I had read a lot of things about Vietnam--and specifically the northern part of Vietnam--before I ever stepped off of the airplane from Hong Kong, bought my visa*, and had my passport stamped. And most of what I had read had been of the love-it-or-hate-it variety**. I'd heard about the touts and the scams and the absolutely crazy mototbikes, but I'd also heard about the beauty and cuisine and general friendliness of the Vietnamese people. So one of my priorities in Hanoi was not to let any prior notions cloud my judgement. I really wanted to form my own opinion about a city that seems to inspire a lot of opinions.
*Getting a visa for Vietnam, while not that hard once you know what you're doing, is the only country in Southeast Asia that requires some advance planning. If you're flying into the country, the easiest way to handle it is by paying $20 for a pre-approval letter from a website like myvietnamvisa.com, and then buying your visa at the airport once you land.
**For a take on the hate-it's out there, see this post. And for the love-it's, try this one.
But that said, I was whacked in the face immediately on stepping outside my guesthouse in the morning with those infamous motorbikes! I like to joke with friends I have from different parts of the US that if you can drive in New Jersey, you can drive anywhere, but I completely disavow that theory now! I've never seen anything like Hanoi in terms of traffic before. Rule number 1 is learning to cross the street. Rule number 2 is learning to cross the street. Rule number 3...you get my drift.
So here's the big secret to crossing the street in Hanoi. First of all, you never have the right of way. Not at a crosswalk. Not at walk signal at a traffic light. Not if you're a little old lady with one blind eye and a cane and are currently being crushed under the weight of the hundreds of pineapples you are carrying on your back. You NEVER have the right away. And the motorbikes never stop coming. So follow me now, calmly step off the curb, put one foot slowly in front of the other and proceed across the street. Oh the motorbikes will beep and honk and they certianly won't stop, but if you go at a slow steady pace, they'll just start darting around you, the same way the dart around every thing else in their path.
Hooray! Now that you've learned the golden rule, you can actually go see Hanoi!
If you're staying in the Old Quarter (and you're staying in the Old Quarter because that's where almost all of the hotels are), it's an easy walK from anywhere to Hoan Kiem Lake, the heart of the city. Besides the other tourists out wandering around, the Hanoi locals are always out and about, mostly sitting on tiny plastic stools in the shade, shoveling delicious street food treats into their mouths. Hoan Kiem Lake is one of those perfect sized lakes, with a pretty temple in the middle and parks around the edges for strolling. It even comes equipped with its own adorable origin story, complete with a magic sword and theiving turtle. SERIOUSLY! A turtle steals a magic sword! How can you possible tell me that you don't want to see this lake?!
Besides the lake and its surrounds, there is plenty of other cool things to wander through in this thousand year old city***. From Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum**** to the Temple of Literature which rivals Oxford as the world's oldest university, but my favorite part of the city was sitting on those aforementioned plastic stools that don't even reach the middle of your shins in height, chatting with whoever sits down next to you over some pho bo. One fantastic Vietnamese kid right out of university tried so hard to teach me how to eat watermelon (did you know you're supposed to spit out the seeds?!), that I almost felt guilty telling him that yes, we have watermelon in America, and that no, this wasn't my first time eating it. He didn't believe me until we flagged down another tourist who had also travelled the states to confirm that watermelon does indeed exist there.
***Any city that has reached it's 1000th birthday--which Hanoi did in 2010--is automatically elevated in its coolness factor. Really, how old is your hometown?
****Full disclosure--I didn't get to go inside the mausoleum, as it was closed for the day by the time I got there. But I wasn't too heartbroken--once you've seen one embalmed communist leader, I feel like you've seen them all.
And the Hanoi teenagers--I've never felt more like a rock star than when I've been surrounded by a group of young teens begging me to take a picture with each of them in turn and then oogling over the screen as I walked away!
One final note, though. Hanoi is definitely a city that rises early and closes early. Just after dawn, the motorbikes are already out and about, honking their horns so often that it just becomes white noise and its a wonder anyone pays any attention to them at all. And happy hour--where you absolutely have to try a Bia Hoi, literally translated to "air beer" and just as light and refreshing as that sounds--starts in the early afternoon. Eat dinner early because if you're looking for food after dark, you'll be out of luck.
So far, so good, Vietnam!