1 - Hanoi

I landed in Hanoi, after many years of expectation of wanting to go to Vietnam. I first was told stories of Vietnam and how much someone liked it years ago, actually in 2009 in Canada by a Czech friend that I had met there and was travelling with, they were teaching English in schools in a rural village and told of the magical place that it was, and how nice the people were. I had plans to go in 2019 that I didn't go ahead with, and I had a cancelled attempt in Spring 2023 so before starting a new job in Athens I was not letting the chance get away from me and booked 3 weeks to travel there, with Clark, a Canadian friend joining me for the last 9 days.

I took my trusty rucksack that I purchased in Panama in 2012 which has been to more places than many people in their whole lives!

I took a cab to the centre of Hanoi from the airport with a nice Welsh couple who were on the same plane as me, and actually, despite imagining a French influenced, pretty city, my first impression of Hanoi was that it was dark, moody, run-down, ugly and insanely busy and hectic. I'd not been to Asia in over 10 years since travelling India and I wasn't ready for the onslaught of traffic, noise and carnage on the streets. 

My first coffee in Vietnam, to cure me of jetlag after not sleeping a wink on a 13 hour flight, adrenaline and excitement had me up making videos and listening to music through the whole flight, I was nearly fainting through the day! They do amazing and elaborate coffees in Vietnam that I'd never seen before, coconut coffee (pictured), egg-coffee, salt-coffee. All amazing.

Vietnam has one of the highest motorbike ownerships per-capita in the world and it's insane, each tour you go on they tell you a different figure of how many million motorbikes there are in Hanoi, 5 million motorbikes, 8 million motorbikes, 3 million motorbikes. In Saigon they make tyres and parts domestically to feed this huge industry, and the Vietnamese are the self-proclaimed best motorbike drivers in the world! There are way fewer accidents than there should be but I wouldn't go and call it safe :).

Another weird old tax to take money off of people with big properties, in England there was a 'window tax' where people with more windows paid more tax, so people filled in their windows with concrete and you can still see examples of it in England, here, they taxed people by the width of their properties, so you ended up with all of these really thin, really long plots of land and buildings in Vietnam, it looks awful and is really curious

Posing for social media photographs in Vietnam was common and shamelessly indulgent, with the traditional dresses having made a comeback and being popular with young people again, it was a common sight

A nice temple in the middle of Hanoi where apparently the city was protected from

The turtle was the sacred symbol of the city

Red and gold are apparently the colours that bring luck and fortune, or something like that, the Chinese influence is clear in the temples / pagodas with Chinese symbols at the entrances

The 2 big lakes in Hanoi are the nicest areas of this huge, chaotic, crowded city and are a good place to be able to relax, I was jogging loops of the lake in the mornings and also enjoyed taking my camera around there during the evening.

I loved this building, really unique architectural style

The NYE traffic of motorbikes was insane to witness

I went on an AirBnB experience with a local which was a guided motorbike tour of off the beaten track spots in the city and it was a great way to see the city and also really fun to be scooted around on a bike

My motorbike driver

A street food market we stopped at

I did mention there were a lot of motorbikes right?

You really see the character and culture of the people through their way of riding and style of clothes, I loved witnessing it, you saw all sorts of crazy things being transported on the bikes

The motorbike tour ended at this spot where the train tracks run through a crowded neighbourhood, that have now opened up cafes in front of the train tracks and give tourists a scary view of the passing trains, it's quite something to witness, and pretty scary tbh

Ho Chi Min's burial tomb, where every day, military guards lower the flat at sunset to let their old leader rest, and raise the flag at sunset to bring him back and to continue protecting the country, or something like that!

An American war plane that was shot down by the Vietnamese and landed in this lake in a residential area, where it's been left

I thought this cart full of Pikachu hats was hilarious and cute, you wonder how many they sell

I got a haircut, with the help of google translate and some images asked for short back and sides and the person took a 1mm clipper to my sides... a really awkward and devoid of understanding conversation then ensued and from then it was too late and they had to finish the job... I didn't like it at first but it grew on me!

'Bun Cha' - an awesome meal! Rice noodles, a sweet vinegar to dip into and some mint / salad leaves and pork

On NYE I went out with some friendly people I met at the hostel I was staying at, the 'beer street' / main bar strip was so crowded you couldn't move.. we found a corner we could congregate in and stayed there, and danced the night away

Myself and English/French/Indian friends from the hostel, we had a bigger group on NYE and it was fun to spend the night with a group of nice people considering I went out on to Vietnam on my own just a day before!

I really liked this shot - we were drinking on the curb outside of the hostel which looked down this alleyway where locals passed through on motorbikes, it was a real inner-megacity atmosphere

From the motorbike tour, they explained to me that in Vietnam when the French colonised the country they tried to introduce the Catholic religion and take down Buddhist temples and replace them with cathedrals, this was the first French cathedral (~1880s) and it is basically a copy of the Notre Dame of Paris, if you look it up it's almost a direct copy.

Hanoi was an interesting and unique place but I wasn't keen to stay too long, and cut my time short a couple of days. I was recommended to go do a 4-day motorbike tour of the north of the country, and the hostel where I stayed in Hanoi organised the very same one, so I booked it, conveniently to go the very next day after NYE and off I went to do 'The Loop', booking a very good and popular trip one day in advance was quite lucky and stupid! Some had booked the trip months in advance, and I just rocked up.