track our trek

we arrived mid-morning at the surprisingly calm and modern hanoi airport after a 2-hour flight from bangkok. no huge crowds of people or would-be taxi drivers offering rides into the city...we headed to the cluster of atm's and stocked up on vietnamese dong (16,000vnd to $1) & by that time, a gentleman from our guest house had arrived to pick us up. the ride from the airport takes 45 minutes through countryside w/ rice and vegetable fields and alternating manufacturing plants, like panasonic and hitachi. hanoi guesthouse is in the old quarter where the narrow, busy streets are lined w/ shops, and filled with motorbikes and cars and pedestrians and women carrying their wares in the famous two baskets slung across their shoulders. buildings are tall and skinny...someone told us people pay taxes based on the width of their property here. thin greeted us with a smile and some hot tea & asked right away what things we'd like to do during our stay. as usual, we hadn't a clue...we never seem to be ahead of ourselves enough to have a discernable itinerary when we land in a new place. not to worry, she asked us how many days we had, and quickly laid out a whirlwind two-week itinerary, complete with train times and schedules and tour package prices! then after thoroughly charming us, she announced that the rooms in hanoi guesthouse were all full (with an apologetic look on her face), but that they had reserved us a room at their sister hotel for the same price. hmmm...just a block away, the room at the thuy lam seemed perfectly acceptable, so we dropped our things, freshened up and hit the streets to explore...it turns out hanoi is quite a charming, walkable city...in scale anyway... though there are sidewalks, they are completely taken over by motorbike parking and plastic stools and tables from sidewalk eateries...so you must always walk in the street, dodging motorbike traffic as you go. rumor has it, ho chi minh city is a hundred times worse! motorbikes obey traffic signals only 50% of the time, so if you want to cross the street, you must take a deep breath, and simply step out into oncoming traffic...the rule is to move slowly and steadily in one direction. do not stop or go backwards, as drivers are calculating their paths to go around you! what an experience!!