Hanoi-ce to meet you!

When I said I was ready for Hanoi to come at me, absolutely nothing in the world could have prepared me for the onslaught I met coming into the city.

I'd booked myself into the hotel where the G Adventures tour would start the following day and luckily that came with the option for a pre-booked taxi which I gratefully accepted!

Rebecca and other friends had warned me that there are mopeds everywhere and that traffic is a free-for-all but the sheer quantity was what surprised me the most - up to 4 mopeds in breadth on each side of the road, sometimes more, with anything from 1 to 4 passengers where they sometimes fit the whole family and even furniture on!

(This photo is actually only a light traffic and not fully representative!)

I checked into the hotel and was warmly greeted by the staff who were really helpful and friendly. They took my bags up for me and I handed them a bag of laundry to do as well so they could return it to me for the morning. Was an absolute bargain at 50,000 Vietnamese dong per kilo. Roughly only £1.80.

Sadly I had to do a bit of room shuffling as the air con didn't work and the safe deposit box was missing. The second room I was taken to had air con but no safe and half the light bulbs had blown so it was really dark but finally we found a room that had lighting, air con that worked and a safe - winning!! Only downside to this one was that I found lots of dead flies scattered on the floor in the bathroom but you can't have everything and as mum pointed out - at least it wasn't cockroaches!

By this point, a few hours had passed and I was starving hungry. I left the hotel to looking for a restaurant and found myself amongst a huge night market which was great. It was lively, buzzy and bustling with all different walks of people, including some fellow travellers like myself. The best part though was the traffic was prevented from entering the roads so you could walk without fear of being driven into!

Crossing the road here is terrifying at first but the trick is that you have to be 100% committed to it and keep your pace the same as the mopeds will weave around you. The minute you slow down or panic and stop, you'll end up with someone driving into you!

After wandering the street market for an hour or so and seeing all the souvenir and street food stalls, I stopped nearby to grab myself some spring rolls for dinner where I wasn't too hungry but needed something to tide me over and headed back to the hotel, wrote in my journal, skyped the grandparents, mum and Rebecca and had a look at a guide book for things to see the next day. Amazingly, by about 9.30, I had a knock on the door from the bell-boy to deliver my freshly laundered clothes. Now that's some fast service right there!

After a great night's sleep, I headed down for breakfast which consisted of some fresh fruit, bacon and toast.

After heading back to my room, I showered, packed and got myself set for the day to explore Hanoi before meeting the group at 6pm. I'd spoken to reception to see if I could leave all my bags and valuables in the room I was in but they told me it wouldn't be possible and there was a room that I could put my stuff in as I would be sharing it tonight. What made it slightly more interesting was that it was a double bed and the twin room that was supposed to be booked was not going to be used as there wasn't any hot water! I was rather anxious as I'd not met the person at this point and it wasn't the most conventional of introductions to someone new but these are the sort of bumps in the road you just have to get on with!

As I made my way downstairs, the reception desk had a note for the G Adventures group of things to see in the city if we happened to get there earlier in the day - The Temple of Literature, the lake and the Water Puppets show. I had a wander around the lake which was really pretty, visited the temple on the lake and treated myself to some chicken fried rice for lunch in a mall at the far end of the lake. At 3pm there was a showing of the water puppets so I decided to go and check it out, heading back to the temple on the lake first as I'd realised that none of my photos had saved on the phone and had spoken to Greg to work out why!

(Temple on the lake)

The Water Puppet show was very traditionally Vietnamese and was clever too with a combination of music and stories setting the scene, although none of it was in English so the understanding was fairly minimal!

When that finished, I had two hours to kill before meeting the group back at the hotel so decided to make my way across the city to the Temple of Literature. The architecture was lovely and there were gardens too which were nice to walk around.

Time went so quickly and before I knew it, I was heading back to the hotel, changed for the joining meeting as it had been so hot and sweaty and met my new room mate Connie from Copenhagen.

We had an hour or so of introductions and form- filling and then were taken to a local restaurant for dinner - I had chicken with honey, chilli and citrus with rice which was lovely! A few of the girls then decided to walk around the night market and went back to the hotel to go to bed where Connie and I were greeted by reception to be told they'd given us our 2 duvets which was so much easier for us sharing the bed!

Connie and I woke up and had breakfast with Stephanie and then we got ready to do some sightseeing. We headed for the Mausoleum which although it was closed, you could walk around the outside. There was a temple in the grounds but I couldn't go in as I was in shorts so I waited for the girls outside.

Next stop for me was the Old Gate as the girls were heading to the Temple of Literature where I'd already been so I jumped into a taxi that was waiting outside - biggest mistake! I'd noticed it was at the 200,000 dong mark on the meter and questioned it as the taxi on the way there was only 40,000 for the whole journey. He told me it was because of the one way system and I said it was wrong but I knew there was little I could do about it as I'd be absolutely duped! I told him to drop me near the hotel and it had got to 295,000 dong so I gave him 500,000. Got a bit lost but finally made it to the old gate which wasn't particularly exciting - I thought it would be more than a tunnel style structure over the road!

After that, I headed to the cathedral which was lovely to look at but was closed so you couldn't get in to see it!

I treated myself to an iced coffee at highlands coffee to cool down as I was ridiculously hot by this point and it was then that I noticed the taxi driver had the cheek to hand me 20,000 in change rather than 200,000 - I was not amused!

Ironically enough, I had to be back to meet the group at 3.50pm for the Water Puppets show...definitely didn't expect to have to see that again so soon!

After making my way back towards the lake, I kept my eyes peeled for a restaurant to curb the late lunchtime hunger and it was in the lift to s restaurant that I met a wonderful family and they invited me to join them. Elaine and Trevor were a retired couple from Worthing and they were with their daughter-in-law Kim who was from Hanoi but married an Englishman and their grandchildren Jack and India who were cute. They were so lovely to me and Kim was a great help giving me her details in case I got stuck and the name of a good taxi firm so I couldn't get ripped off again!

The Water Puppet show was exactly the same as the day before only this time, I didn't almost nod off where I had been so hot and tired before!

It was too early for dinner when we finished up so we headed towards beer street and got ourselves a beer for 5,000 dong which is about 18p - bargain of the trip so far and half the price of a bottle of water!

Huyen our guide had recommended a restaurant for dinner to get Hanoi's best beef noodle soup so we went there for a quick dinner before we had to get the bus to the train station. It only cost 50,000 (not even 2 quid) and was so worth it - another bargain for the evening!

We headed back to the hotel after picking up snacks and drinks for the train and got ourselves ready for the overnight train from Hanoi to Lao Cai so we could go to Sapa for the trek. I was unsure of what to expect but was really excited as I'd never been on a sleeper train before!

Will keep you posted xxx