Welcome to Hanoi and the craziness of Vietnam!
It is mind boggling how much people in Vietnam honk their horns... Sometimes there isn't a need for it!!! It drives me crazy! A day in Halong bay was a great break from all the motorbikes and the fumes!! But too bad it didn't last long!!!
We made our way to the hotel, which is in one of the busiest streets ever!!! Tons of motorbikes, cars, and shops!!!! I wish I had videos that capture the craziness of the streets in Vietnam! It is almost impossible to cross the street, people have to take mini steps and abruptly stop in between motorbikes, we get honked from bikes that are 200m away, one way streets are often both ways because nobody cares! Really... They don't care!
Our first stop in Hanoi was at a very cheap street food restaurant that had pretty much chicken cooked 7 different ways! I had to get two orders of vegetable spring rolls that were really good but didn't quite feel like a proper meal and were covered in oil!
After lunch we went for an orientation walk around Hanoi and at 3pm we went for the very famous water puppet show!
So the water puppet show I believe is a traditional Vietnamese thing (haha) during the show they recreate Vietnamese tales and play folkloric music. Apparently it is a mystery how the puppets work and it's only passed on from generation to generation.
Well... The show was boring! I hate to admit it but I fell asleep for a little bit a couple of times! The whole show is in Vietnamese so we have no idea what's going on, the music was perfect for a mid afternoon nap so pretty much 3/4 of the theater was falling asleep! Most of the people in the row behind us were asleep and only woke up for the clapping!
I guess the show is alright just to see it once in your life but it was very repetitive and hard to follow, no need for 45 mins, maybe 20 would have been a better choice!
For the rest of the afternoon we wondered around Hanoi and visited a turtle temple and then followed some loud music that lead us to a plaza where they were setting up big speakers for what seemed to be a very big New Years par-tay!!!!!!
A couple taking pictures at the temple
So far I have enjoyed the group very much even though there are a lot of young kids! So sad to think that half of them will be gone in two days :-( The one thing that it is hard with the big gap in ages in this tour is that the 18 year olds do not have the budget that older people like me have. At times it is very frustrating that we end up going to cheaper (and not better) places because they can save $3!!! Other than that, we all get along very well and really enjoy each other company! (Well... Kind of! There is always one annoying person in the group that most people try to ignore!)
Here is the whole group having beers in one of the many street restaurants on the streets of Hanoi :-)
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