Hanoi and Halong Bay

In the evening of Thursday the 17th of December we arrived at Hanoi airport. The road from the airport to Hanoi was like 1970s Baghdad according to my dad. It wasn't a compliment, but huge trucks almost ramming us gave a cool feel (a feeling which applies whenever you're driving in Vietnam) to the ride. We had to walk 600 meters (make it 900, since our "contact person" didn't find his way), because motorcycles flocked the streets as Vietnam lost(!!!!) to Malaysia 1-0 in the final of some sort of cup. Still they were celebrating.

Next morning we met Andris (bro of Veruchito) who's been working in Vietnam for 1,5 years. He proved invaluable. Nice, quick city landmark tour, great (and cheap) food and last but not least a lots of moto-riding (for Mate: without the "ciao"):). My parents and brother usually took the taxi and I rode with Andris through the flow of motorcycles in Hanoi. Normal traffic rules don't apply, neither traffic lights nor lanes is taken into account while driving. The only thing that matters is who is the bigger and who blows the horn. Doing the latter means "I'm coming, so bugger off".:) IT IS HUGE FUN!! :) Thank God the roads are so jammed people don't drive very fast so there are not too many accidents and even those result in light injuries.

After spending a day in Hanoi and seeing my family getting ripped of by the taxi (by 3 dollars :)) we went to Halong Bay. The weather was pretty bad and cold but the scenery was still fascinating. I'll let the pic do the talking. Oh and by the way, the traffic rules don't apply to the highways either. Then again since the max I've seen people drive with was 80 km/h its not (or it doesn't seem):) accident-prone.

3rd day evening we were off to Hue. More on that later...

Oh and the State here doesn't let me to access facebook, so I had to use a proxy site.:)