Hanoi, September 2017

So it's Vietnam day! When I went travelling in 2013 aka the best 6 months of my life I planned to go to Vietnam and with anything plans can change and I didn't make it. So 4 years later I finally decided to make the journey. 
I flew Emirates from London with a 2 hour layover in Dubai. Each flight was around 6 hours each, I left on Sunday at 2pm and landed on Monday at around 1pm to the city of Hanoi.

I stayed at the Nexy Hostel in the old quarter. I also arranged an airport pick up for $18/£13 with my hostel. It's about a 40 minute journey to the city. I was warmly welcomed when I arrived at Nexy and checked in. 


I knew I wanted to go to Sapa and Halong Bay so I booked this through my hostel. I'm pretty sure I could have got a better price but after over 15 hours travelling I really didn't fancy trekking around several different travel agents in the 30 degree humid heat so I booked it through my hostel.  

Nexy Hostel is very modernly decorated, there's a hang out room, rooftop, bar and games round. The staff speak perfect English and are very polite and helpful. The rooms are also clean and tidy. 

I checked into my room then wandered around the area. Hanoi is crazy busy, I have never seen so many motorbikes in my life. Crossing the road with the amount of bikes and cars is a feat, I learnt that you just need to walk out into to the road and hope for the best. You can't wait for there to be a break in the road but you'll be waiting until next year. 


There are several clothing and fabric stores, bars, souvenir shops and fast food places around. I did find it really easy to get lost walking around Hanoi. I also found it really difficult to find places to eat. Don't get me wrong there are lots of places selling snacks, drinks, desserts and sandwiches but traditional Vietnamese food e.g. Pho or just the simple noodles and meat I found were hard to come by. 


From the food places that I did find it's a mixture of places where you sit inside or on the street. Meals were between 35000 Dong/£1-60000 Dong/£2.

I headed back to my hostel and packed and got ready for Sapa tomorrow. 

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