Hanoi

Xin chow! My pulse rate is slowly going down after returning from Hanoi. Let me tell you all about it….

We arrived in Hanoi at about 7.30 on Friday night, and caught a taxi into town (which is actually quite a long trip). This was my first taste of chaos – cars and motorbikes coming from every direction, noone wearing helmets, everyone constantly using their horns to inform anyone who was interested of their presence. Watch the video above for a taste of the insanity :-)

We arrived at the hotel that we had all booked into only to discover that it was booked out. How a hotel is booked out when you have already booked a room – 10 rooms in fact – escapes me, but we had to go searching for another room. Deb and I found one just two blocks away, and then went to a netball meet-and-greet function. The Hanoi girls were lovely, but I didn’t get to speak to the Thai girls because they arrived very late (in matching uniforms too – I instantly expected to lose to them the next day!) I had some amazing food too (although much more expensive than Vientiane).

The next morning we had a French style breakfast (the French influence is far more apparent in Vietnam) and then headed off to the netball at the United Nations International School (the first truly expat compound I have seen since arriving in SE Asia). It only took me about two minutes to realise there was no way I could throw or catch the ball with my busted arm, so I resigned myself to umpiring (for every game, we had to supply one umpire – I ended up umpiring four games). The first game as umpire was intimidating – I was umpiring by myself (it had been so long since I had last done it that I forgot I was even meant to have another umpire to help) and the Thai team who we were playing had dirty looks that could cut steel. I was really surprised when we won – and so was the rest of the team. We would have happily gone back to Laos with that victory.

But then we won the next game as well. We lost our third game by one point. According to the scoring system that was being used, we were actually tied with one of the Thai teams for leaders of the comp! We had to play that team in our last game, so whoever won the game would win the competition.

It was real nail biting stuff (some Thai girls offered to umpire, so I actually got to watch). We were trading goal for goal in the last few minutes, and the scores were tied. Our team scored with 30 seconds to go, and it was really hard not to yell out ‘There’s only half a minute left!’……

But they didn’t score again, and we won!!! By one goal.

We went to watch the Lao AFL team play afterwards (there was a netball and an AFL tournament running simultaneously). The Lao guys had met some Irish backpackers randomly on the plane the night before, and roped them into playing for the team (even though they later told me that Gaelic football and AFL are nothing like each other). However, they didn’t win any games.

We then went to a nearby hotel in the ‘compound’ for the presentation and some dinner. We got a lovely glass trophy J There was also a Movember raffle to raise money (most of the AFL team were growing mo’s) and the prize was a 4.5 L bottle of Jack Daniels, which was won by a Thai guy. I was rather disturbed to see the bottle empty when I left at 10.30…

We ended up going to some seedy nightclub after dinner, which seemed to be located right next to a swamp. I didn’t stay long, and was home by 12.30 (although Deb didn’t return until 3).

The next morning we met the team for breakfast, and then Deb, myself and Kate from the netball team went for a long shop along the streets of the Old Quarter (being pursued by every Vietnamese person who had something to sell, it seemed). I bought some lovely things :-) We also went for a walk around Hoan Kiem Lake in the centre of town, before meeting up with one of the Hanoi Intake 20 AYAD’s for an icecream. I asked him how we were going to get to the icecream shop, and he suggested that we all get on his motorbike. So Deb and I get on the back…three foreigners, driving around the streets of Hanoi on one motorbike, two of them not wearing helmets, and one of them wearing a bicycle helmet. Cheap thrills!!! After our icecream we met up with some more AYAD’s for a beer, and then the netball team for dinner.

On Monday morning we woke up early and went to the Temple of Literature, which is a 1000 year old school of Confucian teachings. Lovely, peaceful place…except of course for the horns outside and the other tourists. We walked from there to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum (he wasn’t actually there, he goes visiting to Russia every year at this time). We then had another long walk to a massive market, which turned out to be a massive disappointment (for Deb at least, who was on a shopping tour of Hanoi. For me, who was on a culinary tour of Hanoi – I was happy with yummy pastries, fresh spring rolls….) After a ride on a cyclo (basically a taxi for tourists, where you sit up the front and a guy pedals along at the back) we made our way back to the hotel, and then onto a bus back to the airport.

Since I got back, I’ve just been trying to catch up on sleep and talk to Chris (who went on a kayaking/cycling tour in southern Laos on the weekend).Work has been much better this week – I feel much more on top of things, and thinking clearly (without stress!) The Cambodian job is still not finished, they keep changing their mind about what they want (e.g. fully solar system vs. solar/diesel system). But I have my own desktop computer now!

My arm is still pretty sore, which wasn’t helped by me tripping over the steps last night at home and landing on it. I just hope it gets better soon. Chris and I are going down to Pakse and Champasak in the south of Laos this weekend (since it’s a long weekend in Vientiane) – we were planning another kayaking trip, but unfortunately my arm means we won’t be doing anything nearly that exciting.

I’ll just leave you with some random funny things from the trip:

• Apparently in Hanoi you are taxed depending on how wide your property is. So all the buildings are 5 or so stories high, and just a matter of metres wide.
• The only way to cross the road in Hanoi was to just start walking slowly so everyone had a chance to see you and swerve around you. Despite the fact that it often felt like you were about to be run over, this method actually worked.
  
• The traffic lights (when people actually bother to obey them) have a timer that counts down until they change. So you know exactly when the lights are going to go green!
• Lao Airlines (who we flew from Hanoi back to Vientiane) doesn’t have any lifejackets. On the safety card there is a picture of a guy ripping the cushion off his seat and then jumping out of the plane with that. Just in case the picture was confusing, on the back of the seat there is a sign saying ‘use the cushion for floatation’.

I’ll be back again soon with news from the next trip – and Chris will hopefully post soon with stories from his weekend.