Hanoi is Overwhelming

The Hanoi airport is beautiful, the roads to and from are new and spacious.  As we get closer to the city the fun begins. Lines on the road are near suggestions of where to drive. It someone in front of you is going slower than you are simply pass either on the right or left. All is fair and to make it more fun there are a million scooters passing on the right or left with one, two or three passengers with and without helmets.  Everyone drives this way and passing within 2 inches of a back or front bumper is plenty of room. Our hotel is in the old quarter so to the above chaos add tour buses and vans, city buses, walkers, bikes and cyclos which are bikes with a cart on the front for passengers.   It seems your best defense is an aggressive offense and use of a horn.  Rome has nothing on Hanoi. I am going to try and put a video in the blog that we took while on a cyclo ride. What is important to remember is we are in front of a bicycle

Our project for the afternoon was to find out about international mail. We have only been to one country and we are maxed out on weight for our suitcases. It is a great thing we were able to use google maps to find the hotel, it counting the paper map we received from the hotel. We compared DHL to Vietnam Post and Vietnam post won out and we are 6 kg lighter. Beware Brian a package should be there about the same time we get home containing all the treasures from the street market

Back at the hotel we head into old quarter to find some food. Dan is not going to eat from the street vendors. My gripe about the street vendors is there is no place to sit. Food is abundant in front of many shops amongst the motor scooters parked on the sidewalk.  This is why the pedestrians are in the street with the cars,  buses, and scooters.  Tomorrow morning we ride in a van 4 hours to Ha Long  bay and spend the night on a boat we will pack our things and the hotel will store them for us   The next few posts will be pictures