Hanoi - 17th to 19th December 2014
We flew out of Brisbane on 17/12/14 on a great direct, 9hr flight using Thai Airways to Bangkok. We had only three weeks to plan the SE Asia trip so after many frantic hours spent searching the internet for flights, accommodation and fun things to do we were pumped to have a 3.5week holiday trip
Pumped for the trip!
Shahn relaxing after the flight into Thailand, we bought a wide angle lens for all our temple shots and it is by far my favourite lens!
Bangkok, Thailand - from the hotel room on our first night in SE Asia.
Standing on the balcony the area had a weird smell, to be descriptive it smelt like hot mince, but when mince is frozen and you put it in the microwave and it has that distinctive smell.
The hotel we stayed at was insanely close to the airport as we had a connecting flight to Vietnam in the morning. After a pretty extensive breakfast we went for a stroll around the area, the road that the hotel was on had such differences. It had a few hotels and nice apartments, while nestled amongst them were rickety homes with stray dogs and chickens lurking around.
Vietnam Airline flight from Bangkok to Hanoi.
Vietnam Airlines would not let us leave Thailand unless we had a Vietnamese Visa, we had no time to get one in Aussie and we were told that getting them online was a minefield of scams so we were forced to pay US$250 EACH for our visa! I was pretty confident that we had just been scammed but they wouldn't let us board without this, we were raging! But once we got to Hanoi there was a lovely lady who took our passports and sussed everything out. Biggest waste of money ever but we learnt a valuable lesson, planning and organising a trip is essential, trust your instincts and always carry cash!
Taxiing from airport to Hanoi, to the Old Quarter. Our driver was talking on two cellphones the whole way to the hotel - max speed of 50km/h (safety first).
Construction techniques remind me of Africa. The buildings mostly have a very narrow road frontage as this determines the amount of tax to pay, therefore the majority of buildings were a few stories high and no wider than a couple of meters.
Our view in Hanoi 'Cheering Hotel', cool place and the people were awesome, US$20/night with a sweet breakfast .
Shahn getting ready to cross the road. Later that night we saw a lady get taken out by a scooter, it was one of the very few accidents we saw which is especially impressive considering the sheer volume of traffic and population. The road crossing technique is to walk out on the road at a steady speed and do not run.
Having a beer and deciding where to have dinner
The side street that our hotel was down - aka scooter-ville
We had dinner at Gecko, really tasty food
Shahn getting her fancy cocktail made 'Pho'
Night in the street from our room
The following morning we went for a wander around the Old Quarter. There were a lot of people out and about, lots of people walking around the lake, doing Tai Chi, some people doing stretches, pelvic thrusts and hula hooping movements. Also badminton, this paddle and ball catching dancing which had some music accompanying, a dance group that were ball room dancing in the park, also a lot of people playing a hackey sack style game but with a weighted spring with shuttle feathers.
The locals enjoying sticky rice.
A temple in the middle of the lake
Ly Thai To
Morning traffic to a minimum, after we went for a walk this round about was full of scooters
Exploring the city, not that hot there, lots of interesting smells and shops.
Cyclo ride to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, the guy really earned his money peddling the both of us to the other side of the city.
The flag pole has a secret entrance to some underground chamber, when we were standing there about 6 officials disappeared into the underground bunker and we never saw them come back out again.
After visiting the mausoleum, we went to see a water puppet show. It was pretty intense!
Out and about, looking for tasty food and interesting shops.
Scooter city
'Bun Bo Nam Bo' tasted awesome. Noodles with beef, broth, greens and peanuts - favourite dish!
Mini stall on the street cooking up a feed.
New Zealand Ice-cream, it was pretty tasty
Green grocer, just down the road from our hotel.
Getting ready for the sleeper train to Sapa (see next blog!).
All my belongings, 13kgs on my back and 3kgs in front pack... we had summer and winter gear and were well prepared but I still think we took too much stuff. Good planning for the big adventure at the end of 2015!!
