Going a bit blog mad at the moment.... making up for lost time I guess! Anyway I've seriously fallen in love with Hanoi now after a few final chilled out days here, met some really interesting people and seen some great things.... but now it's time to move on to go back to Thailand to explore the North... Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Pai! Thanks Vietnam, it's been fun and I am determined to come back and see more one day! But for now, a few things I've noticed along the way...
- Vietnamese food is seriously underrated - 'pho' noodle soup, spring rolls, crusty french bread (very rare to find a decent bit of bread in asia).... forget about Chinese, Vietnamese is my new food choice!
- In Hanoi at least... very easy to get ripped off if you don't have a good head on. Everything must be haggled for, even just a bottle of water, because the locals will automatically at least double the price for foreigners. Boring. Also they will try to short change you pretty much every where. Boring again.
- It's true what they say, there are motorbikes EVERYWHERE. China prepared me a little for the mayhem, but its still a terrifying ordeal crossing the road... you have to step out into oncoming traffic and hope they swerve to avoid you, otherwise you will literally be waiting all day!
- Sweatiest place I've been. And that's a bold statement seeing as I lived in the humid regions of Southern China for 6 months.
- One of my favourite places in the world - Hoan Kiem Lake. I spent a few afternoons sat here in the sun reading my book, strangely peaceful despite the crazy motorbike traffic going on in the background. Also if you sit here for a while you are likely to have Vietnamese English students approach you and ask politely if they can sit and practice their English for a while. I've let them a few times, and had many cute little conversations with them (my particular favourite is the boy who would not stop talking about roast dinners and yorkshire puddings when I told him I was from England).
- You can get a pretty decent draught beer 'beer hoi' for about 20p on the streets. Can't argue with that.
- In Hanoi, the police drive round at 11ish each night closing down all the clubs and bars. We found bars that did a lock in (aka. paid off the police), but still a very strange experience to have your night inturrupted by some Vietnamese police with truncheons who take away all the speakers.
- Despite the ripping off tourists and constantly nearly running you over with their motorbikes, the people are some of the friendliest I've met in Asia!
No comments:
Post a Comment