I can attempt to make comparison between locations (as I frequently have done in my blog) but I would definitely say that each place I have visited has its own unique personality, and has been completely different from any other city that I have visited.
There are some similarities sure, traffic being one of them, although I think after spending a couple of days in Ho Chi Minh City whenever I see a chaotic traffic situation I will now relate it to the biggest city of Vietnam rather than Manila where there was a certain level of calm compared with what I just experienced.
One of the things I love about Asia is how things can be incredibly diverse even within one city, and when you look at somewhere like Siem Reap for example it has history (Angkor Wat), tradition (night market) and tourism (Pub Street) all in one place. Combine this together and then mix in the paradox that a large majority of the population cycle around on old fashioned bikes placed against the backdrop of huge and impressive hotels which have been built to house the large numbers of visitors who visit every year.
I've attempted to balance things out as best as I possibly can by visiting a mix of smaller and larger cities although that has been more by luck than design. Even within the same country I have tried to vary things up and it has allowed me to get a good contrast when I've gone from somewhere like Bangkok to Chiang Mai or Kuala Lumpur to Ipoh. Coming from what I think is quite a big city, I tend not to be over-rawed by crowds although I think this largely comes from spending three years at university in London and having experienced the likes of New York, Singapore and Madrid where things can often get really chaotic.
That's not to say I don't enjoy it when the pace slows down however, and I feel like in England I am equally adept in small towns and villages which I have visited throughout my time in the Midlands and down South.
If you look on Wikipedia at the list of 'Metropolitan Areas by Population' or 'World Largest Cities' many of them exist in Asia, although surprisingly when I was looking at 'Population Density' I was surprised to see so many small countries or soveregn states on there. I'd say that aside from Brunei most of the countries I have visited have been amongst the largest in the world, certainly in terms of area and I that's without including the couple of trips to China on the horizon.
Because of this I guess I have just learned to expect busyness wherever I go as even in somewhere like Bali where I spent a week on the beach, it was usually still covered in people.
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Arriving here on Wednesday I have been completely blown away by the city itself, and I feel like even though I haven't seen that many sights or been to that many different places, the atmosphere of Vietnam's largest city will certainly stick with me for a while. I actually think sitting here writing this that the country in general is taking its toll on me as I have the sound of beeping horns going around and around in my head tonight!
It was one of those occasions when despite having an afternoon flight, getting to the airport on time meant a surprisingly early morning. Having arrived from the airport on Wednesday evening using the bus, I figured that it shouldn't be a problem to get back there for our flight to Hanoi using the same method of transport. Walking around over the last couple of nights we figured out that the bus station wasn't actually that far from the hotel, and after breakfast we took to the uneven pavements of Ho Chi Minh in order to arrive at the main bus stop which is opposite the market.
We waited about ten minutes for a bus to arrive and then the 152 was on its way back to the airport. It felt a little strange to be making the return journey to the airport so quickly, but this time I was headed to the domestic terminal in order to fly to Hanoi for a couple of days. Having travelled through Malaysia compltely by coach it seems as though the last couple of destinations I have been too have exclusively required me to get there by plane. I always look at how to travel from one place to the next using a variety of different methods of transport, but to get from Ho Chi Minh in the south to the capital in the north it would actually have taken about a 12-14 hour bus ride so that was certainly out of the question.
I was quite surprised that it was still a two hour journey by plane, although Vietnam is rather a large country so it makes sense as that's probably about what it would take to get from Edinburgh to London which is roughly the same distance.
We were booked on a flight with Jetstar Airways who have a monopoly over the route between Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi meaning that there wasn't many other options. We arrived at the domestic terminal which was actually almost as big as the international terminal, and upon checking in were told that our flight had been delayed half an hour; not the best news when you get to the airport, but at least we'd been informed and wouldn't be left sitting around for ages wondering what was going on.
We eventually left at about 1:30pm and the flight touched down at 3:30pm in Hanoi's Noi Bai airport.
Considering it's relative importance to the country, Hanoi's domestic terminal of the airport is miniature. I'm not sure how many gates there were, but it didn't seem as though there were that many luggage carousels and once we'd collected our luggage there wasn't any information desk and the exit led straight out into a row of taxis - it was like arriving in a small town, not the capital of the country. I wonder if the international terminal is exactly the same?
I'd read some information about how to travel to the city, and as the airport is miles away from the Old Quarter which is where we're staying in Hanoi, the best way to get there was by taxi. There were a row of them lined up outside the terminal and we grabbed one which dropped us off at our hotel in a journey that took about 45 minutes.
The only pictures I'd seen of Hanoi online (aside from a few notable landmarks) were filled with rows and rows of backed-up traffic so I was quite surprised to see that pretty much from the airport to the edge of the city it was relatively quiet on the roads.
I'm not sure if our driver was competing to be Vietnam's first Formula One world champion, but he changed lanes and made overtakes like Lewis Hamilton, and in case we had any doubts he frequently demonstrated that he knew where the horn was. As we started to get closer to the city, the traffic started to build up a bit more, and seeing mopeds started to be a more common occurrence.
I wouldn't say there were as many here as there were in Ho Chi Minh City, but as we weaved through the tiny streets to our hotel I was pretty sure we were going to clip one, or that one was going to appear out of the crowd of people and smash right into the bonnet.
We'd come past a huge lake on the way and were going to go for a walk round there, but leaving the hotel we went in a massive loop before eventually realising our mistake and changing paths to make sure were going the right way.
The streets around where were stayed certainly looked ancient and they were very narrow indeed. It reminded me of being in Europe somewhere rather than being in Asia, although the feeling of being on this continent was brought back when you looked on either side of the road and there were wall-to-wall restaurants on either side of the street.
In an eerie similarity to Ho Chi Minh City, about five minutes from our hotel was a major junction (I would say roundabout, but there was nothing in the middle and seemingly no traffic priorities) which we bravely attempted to get across in order to reach the lake which was twelve o'clock to our six o'clock meaning we had to cross three roads to get there. As I said it wasn't quite as moped filled as Hanoi, but I certainly breathed a sigh of relief once we made it across unscathed:
The lake we were standing at the top of is called Hoan Kiem Lake, and it's actually a really beautiful looking place. On the corner of it we spied a bridge which looked like it led to a temple and walking over there we discovered that it was Ngoc Son Temple which looked a little like a traditional Japanese temple from the outside. The bridge which we'd seen from a distance was crammed with people taking pictures and after following suit we continued round the lake in a clockwise direction:
We soon came across a large square to the left which looked to be filled with people and decided to head across there to see what was going on.
I find it really funny how even local people (aside from the odd nutter or person in a hurry) feel like they need the protection of other pedestrians to cross the road. Once you get about five people they have no fear in stepping out, but tend to wait until there are a good number of people, enough that the mopeds and cars actually have to take notice of you.
Once we'd made our way across we found that there was a huge area filled with people - most of whom were children on roller blades using the area as a recreation space. There was a big statue at the top of the square, but apart from that every bit of the concrete was filled with people moving around, and in a strange way it was actually a great representation of what I've seen in Vietnam as everything moves so quickly and it's extremely hard to take it all in.
Having gone around half of the lake we decided to walk around the rest of it, and as you can imagine with the temperature being relatively warm still, even late into the evening, there were a number of people sitting around the lake enjoying looking out over it.
In the middle of the lake is what looks like a small temple and there appeared to be people out there sitting on top of it although I saw no evidence of a boat and the water seemed pretty deep:
When we got back to the main road which are hotel is located just off it had all been closed up to vehicles and turned into a delightful night market so we spent some time walking through there and looking at everything which was on offer. It was so crowded and filled with what seemed like the entire population of Hanoi, although after my experiences in Siem Reap and Chiang Rai I'm pretty used to the lack of personal space by now.
The street itself is actually pretty busy, as it has shops on both sides and then when you combine the inner layer of a market with shops on both sides, it's actually really difficult to know which direction to look in. Hopefully we'll head back there tomorrow night to see if we can find any reasonably priced souvenirs for my mum to take home.
The travelling had pretty much wiped us both out by the time it came round to coming back to the hotel, and after spending a bit of time looking into activities for tomorrow I decided to call it a night.
I think due to the fact it is so different to being in England, even having been in Vietnam for a couple of days now, changing cities hasn't made it any easier to acclimatise myself to everything that is going on around me. Even walking down the streets near where we are staying it is extremely busy and you have to keep an eye out for rogue motorcycles which are travelling down both sides of the narrow roads, nipping in and out of pedestrians.
Even though it's the capital, things to seem a little bit more laid back here, and I think over the next couple of days there will be plenty of stuff for us to do and see before heading back to Ho Chi Minh on Tuesday.
Bright Lights, Bigger City
Cee Lo Green (2010)
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