Hooked On Hanoi

There are cities that are living museums and cities that are too busy living to be a museum. Hanoi is surely one of the latter.

That’s not to say there aren’t museums and cultural sites a-plenty in Vietnam’s northern capital and second largest city, but it’s the army of scooters, the cacophony of bleeting horns, sidewalks that double as “knee high” restaurants and coffee shops, and general seething of humanity that assaults the senses, reports Michael Baginski in this week’s digital edition of Travel Courier.

“It really is a bit much, especially the first day [in Vietnam],” says Kelly Langrick of Destination Asia (groundhandler for Goway in the country), whose work brought her to the city. “But it’s a buzz that gets the adrenaline going!”

And nowhere more so than the Old Quarter, the centre of which is a chaotic jumble of 36 streets running “higgly piggly,” many of them pegged to a particular craft or product, such as fish or silk, electric fans or tombstone memorials.

Langrick jokes that there’s a a Facebook page devoted to the area — “Someone will ask, ‘Where’s paint brush street?’ And there’s a paint brush street!”

She adds, “You could spend a week wandering around the old quarter. How long have you got?”

Perhaps that’s because even a short stroll there is an adventure – a veritable obstacle course of parked scooters and street food restaurants/cafes that spill onto sidewalks or obstruct them entirely.

Shop after shop piles its wares outside, all the better to catch the attention of passersby who are forced to pick their way through like mountain goats.

And heaven help the intrepid soul who wants to cross a street through the scooter juggernaut.

“Just keep walking and don’t change your pace,” visitors are counselled in an environment where crosswalks and rules of the road are considered a mere “suggestion.”

“You get a spider sense,” laughs Langrick. “There’s never road rage; the tooting of the horn is never done in anger. It’s just to let you know they’re there.”

Still, of the old town onslaught, Langrick, a Brit, concedes, it’s kind of the place to “dip your toe into and then get out. It’s overwhelming.”

For the full story, check out this week’s digital edition of Travel Courier by clicking here.