2/28/09
While en route from the airport to town, we saw a naked man covered in mud riding atop a car with his legs draped over the front windshield. He was the reason for the backup we were experiencing. This was the culmination of a barrage of images that flooded us from the moment we left the airport. First I remember the bright green rice paddies with workers in coolie hats, and water buffalo. Then the traffic- bicycles, motorbikes, cars, buses. And CONSTANT honking!!!!Jed pretty much covered the traffic, so I won't get into that, but that, and the sheer mass of humanity is the most striking thing about this place. For the last couple days I've had a low grade headache; I think the visual and audio overload- not to mention the anxiety level when crossing the street. I'm eager to get to someplace less harried. This place has been most interesting, though. The "old ways" are still here; the women in coolie hats balancing baskets on bamboo rods over their shoulder, the cyclo drivers, the ancient markets and shops....but most of the young people are modern and fashion conscious. You may have noticed that I spelled "Ha Noi". All the Vietnamese words are actually single syllable; they are joined together for presentation to the western world. Interesting, huh? Another peculiarity is that the street names here in the old quarter change after every block. I think this dates back to when the blocks were divided by merchant types (they still are, to some degree). Anyway, it's a labyrinth of small steets, hard to identify on a map and hard to locate a destination. Add to that the difficulty crossing streets and the constant pestering of hawkers and cyclo drivers, and you can understand the cause of my headache. Tonight we opted to eat dinner on our street, just to avoid the hassle.Weather has been very warm and humid, with a significant rain shower every afternoon. This afternoon, Jed was on the passenger seat of a motorbike when the rains hit. Our hotel offered to send an employee to the train station to help Jed purchase tickets for our trip to Ninh Binh tomorrow. This hotel has been amazing. It's on a busy (but pretty quiet by Hanoi standards) little loop of a street, very centrally located, decent accommodations, internet access, a rooftop (9th floor) breakfast venue with a nice territorial view, and the nicest, friendliest, most helpful staff you can imagine. This has been a much appreciated calm in the storm of Hanoi. I have yet to find an easy way to attach pictures; the ones I sent, I can't label properly. They are all from the 2 day boat trip down the Mekong to Luang Prabang.

Layne