Mr & Mrs Wanderlust : Hanoi, our second couchsurfing adventure

Travel

Our travel to Hanoi from Koh Phangan involved a busy day of boats, buses and planes, we booked a boat bus flight combo with Air Asia which although worked out a fraction more expensive than doing it on our own, it made life a lot easier as we were looked after very well and and our second ferry even waited just for us as our first ferry was delayed.

So one taxi, two ferries a minibus and a flight and we were back at Don Muang airport in Bangkok, where we collected our bags from the carousel and left the arrivals terminal and went to the other end of the terminal for departures. We flew from Bangkok to Hanoi with Nok Air, our flight left late but arrived on time around 8.10pm. We were quickly off the plane heading to the Visa on Arrival desk with our photographs and cash in GBP to pay for our one month Visa. This took around an hour and our Couchsurfing host was waiting for us.

Hanoi

Eventually through the airport we were met by our host and some of his tourism students, they helped us sort a Vietnamese sim card, we got some money from an ATM and were in a taxi with the Couchsurfing host and his students. Our Hosts name was Thanh and we stayed on the floor of a plane fuselage he had built in his café. He spoke very good English and often took tours of Vietnamese people all over the world. He was running support lessons in English for tourism students from all 3 universities in Hanoi. They would come and practice there English with us and talk to us about Hanoi and the tourist attractions we could see.

Hanoians take great pride in their street food and we were always being asked what we had eaten that day. Their main food is Phó (noodle soup) which they can eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner. We had it a few times in Hanoi, and it varied sometimes it was very nice and full of flavour, other times a bit weak and boring. Another thing we quickly realised is that Vietnam loves it's coffee, and we quickly found out why, they make very very strong black coffee and then mix it with a good dollop of condensed milk, the result is a silky, sweet but strong hit of coffee. (I have found myself having this as my go to drink in Vietnam) Another type of coffee famous in Hanoi is egg coffee, they mix the coffee with the condensed milk and add whipped egg white, the result is delicious and we were pleasantly surprised.

By this point we have learnt how to cross the road in Hanoi, we had heard of various people and our host had reminded us. You see a small gap in the cars and go, motorbikes will drive around you, DO NOT STOP! Once you are in the road keep walking.

Okay so day one we mostly spent strolling around the old quarter, we went to Hoe La prison, where the French kept the Vietnamese in the early 1900's and where the Vietnamese kept American Pilots during the Vietnam war including previous Presidential Candidate John McCain. This was quite interesting, and there was lots of info in English which hasn't been the case at all museums or attractions I'm Vietnam. The flag tower was a big tower with a big Vietnamese flag on it, at the base of the tower they have planes and tanks that were donated by the Russians or captured from the Americans. We didn't get too long here as it was closing so couldn't tell you much about it.

We arrived back at our Couchsurfing café and were asked if we minded doing a quick 10 minute presentation on Britain and British culture, so we popped to the shops and bought some biscuits and allowed the Vietnamese students to try English tea and biscuits which was well received. In return two students gave us a presentation on Hanoi and it's history which was very interesting.

Our final full day in Hanoi before leaving for a trek in Sapa we met up with an old friend for lunch, we visited the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, the Presidential palace and the Temple of literature (the oldest university in Hanoi) . We didn't go into the Mausoleum because the queue was very very long. We also visited a water puppet show, famous in Hanoi, costing $3 each. Thinking it would be pretty terrible it was actually very entertaining, the puppets were amusing and the whole performance lasted around 1 hour.

The next morning we got the bus into town early to meet our connection for 3 day trek in Sapa.