February 3, 2015
We left San Francisco on Sunday, February 1st, before the start of the Super Bowl and endured a very, very, long, long couple of flights to Hanoi. We flew Asiana Airlines [yes, the airline that has had trouble landing at SFO] to Seoul, South Korea, which took close to 14 hours. Getting through Customs was an exercise in patience as passengers from five jumbo jets clogged up the whole entry system. The customs staff tried their best. After clearing customs, we spent the night at a Best Western hotel at the airport, before catching a 5-hour flight to Hanoi early this morning.
Vietnam, here we come!
The Seoul airport is beautiful, spacious, very modern in design, with orchids and other flowers everywhere, organized and clean. Every thing is very ‘westernized’, from the architecture of the airport to the background music featuring Celine Dion, and to the shops and brands we all recognize. I did a double-take as it feels like you’re in a futuristic, affectless facility that could be any modern airport in the world. Then ZAP! Fill it with dark-haired people, speaking a language you don’t understand, signage that doesn’t compute in your brain, and few hints as to where you are-very disorienting.
Since South Korea is not on our list of places we want to visit in-depth, we’ll take advantage of an eight-hour layover on our way home, to visit several sites in the area.
After landing in Hanoi this afternoon [another beautiful, modern airport that opened up just two months ago], we had our introductory experience of driving and surviving Hanoi traffic. Just to put things in perspective, Hanoi is a city of 9 million people and a density greater than what we experienced last year in Tokyo. It seems like there are thousands of scooters for every car, swarming and moving in some organized, yet chaotic flight along pre-determined paths. You won’t find any Harley’s or other motorcycles here. There are no lanes, and just a few traffic lights…. if they are working, they are treated as mere suggestions, so they’re generally ignored. It feels like rivers of water constantly moving, flowing around obstacles, accommodating the disruption by gracefully adjusting. It just keeps moving!
We arrived safely at the Metropole Hanoi hotel, in the French quarter. It is a welcome island of elegance and tranquility. It was the first hotel in Saigon, built by the French. I’ll write more about it tomorrow after our historic tour of the hotel.
After settling in, we were ready to take a walk and explore the immediate area. Walking around the historic Hoan Kiem Lake was highly recommended by the tour guides as a place to start. However we immediately realized we overlooked some important details such as crossing several ‘rivers’ of traffic. Each one was 50 to 100 feet wide with up 20 scooters and cars abreast, moving at various speeds and directions. After looking for and finding a cross walk, we thought we found the answer! Wrong! We quickly realized it was just ‘street art’ and served no useful purpose. So we watched how the locals do it. Scary! We looked for a group that was ready to cross over. We found a couple and dashed over to attach ourselves to their ‘bubble’. What an experience! We learned that the process is to start crossing anywhere you chose, don’t look at the on-coming traffic, make sure you don’t make eye contact with any of the drivers and just walk with confidence. We survived! No one stopped. They just modified their paths and speed ever so slightly by cutting off the scooter next to them then gracefully moved around us. Most swept by us with less than 1 foot of clearance. It is amazing how beautifully things keep going, without drama or emotion – like a ballet. You just enter the flow and let the chaos embraces and deliver you to the other side of the street. Magic! I took some videos, but this blog cannot accommodate videos, so you’ll have to wait for the release of the ‘movie’ – scheduled to be released in late February.
Hoan Kiem Lake in downtown Hanoi
Meeting up with our travel companions
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