Hot in Hanoi

This weekend I visited my final new country in SE Asia – Vietnam. It was quite an adventure, with a few bumps along the way. We left Vientiane for Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, at 5:50 pm. This was our last international flight out of Laos (we will be taking the bus back across the border to Thailand in 9 days!). It was a bit sad to leave “home” again, but exciting to contemplate seeing another new country and hanging out with our friends who are interning in Vietnam.

The flight was easy and uneventful, the descent into the city allowing me my first look at Vietnam and Hanoi. The city of Hanoi is surrounded by craggy mountains that were shrouded in mist as our plane circled the city. It was difficult to see much of the landscape due to a general haze covering the city, either the effects of pollution or the general cloudy/haziness that indicates monsoon season in SE Asia. Hanoi was a bit odd looking from the air, not conforming to the general layout of large cities (usually one large patch of city clumped together), but a grouping of smaller patches, broken up by large plots of green land (rice fields), each section connected to the others by large highways. Interspersed within the small portions of the city are large lakes and ponds, giving the birds-eye viewer an erroneous idea that the city would be a bit more tranquil or idyllic due to the landscaping of the city, which includes so much nature. This is not the case, however, but more on the city in a bit…

As we were disembarking from the plane at 6:30 pm we were informed that it was 33 degrees Celsius in Hanoi, which any converter will tell you is around 90+ degrees Fahrenheit – darn hot! When the Vietnam interns visited us in Laos last week we had heard stories about the extreme heat of Hanoi (110+ degrees with humidity) and now I can personally attest to that fact as well. Vietnam is HOT! As we stepped out of the airport later it was difficult to breath in the heat and humidity of the night, a fact that freaked us out when we contemplated the upcoming days.

In order to enter Vietnam, any international traveler must apply for an entry visa at least two days ahead of their arrival date via the internet, paying a $20 processing fee at that time. I’m not quite sure what they need that information for, perhaps to check against their lists to see if you are allowed into the country, but in any case, every traveler to Vietnam must submit to this process. After they have looked over your information (name, date of birth, passport number, etc.) you receive two letters via email that allow you entry into Vietnam. We had printed these letters off in Laos and were ready when we reached the counter for “Visas upon Arrival.” We handed over the letters and our passports and after paying another $25 for our visa sticker itself (everything is very cheap in SE Asia except stickers evidently since they keep costing me so much!) we were off for a quick pass through immigration (to get stamps all over that expensive visa sticker) and to collect our baggage.

The Hanoi airport is located quite far from the main city of Hanoi, located in one of the outlying chunks of the city I mentioned above. Rather than deal with a taxi, which we had heard horror stories about (ripping customers off with extra charges or doctored meters), we had our guesthouse in the Old City Quarter send us a car. We found our driver immediately (the sign with Zenia’s name on it was a bit of a giveaway) and set off for an hour drive through Hanoi. Hanoi was a huge culture shock after the peace and tranquility of Laos and Vientiane. Hanoi is our first real big city that looks like any modern city you may find at home, but with a few quirks…

• Major highways look surprisingly similar to any highway you might find at home, but in the center divide between the two opposite lanes of traffic there are lights spaced every 15 feet or so. These lights change color constantly, fading from one to the next – green, blue, purple, red, yellow. It makes for a beautiful view of an otherwise ugly concrete roadway, giving the eye a little dash of color.
• There is so much traffic in this city on the main roads that people must drive in the proper lane or risk death. In addition, the drivers in Vietnam are without a doubt the worst drivers in all of SE Asia. The leading cause of death in Vietnam is motorbike accidents, which is not surprising as they drive like maniacs (just imagine everyone in a major metropolis driving drunk and you have an approximation of the driving in Vietnam) and their helmets are not real. In fact, their helmets are small plastic hats that would probably inflict more damage in a crash than simply hitting your head on the pavement.
• Hanoi is filled with an unceasing barrage of sound. Everyone here is constantly honking the horns of their buses, cars, motorbikes, or bicycles. It is impossible to find a quiet spot in this city as it is filled with an unceasing din of honks. As we first drove away from the airport we didn’t notice the noise and were instead captivated by our first view of a major highway in over two months and actual billboards on the sides of the road, all things we associate with cities from home. As we sped away from the airport, however, the noise rapidly became something we could not ignore. The traffic slowly increased and soon our driver was whipping the car around other vehicles and motorbikes at an alarming rate, blaring the horn on each pass. Soon other cars joined the race and the honking became an overwhelming wall of noise. In Hanoi, this is just a state of being. When we mentioned it to Bobby later he gave us a blank look and said, “What? The birds chirping?” Haha! Evidently the only way he can stay sane in this noise is to convince himself the honks are merely birds. Poor, sad, Bobby. :)
• Major roads in Hanoi have roundabouts every once in a while at intersections. Now, roundabouts in SE Asia are a constant puzzlement to me as there doesn’t seem to be any real rules that dictate how you use one. In Laos the roundabouts seem to work on a system that says the right-of-way belongs to the individual going straight through rather than around, but there is equal right to any road entering the roundabout. I’m only surprised that I haven’t seen a major accident at one yet as nobody appears to know what the heck they are doing. In Hanoi the roundabouts are a little different as they only alter the directions of the two inner lanes of the road, meaning the other lanes merely curve gently without being truly effected by the roundabout. We passed quite a few of these roundabouts, which often incorporated five or more lanes of traffic, and I could never figure out their true purpose as they didn’t really do anything to the traffic that I could see.

We arrived at our guesthouse, the Green Street Hotel in the Old City Quarter of Hanoi, at around 7:30 pm and managed to check in and refresh ourselves quickly before our Vietnam friends, Laura, Abbey, and Bobby, showed up to take us to dinner and dessert and for a little exploring of Hanoi. We ate dinner at a Vietnamese-tourist restaurant located on the main lake of Hanoi, Hoan Kiem. Hoan Kiem (“Lake of the Returned Sword”) is an interesting lake as it has quite a few legends attached to it. I will tell you my favorite…Sometime during the Chinese Ming Dynasty the emperor of Vietnam, Ly Loi, was given a magical sword by the gods to use in battle. With the help of the sword Ly Loi drove the Chinese out of Vietnam. Once the country was safe, Ly Loi came to Hoan Kiem and while he was standing by the shore of the lake a giant turtle (a god) came out of the water, grabbed the sword from his hand, and returned it to the depths of the lake where there was a gateway to heaven and where the sword normally resided. Today, there are still giant turtles in the lake, although they are endangered now.

So, we ate dinner looking out over the lake and enjoyed pseudo-Vietnamese food on our first night in Hanoi. After dinner we began walking around the lake and stumbled upon a place called “Fanny” that was recommended by Lonely Planet and many others. Fanny is an ice cream parlor that serves actual sorbet! This might not seem like such a big thing to you at home, but here it is a marvel. You see, most restaurants or dessert places (there aren’t many) claim to have “sorbet,” but what they actually have is ice cream with fruit in it. In a land this hot and humid it is torturous to watch others eat ice cream and other cool treats and be completely left out of the fun. But no more! While in Vietnam I had Fanny and I took glorious advantage, eating sorbet every day! :) I ate a single scoop of raspberry sorbet and nothing has tasted quite that good in a very long time. I savored every bite as slowly as possible, reveling in my first cool treat in months.

We returned to the Old Quarter after our eating extravaganza and relaxed at a bar for a little while before Laura, Abbey, and Bobby took off and Zenia and I returned to our guesthouse for some much needed rest in preparation for our big day exploring Hanoi on Friday.