From Ha Noi on foot

Fast forward 4 days...We've found our way back to a somewhat normal lifestyle from the ups and downs of the road. This is much thanks to Ngoc's connections here, which have brought us a beautiful free apartment to live in for as long as we wish!

We arrived last Saturday night from Hue by plane. Quickly we made our way to a reasonably priced hotel. This got us through the night and the next before our new accommodations were available.

The apartment is a room in a wonderful 4 story house. There is a dual covered roof deck where one side is used as a laundry room and the other for plants and a leisure area with couches and such. In the house lives 1 Australian guy, 1 British woman, 1 French woman, a fellow New Yorker, and Ngoc's friend of a friend who is Vietnamese.

The house is gigantic with each person paying only $200 a month for a room. Keep in mind the rooms are about the size of our entire apartment in NYC. Another plus is that it is located out of the center of the city off of many small side streets. We wake up to the birds chirping and I'm not talking about the usual rooster crowing that we have grown used to! Its only after the peace and quiet we see the down side to the location...

Hanoi is a bustling urban city with over 6.5 million people. It is a bit more developed than Saigon, but there are similarities all around. Dirt, smog, trash, and standing water are just a normal part of life here, but infrastructure seems a bit more together. Motor bikes clog the tight streets and there never seems to be a direct path to any single location.

We've taken these challenges in stride however. For example, our home location. A silent boycott on the potential for multiple $5 cab rides has been agreed to by both Ngoc and I. Instead, we take the 25 cent public bus. We feel no shame in the fact that 99% of the people on these buses are under 16 years old and going to school or elderly. For this price why aren't others choosing this option? A few reasons really, but we don't mind waiting for 20 minutes to save $4.50 each way, or mind enduring a mad crowd physically fighting their way on and off the bus, or having to chase after countless busses that don't seem to think they are a a bus stop. We experience this every day in New York! No... We are getting the deal of the century! Another plus is that in nearly a week we have not witnessed even one other white person on the busses. This makes it even more fun for me when receiving smiles and laughs from the patrons when I asked for our 2 tickets in Vietnamese... Hai ve...

The city is a challenging one to walk, but we've shown it that with training in NYC, it can't beat us. From Ho Chi Minh's tomb to the numerous lakes in and around the city center, we have walked all of it. No cabs, no huggie bikes , no xi chlo...just our tired and sore feet!

This is how we've spent our days n Hanoi so far. Roaming around, finding a nice place for food, roaming further, eating more, shopping, looking for dogs, checking out boys. Much like New York really, and we even went to a mall and saw a Vietnamese gay film. Is been nice, but we are getting too comfortable. We must move on!

Tomorrow we have one more day to catch our breath before hitting the road. Friday morning we leave bright and early for Halong Bay where we will kayak in the bay, explore the limestone caves, and sleep on a boat (in a bed and private room of course). After our previous flop attempting to organize our own boat adventure, we went to a tour group to put it all together for us.

We arrive back to Hanoi Saturday night and will have one last night night in the apartment before heading west to Sapa in the Northern mountains. From there we will move west to LAOS! Wish us luck!

I'm sure there will be more posts before Laos so keep an eye out. Halong will offer us possibly the best photos yet, just wait!