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Hanoi, Viet Nam
21° 1' N 105° 50' E
Mar 14, 2006 13:34
Distance 989km

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Other entries in Hanoi

HAAAA NOI

Text written in: English

So we got into Hanoi last night and were immediately cheated... we think. We told our minibus driver to take us to the old quarter after he dropped everyone else off and he demanded more money. fortunately he backed off after we challenged this, we were then taken to a spot which was not the hostel we expected and then told that this was because where we wanted to go was full. Fortunately the place we were eventually taken was nice enough, with a friendly staff, and a cheap price, so we wont complain.

After a long night's sleep we ventured out this morning to eat breakfast on the street,
that is how everyone eats, and we were sitting on these little stools
on the sidewalk waiting for our food, when all of a sudden some woman
a few shops down starts shouting something and gets on her motorbike
to drive away. In the next few seconds, people were scurrying around
getting off the sidewalk and rushing into store fronts. Noah and I
were pushed into the storefront of the "restaurant" that we were at by
a guy who I thought said: "police" and noah heard "please." Anyhow, we
watched patiently in the store to see what was going on, but saw
nothing and then when our food came, the lady serving us laughed at us
for being in the store and ushered us back out onto the sidewalk...
Weird.

From there we decided to try and walk to the airforce museum which supposedly has a bunch of old fighter planes that you can climb into and pretend that you are a pilot. We ended up getting lost, wandering through a tiny alley way that was home to many vietnamese, seeing an abandoned amusment park, and then being turned away at the door of the airforce museum because its been undergoing work for the last year.

All in all it was a nice day and this place is a trip, more than anywhere we are celebrities here. there is some tourism here but as soon as you explore outside of the tourist district there are NO white people so an ogre of a white man and one with huge blonde hair look quite silly> we garnered our share of laughs, stares, and cries of "celebrity," which is funny.