Chaos at the airport and Hotel Civility, Hanoi, Vietnam: 6th Feb 2010

By the time we landed in Vietnam it was already 7pm in the evening and we were about to experience our first taste of the chaos that is Hanoi. When we went to the baggage carousel there seemed to be a dozen flights that had landed around the same time and, as a result, the fairly small arrivals hall somewhat resembled a market place with people shouting across the hall, kids running around and airport staff marching to and fro whenever the baggage carousels broke down (which happened quite often). We waited for almost 2 hours for our bags but apparently this was the norm in Hanoi airport i.e. no system is the way that their system worked!
Finally with backpacks to hand, we jumped into a local taxi and headed downtown to Hotel Civility, which we had booked online and looked quite decent on their website.
The journey into central Hanoi was an experience in itself. Evidently the way the traffic system worked was to use your horn as much as possible on the roads in order to warn other vehicles that you were coming through, and there was no stopping you. I have also never seen so many motorcycles on the roads before, and what was more incredible were the goods that people strapped onto the back of their bikes. Given that Chinese New Year was looming, there were 2 metre high mandarin trees and even a refrigerator strapped to the back of one bike! Malaysian traffic was starting to seem rather tame in comparison....
After what seemed like an eternity, we finally came up to a series of very tall, narrow buildings all built up right next to each other and lots more traffic. This could only signal that we were in the centre of town. Roads were windy, busy and motorbikes were swarming. We both held on for our lives even though we were sat in the safety of a car - it was that manic! Luckily we made it to our hotel in one piece and were greeted by the hotel staff, who took our bags and ushered us into the hotel. Really it wasn't anything like the website (some clever lighting going on there) and the staff all looked about 18 years old. When we were taken up to our room, up 7 flights of stairs (no joke), we thought that perhaps booking in advance was a mistake. Luckily the room turned out to be quite decent - it had hot water, a flat screen TV and aircon, so we happily agreed to stay for the next couple of nights. Bellies rumbling, we ventured down the road after quick showers and found an excellent French-Indochine restaurant where we devoured some pho (beef noodle soup) and fried rice. We also sampled our first local Vietnamese beer whose name I can't remember, but after a long day, it definitely washed the food down extremely well! With very little energy left, we decided to leave the exploring of Hanoi until the following day, and retired to bed in our room on the 8th floor (no elevators included).