Since early Friday morning I have flown halfway across the world, almost 9,000 miles. But after checking my phone, it appears that I have walked over 24,000 steps and over 10 miles in the streets of Hanoi.
Hanoi is a high energy city. A lot of youth, a lot of scooters, a lot of pedestrians. It is sheer chaos and it’s wonderful.
I started the day by withdrawing 2,000,000 Vietnamese dong. That was the max this ATM would allow. The ATM also charged me a service fee of around 100,000 VND. There was a message that there was a fee, but not the amount. So, that 1.1 million VND was only about $85.. After that I bought a SIM card so that I could make calls upload data. The plan was 200,000 VND, for 11G of data and I believe the best coverage in Vietnam. After testing the card with multiple calls to Angie I hailed a ride from Grab. Grab is the Uber equivalent here. While I could hail a ride via that app, my credit card wouldn’t go through, probably due to the foreign bank. I paid the driver cash 270,000 VND.
I dropped my bags at Hay Hostel, a really nice and clean hostel in the Old Quarter…the place to be. And boy are there a lot of people here. Koreans. Lithuanians, Brits, Germans, Spanish, Chinese, Israeli to name few. There were a lot of Vietnamese as well, all dressed up. The Tet holiday started on the 5th. This is a family celebration celebrating the lunar New year, the year of the pig.
There are Happy New year banners everywhere and lots of flowers. The street vendors are selling all sorts of pig knickknacks.
My first goals were to orient myself, find a motorcycle and sight-see. I did a lot of the orienting a little of the sightseeing but failed on the motorcycle.
One crazy off the beaten path thing to do is watch the train go though these tightly space buildings. It seems they built the train tracks down a street barely wide enough for a car. Little cafes of residents have emerged to cater to the tourists. I sat there, had an egg cocoa, a Hanoi beer and a water for less than $3. When the train came by you have to get up from your seat because the train is SO close. And loud. As the train comes though at full speed it is startling as the horn reverberates back and forth between the buildings and the train.
I forgot to take pictures of my food but it was traditional street food. More images tomorrow.
Buddhist Pagoda
St. Josephs Cathedral. Headquarters of Archdiocese of Vietnam
The Train Street
Hoàn Kiếm Lake and the Park around it
looks beautiful! Someone would have to be in charge of money if I went though! Very confusing!