I jump on after him and off we go. Amy follows on another taxi.
It's only once we've set off that I remember you're meant to always sort out the fare before you go. Never mind.
So we're travelling through the streets of Hanoi's old quarter, part of the sea of traffic, and it's amazing. Initially I'm terrified, because we do regularly pass far too close to other vehicles going the same way and I fear for my life, but I quickly realise the taxi man does this every day and anyway, I'm not getting off til we get to Ma May so I might as well enjoy it.
It's very easy to enjoy, anyway. People wearing Vietnamese cone hats go by carrying those big scales of fruit that you see in postcards. There are groups of people huddled on stools round street kitchens. Every junction is negotiated in a symphony of small miracles. The warm air and the smells blow past me -- thankfully, in the case of some of the smells, they don't stay too long.
I decide motortaxis in Hanoi may well be my favourite mode of transport ever, through a riverboat down the Rhine does come close.
Anyway, we find Ma May, which is an excellently small and winding street. The taxi man suggests we stop and I say "khong, khong", which I think means "yes, yes" but later find out means "no, no". That whole exchange now makes so much more sense.
I finally get him to stop with hand signals. He asks for $4, which we know now was daylight robbery, but at that point we hadn't slept in a very long time so we just gave it to him. Obviously this showed every other tout on the street that was were idiots who just threw money around so they harassed us quite a bit.
We ducked into a restaurant to avoid them and spent, like, a year drinking two diet cokes while we realised that the place we'd wanted was actually opn the other side of town, and we'd paid far too much to go the wrong direction.
However, closer inspection showed that, while the guesthouse claimed to be on Hang Be and on the other side of town, Hang Be was marked as being just a few streets away from us. We decided to go and check it out before we paid for another journey (although obviously I wouldn't have minded that either. I might yet pay a taxi man to just drive me around for a bit for no reason). We went for a wander and found the place in question, but it was undergoing construction so we had to wander the streets a bit longer. We found the Classic Street Hotel, which wanted $10 a piece from us for a room (the other place was $3.50) but had really strong air conditioning. We decided this was what we wanted from life and took it. There was a wee lizard, but I like wee lizards so this is fine. It reminds me of Florida.
We then watched Private Benjamin, dozed most of the night and only felt properly sleepy around 8am Hanoi time, so we slept til about 5pm and only then felt ready to face the world. We're aware this is the exact wrong thing to do for jet lag. We don't much care.
So, this evening we went to a nice pub and had chicken with roast pumpkin, tomatoes, hummus and pesto. It was up there with any meal I've had in a restaurant at home and it cost the equivalent of 1 pound 50. I found this so phenomenal I took a picture. I also had a cocktail, which was yummy, and learned about Iran's perparations for the World Cup from the bigscreen projection on the wall. I was more interested than I perhaps should have been because I'd never have expected Iran to play football. And apparently Angola got their first-ever World Cup point today, which made me happy. We left before Portugal/Iran started, but the place we're in now is playing it anyway.
After tea we tried to find somewhere with internet and ended up on a street composed entirely of scores of shoe shops each selling hundreds and hundreds of pairs. As Amy remarked, "Wow, they really like shoes." Then we remembered that this is the old merchants' quarter of Hanoi and there are lots of streets that still sell the goods they've been famous for for five centuries, so this must be the shoe street. It was so cool.
Anyway, we then found the internet and here I am. Asia is excellent so far, although who knows how I'll feel about that come tomorrow, when for the sake of our budgets we have to move to a non-air-conditioned room. I may die. Hopefully not, though.