Asian Adventures - Hanoi, Vietnam

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My best piece of advice for anyone travelling South East Asia would be; avoid at all costs the 24 hour overnight bus from Vientiane in Laos to Hanoi in Vietnam. Don't be sucked in by the cheap price and wanting to have an experience of ‘roughing it' on your travels. It's not worth it, just give in to luxury and get a flight!
Our Bamba Bus timetable said it would be 22 hours, then our confirmation email said 24 hours and then the whole journey ended up taking 25 hours! It was 25 hours of hell! We got on the bus at 5pm, it didn't leave until 6pm, stopped once at 10pm, pulled up at the Vietnam border around 2/3am then waited until border controlled opened at 6am with no air con on the bus! I went and asked the bus driver if he could open the door for some air but he had no clue what I was saying! It took us three hours to get through both the Laos and Vietnam immigration then we were back on the road at 9am, we had a stop at 2pm and then finally arrived in Hanoi at 7pm! The beds on the overnight buses are actually quite comfy but if you're over 6ft you'll struggle to lie out flat. The bus didn't have a toilet and we never knew when we would be stopping so I was scared to drink anything in case I needed to pee!
 
 
When we arrived at Hanoi Bus Station we jumped in a taxi to take us to our hotel. Unlucky for us, we found out after that we had a taxi driver who used a fake metre for tourists and charged us 3x the price! Then to top off our awful journey our taxi driver dropped us off at the bottom of a road flooded with water and pointed in the direction of it to show us our hotel was up the flooded road. We had to wade through the knee high water with our backpacks and all our stuff trying to find our hotel. The icing on the cake was turning up to the hotel May de Ville Legend Hotel and finding out there was a power cut due to the flooded road! I literally couldn't believe it! We dumped our bags in our room and Rory suggested we should head back out to find somewhere to eat. I was close to having a breakdown at the thought of having to go back out after the 27 hours we had just had. That breakdown came whilst wading through the water I got my foot caught in a loose slab and that was the last straw! I ended up just standing in knee high water in a random street in Hanoi with tears streaming down my face!
 
 
After Rory had dragged me out the water we went searching for food. It was really strange that only one street was flooded in the whole of the centre and all the streets around ours had no water what so ever! We ended up in a hostel for food as it was close by. I got chicken pho which is Vietnam's noodle soup. This became my staple meal in Vietnam and actually the pho I got in Cocoon Hostel that first night was the best one I had in our time in Vietnam. At the hostel we got two mains and four alcoholic drinks and it all came to £10!! We were definitely going to like Vietnam!  
On our first day in Hanoi we went on a 'Party Boat' Trip to Halong Bay. Halong Bay is definitely worth booking a trip to. It's beautiful! We got this boat trip included in our Bamba experiences and were a bit sceptical about the term 'party boat' as we weren't keen for a booze cruise type of trip. On the bus to the port our tour guide made the whole bus do an ice breaker. Rory and I just looked at one another in dread. This was the type of tour I didn't want! We arrived at the port and got a small boat out to the bigger boat we were staying on. The accommodation on the boat was a lot better than expected as I'm not really a boat fan so wasn't looking forward to sleeping on one. We got a delicious seafood lunch when we arrived with prawns, squid, crab and an amazing white fish that you had to carve yourself. I love fish so I was in heaven!
 
 
After lunch we took kayaks out around the bay and caves. The scenery was gorgeous and this would have been an excellent opportunity to use our waterproof camera had I remembered to charge it up! We paddled around enjoying our surroundings making memories in our minds instead of having our heads stuck in electronics trying to take the perfect picture.
Arriving back on the boat we all went off to get changed and ready for happy hour and dinner. At happy hour our tour guide started trying to get everyone to play games. I know this makes me sound so dull but I just hate that kind of thing like you're being forced to have fun. I was happy sipping my cocktails, listening to the music and chatting to the other people on the boat.
 
 

Before heading back to Hanoi the next day we had a Vietnamese spring roll cooking lesson. After making spring rolls at our cooking class in Thailand I was excited to see if I'd remembered the technique for rolling them. Rory didn't choose to make spring rolls in Thailand so this was his first spring roll making experience. The best thing about doing cooking classes is getting to eat the food you make. We got to sample our spring rolls in our lunch.
 
 
I really enjoyed our trip to Halong Bay but I was really glad to get off the boat I must admit. We were staying at a different hotel than our first night in Hanoi which was called The Hanoi Romance Hotel. It was just round the corner from our first hotel so still in the Old Quarter which was a tourist area.


The next day we were ready and raring to go and explore Hanoi. Our hotel was 2 minutes away from Hoan Kiem Lake so we headed there first and had a wander round. Our next stop was the Hoa Lo Prison which was a really interesting experience. It was used by the French when Vietnam was a French colony to capture Vietnamese people and then during the war it was a prisoner of war camp. When you hear about the way they were tortured it was horrific and you can't imagine going through that. My experience got ruined when I saw a couple taking a smiley selfie by the guillotine that was used to execute people. Slightly disrespectful.
 
 
Next on our itinerary was The Temple of Literature Museum which was the first university in Vietnam. The museum turned out to be temples rather than an actual museum so your shoulders and legs had to be covered. I had majorly misjudged this by coming in shorts and a strappy top. This meant I had to wear a fetching grey grown to go inside the temples. There were lots of grounds men around keeping the grass and flowers tidy to maintain the attraction. Unfortunately the majority of the buildings had been burnt down in the war so most of the buildings standing today are just replicas. It was still good to see what a Vietnamese university looked like.
 

To finish our hectic day we went for a meal at a restaurant near our hotel we had seen the night before that had lanterns hanging above it's balcony which were cool. Then we relaxed with a cocktail at Avalon Rooftop Bar looking over the Hoan Kiem Lake.
 
 
 
The day after we were up bright and early ready to walk 25 minutes over town to see Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum. This was one of the main things we were both looking forward to seeing in Hanoi. We'd checked our Lonely Planet book and it's only open from 7am-11am so we'd made sure we were there on time, what we hadn't checked was what days it was open! It closes on a Friday which was the day we had went. I was so annoyed we hadn't checked this before walking all the way across the city. Since we were there we thought we may as well go to the museum of the grounds Ho Chi Minh stayed in. This turned out to be very disappointing. You get a map with a few things pointed out that you should go and see in the grounds. One being a road where he used to do his exercises. All it is is a normal road, no plack, no picture of him, just a road. I wanted to see a dead body not a random road. 
 
 
To lift our mood we treated ourselves to lunch and a drink at Rooftop Bar. It was relaxing sitting watching over the city. The waiter said he always finds it funny that tourists sit outside on the balcony lapping up the heat where as the locals all sit inside beside the air con. I had chosen catfish for lunch and it was nice to see it dead and cooked on my plate rather than the rest of the time we had seen it in Asia swimming around in buckets at markets ready to be sold. It was lovely!
 
 
Later on in the evening we were meeting Rory's school friend Bruno who now lives in Hanoi. We picked a Vietnamese restaurant for tea before we met him. It was called Com Pho Co and the food was delicious and cheap - perfect! Our waiter was really funny too. When he found out we were from Scotland he kept telling us his father was Sir Alex Ferguson!
 
 
We had arranged to meet Bruno at a place called Corner Bar, but unfortunately for us there are two Corner Bars in Hanoi within 2 minutes of each other. We arrived a one of the Corner Bars and luckily Rory noticed Bruno walking past from where we were sitting so ran over to get him. He came in for a drink with us before we headed along to the Corner Bar he had meant to meet his friends. The bar we were at was on beer street which is famous for selling beer as cheap as 15p per beer. Everyone sits outside the bars on the street on little plastic seats and the whole street is filled with people. We had to fight our way through beer street to get to the other Corner Bar. The waiters in the restaurants further up beer street would literally try and drag you in to their restaurant.
 
 
We met Bruno's friends Bonnie and Nate in the next Corner Bar and had a really great night. We ended up getting pretty drunk as I think we did every possible shot combination we could. I also got to see Bruno and Rory get destroyed at pool by the female owner of the bar which was very entertaining. We had a really fun time but unfortunately when we got the bill it came to a lot more than we were expecting and Bruno had thought they added on more as they saw we were tourists which leaves you feeling pretty rubbish. We actually had a few things like that happen to us whilst in Vietnam where people were trying to get as much money as they could from tourists. You blatantly saw locals getting charged different amounts from you which was the worst thing about our time in Vietnam.

We woke up extremely hungover the next day! We went down for breakfast in need of good hungover food. It seems to be a thing here that people will have a full meal at breakfast time. In the buffet there was a chicken dish, soup and fried rice which I actually had one morning. Today they had chips which we thought would cure the hangover only to discover they were covered in sugar!! I didn't realise that was a thing?! We ditched breakfast and went to Burger King then went back to bed to nap until our Uber to Bruno's arrived.
It was nice to see the outskirts of Hanoi on our journey to Bruno's. It was definitely less frantic than the city centre. We go to meet his wife Kathy and their daughter Vivian. Kathy was lovely and Vivian was really sweet. Bruno was taking us to a football match at Vietnam's National Stadium. It was Hanoi vs. Haiphong and Hanoi won 2-0. The crowd were crazy! On our way to the game the fans of Haiphong had flares they were holding on to whilst riding on a motor bike. They started throwing the flares at the pitch during the game and because there was too much smoke the game actually had to stop for a bit. It's crazy that flares are allowed in to a football match. There is no way you'd be allowed to act like that at a UK football game. I'm glad of this, as they were basically vandalising the stadium which is pretty disrespectful.
 
 
Before and after the match we went to Biahoi which looks like a German beer house. As soon as you sit down the waiters bring over beers for everyone and as soon as your glass is empty you'll soon see another one sat in front of you. We had a great afternoon and evening at the football match and Biahoi. It was good we had Bruno showing us round as we probably wouldn't have ventured out to the outskirts of the city as normal tourists.
 
 
 
We had another night bus to endure from Hanoi to Hue, our next stop. This time it was only 13 hours as apposed to 25 so hopefully we would manage. Our bus wasn't until 6pm so we just spent our last day in Hanoi wandering around the city for the last time. We had a stop off at Café Pho Co as the café was meant to have a lovely rooftop seating area. I made the most of outdoor rooftops over there as we don't get any in Scotland because it's so cold. Vietnam is famous for it's coffee and Rory being a big coffee fan couldn't wait to sample one at Café Pho Co. His new staple became an iced coffee made with condensed milk. Very unhealthy but I'm told very refreshing!
 
 
I was glad to be leaving Hanoi when the time came. It was a very interesting city and we had a great time there but the traffic was so chaotic so I was looking forward to going somewhere less frantic. There are motorbikes everywhere in Hanoi! Motorbikes rule the roads, they go on any side of the road, go on the pavement and don't pay attention to red lights. We walked across the road at one point when a green man was showing and a motorcyclist was trying to push Rory back for being in his way despite us crossing on a green man! Since we had been in Hanoi for nearly a week too I was ready to move on to a more chilled out place.

Recommendations -
May de Ville Legend Hotel - http://www.maydeville.com/legend/home.htm
 
 
The Hanoi Romance Hotel - http://hanoiromancehotel.com/
 
Hoa Lo Prison - http://hoalo.vn/
 
Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum - http://www.bqllang.gov.vn/
 

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