Hello Hanoi!

Well, we had no mice and no other bunkmates to accompany us on our journey to Hanoi, but James did have another little cockroach climb up his leg, but that wasn’t going to put a crimp on a successful journey. By the time we had risen it was coming up to 9:00am and we had had numerous interruptions from people opening our cabin door, looking in and then leaving us alone. It wouldn’t be all that bad but as we had no curtains the light from the corridor would blaze across our eyelids and wake us up each time. Nevertheless, we were near our last stop in Vietnam and we had got some half-decent sleep after all.

Just arrived in Hanoi

We were accosted by the usual rabble of taxi drivers all trying to get our business, but on this leg of the trip we were only a short walk from our hotel so we shouldered our bags and followed the map on my phone. First impressions of Hanoi were that it was pretty much the same as Ho Chi Minh City; full of motorbikes and street vendors. We were early to our hotel so we waited while our Deluxe win room was being made up. We had upgraded from Standard to Superior, and then again from Superior to Deluxe as the price difference was minimal and we would need a good room if staying for 5 nights. As it still came in at under a tenner each per night we were happy with it. We had a balcony at one end of the room that looked out over the streets below, and a couple of caged birds on the balcony next-door, that may become a nuisance if they don’t shut up later into the night.

The Deluxe Twin... 

As it was lunch-time we took a wander through the local streets, but were unable to find anywhere decent to grab a bite. We are still playing it pretty safe when it comes to street food as we can’t afford to get wiped out (pardon the pun) for a couple of days. Eventually we found somewhere and chowed down. We took an afternoon nap afterwards as the train sleep hadn’t been of great quality, and did some research into Hanoi to see what was around.

That night we ventured out into the streets and found the lake where everything seems to happen around. The restaurant we found certainly had the biggest menu we had come across on our travels. It contained: rabbit, squid, eel, frog, tortoise, and cock testicles. We avoided this minefields and plumped for the usual kinda stuff, as the restaurant didn’t seem classy enough to pull any of those dishes off. On the way home I managed to add another beer to the increasing list that we have sampled from around the world – Zorok. It was ok. Cheap and cheerful, and did a job, but probably wouldn’t drink it out of choice.

The lake by night...