After a long journey - and 24 hours from when we got up on Saturday morning - we finally arrived at our hotel in Hanoi.
The journey went smoothly but it was so boring - there is only so much watching movies, reading and playing games on your IPad that you can do and then you just want to get off the plane! We didn't get any sleep on the flight to Singapore and, because it was the equivalent of midnight back home, we then walked around Singapore airport like zombies for two hours! We did fall asleep/pass out on the flight to Hanoi but only for a couple of hours so we will be glad for our beds tonight!
Hanoi, based in the north, is the capital of Vietnam, and also its second largest city. We are staying in the Old Quarter, which is a maze of small streets dating back to the 13th century, which has a real busy, chaotic feeling to it. We have been given a room at the top of the hotel, on the 8th floor, but you can still hear the busyness of the city, with all the scooters and cars honking away!
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| Our hotel room |
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| View from our window |
Once we had checked in we went searching for lunch as it had just gone 2pm. We wanted to try somewhere the locals go to, and luckily I had done some research as many of the restaurants look a bit rough and ready, but we ended up going to a cafe that was really busy with both locals and tourists. We shared Bun Cha (the dish with the noodles and pork patties that you dip into a sauce), fried rice and spring rolls and it was all very nice - we couldn't eat it all as there was so much - and along with our drinks it only come to about £6!
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| Our lunch - loads of food! |
After lunch, we walked down to Hoan Kiem lake in the middle of the city. Because it was Sunday afternoon all the locals were out sitting by the lake it was a lovely atmosphere just walking around, taking pictures and taking in our surroundings. The lake was like a sanctuary against the hustle and bustle of the streets - we didn't want to do anything too strenuous in our zonked out, jet lagged state so this was a great introduction to the city.
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| The street our hotel is on |
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| The crazy traffic! |
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| The serene lake |
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| Now where did I leave my bike? |
This evening we went to the night market - it was really busy and, although there wasn't anything we fancied buying, there was a really good atmosphere - there was a great mixture of people - young and old, locals and tourists. We weren't very hungry in the evening so we went to a bar that overlooked the lake - you will be shocked to know that neither of us had an alcoholic drink - I blame it on the jet lag!!!
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| Very busy at the market |
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| A makeshift fruit stall at the night market |
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