So, we set off in this van, and I am sitting next to the other Western traveler. Things seem pretty normal, except for that there are more motorcycles on the road than normal. Overall, I am impressed by how modern the country seems;a big paved highway, with development all around me; this was in stark contrast to Myanmar, where the grittiness and vague incompleteness of the development implied seriously lacking economic development. The other traveler was Elena, from the Netherlands; she was on a fairly large break from work, travelling, spoke with an excellent Canadian accent, and is staying at the other branch of the hostel at which I am staying, but I have not seen her since.
We arrive at a really nice tree-lined lake in the middle of Hanoi, and I walk down the side; there is a red bridge to a temple in the middle of the lake, as well as a mini-pagoda in the middle of the lake; there are benches by the side of the lake, and everyone is having a good time. I buy some grapey-looking things from an old lady, and it turns out that they are mini-plums, and she puts a mixture of sugar and chili powder on them. I contentedly walk by the lake, eating my spicy little plums, sweating, and drinking some water.
Then I have to cross the street. There is a crosswalk, but no light, and there are motorcycles and cars going in both directions, except that within the directions, there is no semblance of lanes, or anything, they are just sort of doing what they want, so I just stand there as this mass of motorbikes glides by; meanwhile Vietnamese people are just casually walking through the mass of traffic, as if it is no big deal. Eventually there is a break, and I am able to run across, but it seemed like these people had some magical 'not getting hit by motorcycles' ability.
So, I am in the old city of Hanoi, and it is a huge mass of motorcycles, pedestrians, and larger vehicles, spilling onto the sidewalks; the buildings are majestic but faded, in a style that seems colonial, even though this part of the city dates back 1000 years. There are people sitting on little plastic chairs, spilling from the sidewalk onto the streets, eating some food. Shops are also spilling onto the sidewalks from the storefronts. Everything is spilling everywhere.
With the help of my great 3G SIM card, and the surprisingly excellent google maps coverage, I make it to the hostel without incident. Overall, it is a very nice place, for $8 a night you get a nice lounge area, breakfast, and a bed in a dorm. It has clean interior, with modern-ish architecture, and almost everyone is an incredibly attractive young person, just like myself.
I had originally booked at the other hostel, but switched my booking to this branch when it had one extra half star, but Elena had said her friends liked the other one better. But I didn't switch back, because that would be way too much changing my mind, sometimes I just have to stick with my nearly inconsequential decisions! The main difference is that this hostel can be pretty rowdy, and the other one is chilled out. There is thumping music coming from be bar (yes the hostel has a bar) as I type this. I read that it might be the biggest hostel in Southeast Asia. More on that later.
So, I go to my room, and get my stuff together, putting it in the locker. I decide to get lost, and just star walking; the streets are much like what I said before, a gloriously chaotic mess; I see people eating Pho, and I sit down and have some awesome Pho Ga, which means Chicken Pho. Really good. Chickeny, spiced perfectly, with some scallions. Though the streets are narrow, they still find room for trees with purple flowers. So, I just walk down the narrow streets and labyrinthine alleys, all of which have people on plastic chairs eating street food. Though the food is close to the street, the street is only a little bit dirty, in contrast to Yangon where it really seemed like a terrible idea to eat anything that had even got within a meter of the stinky, grimy street no matter how good the food looked.
The traffic here was way worse though. In Yangon, I saw a bumper sticker with the message 'Lane Driving is Safe Driving', but they make no pretenses of following that philosophy here.
I get back to the Hostel, and decide to have a few beers with the people; people from England, Australia, and quite a few people from Galway, Ireland. None of them knew my friend Joe, though. The beer was called Larue (they had it on tap), a very light beer; the thing is though, that it actually is drinkable, unlike the beer in the super bowl advertisements. They had a thing they flipped a coin, and got an extra drink if you were right; by patting the Irish people on the shoulder before I went, I was able to make my chances of winning to .75 from .5. The Irish people were OK with it, they laughed about it too. We we got some more Pho on the street. The slices of beef in the soupe were super fatty, but in a really good way, so as to be pleasing to the palate.
We then all went out to some other Western (not Cowboy, just Western in the sense of not Asian) style bar, and had a good time. There was a computer from which the patrons could put on songs, and I chose Soul Shakedown Party by Bob Marley. Yeah, going to western style Bar is not that authentic, but I am forced to go mainstream when I interact with other people.
I had a great time, but drank just enough to give me a headache during the free walking tour the next day (which was pretty good, but not great). I had to take a nap after that headachey tour in the hot sun, which was when I had another pretty serious adventure.
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