Cab to the airport almost gave us a heart attack. Must have been the slowest cab driver in all of Saigon! We’re used to weaving and bobbing, and blowing the horn a million times. No, not our guy. 4 lousy beeps – that’s all. Ed’s sitting there saying “I want to hear more beeps!!!”. Geez. We left at 9:00 for a 10:30 flight – need at least one hour prior and it’s already 9:21 and we’re still smack dab in the middle of the city. I’m hyperventilating! I see a plane – way up there in the distance. We do know this airport is HUGE (the busiest airport in the world during the day – well 0f the war day), but still. We’re still in the freaking city ….
We finally ask the driver – how much longer? Oh, 7 minutes. Right. Sure. Well, son of a gun if in 8 minutes (ok, 1 more than he said, but whatever), we pull up to the departure terminal. Man, this place really is smack dab in the middle of the city!
We check in – unfortunately due to our slow poke driver and then some challenge with our tickets (what is up with these tickets? they seem to drive the ticket agents mad), we don’t have a whole lot of time left to use the lounge. For some reason this leg could only be booked business class, and we were looking forward to hanging out a bit in the lounge – but not to be – we’re barely in the gate area when they call our flight. Phew – well – at least we’re here and on it.
Special bus out to the plane – right up front – our own stairway – this is the way to go! Too bad it’s only a 2 hour flight! Service and food is excellent – and then – sooner than you know it, we’re in final decent. Hanoi here we come.
Bags come off first (business class, nice perk), we walk out the doors – and there is our driver – with our code in hand (it seems there are a lot of scam taxi services here – there are even signs in the airport warning you about them – in our case, with a hotel picking us up, we have to have a code the driver will give us so we will know he is legit. We guess that somehow, guests names are sold to drivers and they pick you up at the airport and then, even though you’ve already pre-paid through the hotel, try to charge you again upon arrival – saying the hotel doesn’t do that anymore.) Off we go to the car – and away we go to the city.
It’s a 45 minute ride – through some countryside, but mostly city suburbs, and there is a wholly different type of architecture here. Houses alongside the road and very tall (3, 4 and 5 stories), very narrow (we learn later that is because of the taxes – you were taxed on the width of the building), and brightly painted with incredibly ornate balustrades, columns, porches and decorative cupolas and arches. There is marble – or at least what appears to be marble on lots of pillars. But all that bling is only on the front side of the house. The sides are just plain concrete, no paint, no nothing, just as grey as the first day they were put up. Wild!And, of course there are hovels right next door, but that apparently doesn’t stop them from building – as we’ve seen in every Asian country so far.
There are also little dirt lanes, almost paths that seem to go on forever into the distance. And people are streaming out of them – on foot, on bikes, on scooters, heading for the main road. It’s so different from Saigon – busier, but in a different sort of way. Can’t really explain it yet. Maybe after our 4 days here I’ll be able to do a better job of trying to depict the differences.
As we approach the city, the scooter madness begins. 6.5 million people in Hanoi, 4.5 million scooter bikes, 1 million push bikes and 400,000 cars. Oy – where will they all go? We shall soon find out – but in the meantime, we weave and bob into town, and finally to the alley that leads to the Hanoi Elite hotel.
As we arrive, the bellman greets us at the van, takes our luggage and escorts down the narrow alley to the hotel. Wow – and the service has just begun. We’re greeted at the door by the reception clerk, who seats us at the cozy little tables in the lobby and offers us our welcome drink (mango shake, very nice!). Then she sits with us and goes over our itinerary – stay one night, Dragon Pearl Halong Bay one night, then return for 2 nights. She gives us a typed itinerary for Halong Bay and a great map of the area with assurances that they can help us with anything we need, directions, ideas, tours, reservations. Talk about being taken care of!
Once we are settled and finished with our drinks, she takes us upstairs to our room. We’re on the 3rd floor of 6. There are only 2 rooms on each floor,with a narrow winding marble staircase as the only means of transport. It’s neat – but not for the faint hearted. Once in the room – oh boy – it’s about as luxe as you can get – rose petals on the bed, soft pillow top bed (not the normal board hard Asian style), mini bar, laptop in the room, free wi-fi, TV with hundreds of movies, hot water kettle (yay, regular coffee!) and a bathroom of glass and tile (with a curtain you pull when you want privacy). It’s compact – but absolutely elegant. And you don’t even want to know the price…ok…well…because you asked - $50US per night (including a huge selection of breakfast items from burgers – yes – burgers –to pho to any type of eggs you’d ever want). And right in the heart of the Old Town. Great find.
After we get organized, we head out into the streets. Its a warren of little streets and alleyways in the old town. This is where the commerce happens (past, present and future). A lot of the streets are named for what they sell – the word Hang means “merchandise”, and all these streets are “Hang something”, Hang Gai (selling chickens), Hang Bac (Silver street), Hang Bo (basket street) and so on. Most of the streets are still dedicated to their names, while others (including Hang Gai) have changed entirely to a mish mosh of touristy items.
We wander down the main street from our alley and reach the Hoan Keim Lake – with the Temple of the Jade Mountain pagoda reached by the Huc Bridge, a red arched bridge over the lake.
The people! Maybe because it’s Sunday? And it’s everyone’s day off? Don’t know, but the streets are teeming with people – of every ilk, couples, families, farangs (but not so much), kids, teens, thousands of people everywhere. It’s really a little overwhelming – and the weather doesn’t help. It’s dark and dreary and overcast. It’s obviously rained a lot recently because all the streets are sort of muddy and dirty.
The hotel map has a sort of walking tour on it, so we meander around, following the map to the St. John’s cathedral, which is a little medieval and kind of spooky in the dreary misty weather,
we continue on through all the different streets – hardware, silk, toys. We look at restaurants, dodge scooters, avoiding fruit markets and little street food stands along the way. It’s crazy, but not so crazy as Saigon. Just dark and dreary because of the cold misty weather.
We’ve had enough exploring – and we manage to navigate back to the hotel – but only because I remember a painting at an art gallery on the corner leading to our alley. We had to take pictures of the signs at the alley to make sure we could find our way back. It’s that confusing – at least at first!
After our rest, we head out into the wild streets to find some dinner. The restaurants are around, but not like Saigon, not as plentiful, more street foodish. We hit a few western places, but they don’t ring our bell, nor the Chinese place that was quite pricey for Vietnam. Finally we luck into Aubergine Cafe. It’s empty downstairs, oops, not a good sign, but the menu looks great, so we sort of wander in, and they take us up a spiral staircase to the balcony level where we grab the last table. So much for empty!
The menu is absolutely immense! It takes us forever to choose, but finally we settle on Vegetable soup, Pork with 5 flavors, Squid with vegetables and of course beer and wine. So great! Northern food is different than Southern, of course. Different spices and preparation, and oh so good. We end up with a 261,000 Dong bill ($12US). Can’t beat that!
On the way out, I manage to slide down the last 5 steps of the spiral staircase. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s wet out! And there was a spilt beer that made my shoes even wetter….so…it’s not what you are thinking! Didn’t harm anything but my pride, and we managed to navigate the Old Town streets successfully back to our little luxury enclave for the night.
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