Hanoi Vietnam - 14 Dec 2010
Days are becoming a bit of a blur at the moment. Been on the road now for nearly 6 weeks. Time seems to slow down and speed up at times when travelling. It seems an age since we were wandering around in the rain in Nha Trang but only the other day since we left Australia.
We got to Hanoi on Monday afternoon after a short flight from Da Nang. It takes way longer to get organised and to and from airports than it does to actually fly internally in a country the size of Vietnam. We've started to enjoy the airports here.The Nha Trang airport is miles out of town was the smallest and quietest airport we've ever seen. We got there early and there was literally about 6 other people in the airport. We were sitting around in the coffee shop for ages just reading and chatting to an American guy about the inanities of language and trying to pronounce Vietnamese phrases. When our flight took off it was the only plane on the tarmac and people were taking photos of each other boarding the plane while the crew looked on amused. Fun stuff. The Hanoi flight was a little busier but still room on the plane to spread out and relax.
It's winter here and a bit grey and rainy and really we've just been wandering around the streets taking in the incredible amount of little shops, cafes, hotels and restaurants here in the old quarter. It's a really old City Hanoi and we are right in the oldest part of it where some of the streets are just wide enough for one car to get down. Not that many people actually drive cars around here. It's a city of Motorbikes much like the rest of Vietnam. It kind of reminds me of Bladerunner here at night, not exactly sure why, just the constant drizzle and the juxtaposition of the oriental with the occidental, the really really old and dirty against the new and shiny. I'm going to try and take some night shots of the lights and narrow streets, try to get it on film, see if it translates from my head to the camera.
Tomorrow we will visit the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, the Temple of Confucian Literature and whatever other notable destinations we can fit in. Thursday we are going on an overnight cruise to World Heritage Listed Halon Bay. The weekend we will fit in whatever else we can and Monday we leave Vietnam for Thailand.
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