27th January, 2017

We flew on an Emirates flight to Hanoi, a big improvement on what we have been used to, only 2 hours from Yangon. It then took us around 1.5 hours to get through visas and immigration. This was despite having organised with the excellent Lam at Indochina Pioneers, our tour operator, to fill out the application for approval for a visa, with which we were armed along with the application form, passport photos and $25 each. First you queue to hand all of this over along with your passports and then wait for your face (or at least something that looks like your face, but which you rather hope isn’t what you really look like) to be displayed on a screen along with your name whilst an electronic voice calls out an mangled version of what your name sounds like that makes Stephen Hawking sound like John Gielgud. This was about 30 minutes after handing over the documents but you are now ready to join the queue for the immigration officers to check what the other immigration officers just did. Val took a seat, sensibly, whilst I shuffled along for another 45 minutes. Interestingly the locals have to queue for about the same amount of time as the foreigners. Finally we were through and at least we did not have to wait for our luggage!

We were met by our guide, Tam and our driver, Mr Chee (I think) who took us to our hotel, the wonderfully named La Siesta Trendy Hotel. It is a boutique hotel in the old quarter and absolutely fabulous. Someone really worked hard on thinking about every last detail and, as ever, the staff were so keen to help.

We had arrived on the lunar equivalent of New Year’s Eve of what is called Tet here in Vietnam (you may recall the Tet Offensive of the Vietnam War – which, by the way, is obviously called the American War here, not least to differentiate it from the French War). This was a problem to some extent as many of the shops and tourist sites close for quite a few days. On the other hand, it gave us an insight into how the local people celebrate. We were a bit tired after our journey and after Val’s less-than-brilliant night, but we did venture out to see what New Year’s Eve was like in Hanoi. Well, the first thing you notice is what seems to be crazy driving, especially by the motorbikes, but which is actually some very deft manouvering skills where the judgement of time, space and movement is assessed to the last millimetre. Crossing the road is a bit of an adventure, but you simply have to do it with purpose, having found a small gap in the ceaseless traffic and then keep going as the drivers take into account your speed and direction and sweep round you. Or at least you hope they do. The intersections are especially exciting – I don’t know if you ever saw the Royal Tournament and the Royal Horse Artillery doing their crisscrossing thing, but it isn’t a bit like that but much, much quicker (and noisier and with no horses and artillery).

Of course before you can go out, you need to get some local dosh, which, in Vietnam means getting some dong and when I say some, I of course mean loads! At an exchange rate of £1 to about 29,000VND it does not take long to become an instant millionaire. Indeed, the ATM kindly gave me no less than 4 million dong, which to be honest takes a bit of getting used to. It is really easy to mistake a 500,000VND note for a 50,000 one. I am counting zeros!

We did venture out and enjoyed mixing with the crowds who were wandering about with their families dressed in their Sunday best. Lots of noise, colour and smiles, especially round Hanoi’s lovely Hoan Kiem Lake, situated between the Old Quarter and the French Quarter. The public gardens in Vietnam are all beautifully maintained. It was absolutely fabulous to see everyone out enjoying themselves and we were only sorry that we could not stay out all night to see the new year in. We did agree with the sign on a building near the hotel! I decided the local brew deserved my attention.

And so to bed…..