Days 12-13: Hanoi madness

Arriving back in Hanoi traded the tranquility and beauty of Halong Bay for the traffic, smog, and congestion of the big city.  J and I both lived for several years in New York, but nothing about life in the Big Apple prepared us for the absolute chaos that occurs daily on Hanoi's streets.

We stayed at the Golden Sun Legend, a relatively new boutique hotel in the old quarter.  It was perfectly nice, not like the Marriott or Sojourn in terms of luxury, but clean and comfortable.  The staff, though, was remarkable -- a strong contender for the award of friendliest of the whole  trip, from the doorman who jumped off his seat and ran to open the door and welcome us back, to the breakfast room staff.

After all the "mandatory fun" of the Halong Bay cruise, we spent our two days in Hanoi just walking around, taking in the sights and daily life.  Our first impression was the craziness of the traffic; Hanoi's streets are choked at all times of day with cars, bicycles and (above all) motorcycles.  Compounding the madness is the general absence of stops signs or streetlights -- every crossroads is an impressive dance of ad hoc merging.

We decided photos just wouldn't convey the full sense, so we took a couple of videos.  Keep in mind that the lack of stoplights seems to correspond with a lack of crosswalks; crossing the street requires just walking out into traffic at a consistent pace, trusting that the motorbikes will weave around you.  (They did!)  Even by the end, when I felt pretty confident that the drivers wouldn't hit me, I still had to say a prayer, close my eyes, and just step out into traffic. Baby steps the whole way across: stopping in the middle or sprinting through the intersection would most certainly be tragic.  Kinda like life sometimes!

For anyone who has played Super Mario Kart, crossing the street in Hanoi kinda felt like having a million turtle shells shot at you all at once!  And these were not even close to the busiest intersections!  (You've probably seen enough already, but the end of this video gives you a better sense of what it's like actually crossing the street.)


Apart from dodging motorbikes, we spent most of our time exploring the old quarter, which is historic and beautiful in its way.  There are plenty of shops, some pretty views around Ho Hoan Kiem lake, and a night market.

I begged J to strip down to his skivvies and challenge this guy to a headstand contest, but he was too much of a wimp...

One of the unique things about the old quarter is that each street is designated for a particular product or service -- one street is all shops selling paper lanterns, the next textiles or flowers or Christmas decorations.  Plus, of course, everywhere there are street hawkers carrying their goods.

Interesting take on Christmas decor (anyone else see Ursula??) . . .

We also visited the Cho Dong Xuan market, which was a maze of stalls selling clothes, fabrics, handbags, shoes, and pretty much anything else you can imagine.

Flowers!

Fresh produce (sometimes to go!)

We stopped one afternoon at the Sofitel Legend Metropole, a fixture in Hanoi since 1901 and now probably the premiere luxury hotel in the city.  We had a poolside lunch and afternoon tea, which luckily included a chocolate buffet bar with dozens of different goodies, gourmet hot chocolate, and ice cream sundaes.

Chocolate buffet!

Although it was tough to top the chocolate buffet, one of our favorite meals of the trip was dinner at La Badiane, a French-Asian fusion restaurant tucked away on a small side street.  I say that even though I was feeling close to the worst that I ever felt on the trip (I may have gone a bit overboard on the ice cream and hot chocolate earlier in the day) but J loved his braised lamb and strawberry parfait, and my crab lasagna and melted chocolate cake weren't bad either!

On our way to the airport we got stuck in one of the most amazing traffic jams we've ever seen.  An accident on a bridge over the river had blocked three of the four lanes of the overpass.  As traffic from one direction tried to move over to get past, cars from the other direction crossed the yellow line to grab the extra lanes, eventually coming face-to-face with the oncoming traffic.  The result?  Four lane total gridlock . . .

Luckily we made our plane.  We were happy to have seen Hanoi, but also ready to be on to the next adventure -- Laos!