Hanoi, Vietnam

After leaving Australia, we arrived in Hanoi in late morning on Friday, June 3. This was our first visit to Asia in three years, so there was just a bit of trepidation as our plane descended into Hanoi. This was Vietnam, after all. It wasn’t all that long ago that soldiers were fighting and dying there, and it’s only been a decade since the U.S. and Vietnam normalized relations again. What we've found here, though, are very friendly people.

We’d booked a hotel in the Old Quarter of Hanoi and so, after checking into our room, we ventured into Vietnam for the first time. The very first impression we had was of the heat. It was June and we knew it would be hot, but we fully weren’t prepared for the extent of the humidity. As soon as we walked outside, we were enveloped in moisture. It just clung to us, and at the end of the day it seemed as if every part of our body was sticky with sweat and humidity.

The second immediate impression was of the noise. Particularly the traffic noise, coming from the incessant honking of horns by motorbikes, taxis and buses. Drivers honk to tell others to get out of the way, they honk when they approach an intersection, and they honk as a warning to anyone who might not see them coming. They do this because vehicles rarely stop moving. The traffic in Hanoi, and throughout Vietnam, is quite incredible, especially since you have to fight every instinct you have about the proper way to cross a street.

In Vietnam, you see, you have to walk into oncoming traffic. Your mother’s voice may ring in your ears the whole way, saying “don’t ever walk into the street if there is traffic coming,” and yet that is what you have to do -- step off the sidewalk and straight into the teeth of 50 or more motorbikes that are heading straight towards you with no intention of stopping. There are few stop lights and the movement of traffic is constant, so there is really no other way to get to the other side.

What the locals do is to walk out a few steps, giving the oncoming traffic a little bit of distance to see you and to maneuver around you. Then you walk a few more steps, and a few more, until you are in the middle of the street and there are motorbikes and even a few taxis whizzing by on both sides. There is absolutely no turning back, and even to stop and hesitate can cause a disruption to the flow of traffic. There is a rhythm to the movement of vehicles and pedestrians, which the Vietnamese innately understand but which foreigners can easily disrupt. The trick, we’ve been told, is to keep moving slowly and just trust that the traffic will find ways to maneuver around you. So, far it’s worked.

This is a typical traffic scene in Hanoi. It's certainly a unique experience to cross a street by stepping in front of these motorbikes and letting them weave their way around you...




During our time in Hanoi, we spent quite a bit of time just wandering around and soaking in the atmosphere. But among other things, we also:

- Went to the Water Puppet theater, where we watched a one-hour performance. Water puppetry is a specialty of north Vietnam. The pupeteers stand in waist-deep water behind a bamboo screen and maneuver puppets on long poles. The ‘stage’ is actually a pool of water, on which the puppets perform.

- Visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Very similar to the experience of seeing Mao’s preserved body in Beijing. The body of ‘Uncle Ho’ is preserved and displayed in a huge mausoleum. We were there on a Saturday morning, and thousands of Vietnamese were lined up to file past the body. We left our bags and cameras at a holding area and stood in line for 45 minutes, dripping wet in the humidity, before finally entering the air conditioned mausoleum and getting a glimpse of the body, bathed in light and encased in glass.