Death by Street Crossing?

I arrived in Hanoi early on Saturday morning.  The airport was very simple, which was great, because I was operating on about two hours of sleep.  Our transfer through Bangkok had made for a rough night, and my plan was to check in to my hotel in Hanoi and then sleep the majority of the day while waiting for the rest of the people on my tour to arrive.  My first task was to find a cab that would safely deliver me to my hotel. All of the guidebooks that I had read warned of taxi scams from the airport where drivers would take you to a different hotel with the same name to try and rip you off.  I was a little terrified but tried to select a cab that looked like it was linked with a legitimate company and had a reasonably trustworthy-looking driver.  Nevertheless, I spent the entire 50 minute cab right praying that I would arrive at the correct location without hassle, and for a fair price.  And lucky me, it worked out!  It seems that maybe I used up all of my bad luck in Bangkok? We'll see.

Upon arrival at the hotel, I was informed that my roommate had already arrived - in fact she had arrived the day before and was currently in our room.  Well, there went my plan for an all-day snooze fest.  My roommate's name was Natasha, and she was from Russia. Aka her English wasn't particularly good.  Hrm. Let's see - I've done this before.  We decided to go out and explore the city together - on the condition that our first stop be a cup of coffee!  Then we had the eventual goal of eating lunch and hitting up a few museums.  On our way out of the lobby, I spotted a young looking non-Vietnamese guy, who I assumed was likely part of our tour group.  I accosted him in the most friendly way possible and discovered that he was in fact a part of our group.  His name was Silvan and he was from Switzerland (the German side).  I invited him to tag along, and so the three of us went.  Silvan's English was pretty good, but let's just say I served as a communication hub all afternoon, and to be frank, for the rest of the trip. 

The first thing every person must learn upon arrival in a Vietnamese city, is how to cross the street. In Hanoi, especially, there were very few traffic signals or lines on the road. And the crosswalks were almost nonexistent, not that it would have mattered anyway because no one pays attention to lines or rules or signs.  The worst way to cross the street is to dart across or to run, or even to walk at a normal pace.  One must assume a slow amble -- a lope, if you will -- which is perhaps the most counterintuitive thing ever. Because the majority of vehicles in Vietnam are motorbikes, they have a lot of directional flexibility.  The idea is that as you walk across the street, you keep a steady pace so that the motorbikes can predict where you'll be so that they can drive around you. No, I'm not kidding. I was literally slowly making my way across busy streets while motorbikes swerved around me. That's the safe way to cross the street. Oh yea, and make eye contact with them, to ensure that they see you.  Natasha, Silvan, and I quickly developed a system for crossing the street: we would take turns taking the lead.  If you were the leader, whenever you had gotten up the courage to step out in the street you would start the count: "1-2-3-GO!" And off we would amble. Slowly. Slowly. Across the street.  We didn't even die once! That's how good we got at it.

As we made our way to the old district of Hanoi, we had an interesting encounter with a woman selling fruit.  She had a bamboo contraption that she carried on one shoulder.  There was a basket hanging from either end, and each side contained different fruits.  She somehow maneuvered it onto Silvan's shoulder without me even noticing it, and before we knew it, her hat was on his head as well! She encouraged me to take a picture (which I did), and then she transfered the apparatus and hat to my shoulder, and then to Natasha's.  Then she managed to shove lychees and cut pineapples into our hands and charge us for them.  Now, I was thrilled to have lychees - they are, after all, one of my favorite fruits ever - but since that was our first day in Vietnam, our understanding of the currency was not very good, and we had not yet acquired a hardened ability to bargain, so she cheated us royally.  Two baby pineapples and 20 lychees cost us $20 USD! Whoops. That's the other interesting thing about Vietnam.  You can use US currency almost anywhere, although your change will almost definitely be in Vietnamese Dong.

Silvan was the first to get suckered.

I was second in line.

Natasha couldn't escape either!

We continued exploring the city and wandered around a lake in the middle of Hanoi that had a pretty pathetic temple in the middle of it.  But it only cost 50 cents to get in, so we went, of course.  Then we also explored the History Museum and the Revolutionary Museum.  They were also both terrible and not really worthy of mentioning.  It was so so so hot that day though, and we were out walking around for over six hours - but it was a really great way to explore the city.  There is no doubt that Hanoi is a Communist city - from the architecture to the distinct lack of commercialization or foreign presence.  It was very interesting to see the progression as we travelled South.  It is very clear that Southern Vietnam was once a Democracy that was open to commercialization and inhabited by Western countries.

Temple on the lake.

Oreos are a natural choice for an offering to the gods.

Silvan was in the Swiss military - he's kind of into guns...

And canons?

My kind of heaven!

Facebook is popular here, even though it is often blocked.

That evening, we had a group meeting, where I met the group.  Everyone was between the ages of 20 and 35, which made for a great mix, and people were from all over! We had people from England, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Russia, Australia, Colombia, Canada, and the US.  Weirdly enough, all four Americans were Californians (holler holler back)!  Our group leader's name was Pong.  He was from Thailand, and absolutely hilarious!  He definitely contributed to the amazing time that we had and to the eventual group dynamic, which was fabulous.  After the meeting, we went for a big group dinner.  I had some fantastic eggplant dish, along with Tiger beer.  Pong taught us how to "Cheers" in Vietnamese: "Mo, Hi, Ba - YO!!!" (which translates to 1, 2, 3 - YO!).  After dinner, we hit up a Vietnamese club, which really wasn't all that different from a club in the US, except for the fact that the drinks weren't as strong (a common problem that we ran into all over Vietnam).  All in all - a great start to my trip!  And I can't believe I did all of that on 2 hours of sleep! To be honest, there was not much sleeping over the next 10 days...

-- Priya/Pri/P/Preesh/Pixi/LPJ/P-Money/Baibiya