The first thing you notice about Hanoi is the motorbikes. Of a population of 3.5 million, 1.5 million own bikes, while the remainder it seems, ride pillion.
It’s an extraordinary sight to see so many bikes hugging the streets of Hanoi. At every traffic light, they are dozens of them jockeying for position. Once the lights go green, the air is filled with the continuous sound of engines running and horns blasting.
In a developing country where the average wage is little over $5 a day, private cars are out of bounds to everyone except the elite, so motor and push bikes act not just as private transport, but commercial vehicles too.
Spend any time at all in Vietnam and you will see the most extraordinary things carried on the back of motorbikes. Whole families sitting snugly on the back of Honda 50s is not an uncommon sight (with ‘ner a helmet between the 4 of them).
I have also witnessed flocks of chicken and geese strapped to the rear of bikes. Not to mention dead pigs. But the most extraordinary sight of all was the fully grown cow wrapped around the back seat of a bike heading out of Hanoi.
On almost every street in every city and town in Vietnam you will see crowds of people on the pavements selling all kinds of goods. People will gather around food stalls and sit on small plastic chairs eating, drinking teas and beers and chewing the fat.
Many more are content to take a break from the hectic pace of Hanoi life by lounging on their parked bike watching the world whizz by around them. With a growth rate of more than 8% per annum, business is booming in Vietnam and like its neighbour China, the country is learning to balance the twin ideals of communist rule and economic freedom.
Shopping is one of the many pleasures Hanoi has to offer and most visitors who come here will eventually be drawn to the Old Quarter, a dense network of small, narrow streets where commerce has been taking place for over 1000 years.
It is worth spending some time in this ancient area, which represents the historic centre of Hanoi and contains many fine temples including Ngoc Son Temple, situated on a small island on Hoan Kiem lake which surrounds this whole district. Cross a bridge at the northern end of the lake to enter this peaceful spot and feel your inner calm restored after all the frantic shopping.
Myself and the other half travelled to Vietnam to join a 10-day tour of the country organised by Intrepid, an Australian travel company which specialises in environmentally conscious, low-impact tourism around the world.
Joining a small group of six people from the UK, Australia and Canada with a tour leader from England, our Intrepid crew bonded over dinner on our first night together in Koto, a restaurant currently managed by a Drogheda man in Hanoi. Koto is staffed by seriously disadvantaged young people who receive a job, accommodation and an all-important bicycle in return for valuable training and experience in running an English-speaking restaurant.
The next morning we began our ‘Spirit of Vietnam Southbound’ adventure, ironically enough by heading north to Halong Bay, a four-hour bus ride from Hanoi. Despite coming down with an early case of tummy troubles, I was determined to enjoy a place which was recently shortlisted as one of the new natural wonders of the world.
A UNESCO world heritage site, Halong Bay is situated near the border with China in the Gulf of Tonkin, and is dotted with almost 2,000 limestone monolithic islands, thick with jungle vegetation and home to innumerable species of wildlife. We took one of the many guided boat tours which can be hired from a few hours to a few days to explore the 180km of islands, inlets and fjords of Halong Bay.
Almost one third of the islands have been given names, acquired because of their unusual form. Rising out of the sea like giant, living sculptures, each isle is individually shaped but collectively spellbinding. The deeper into the bay you delve, the more you discover, like the numerous caves and lagoons which can be explored on foot or by kayak.
Some of the islands also support floating villages of fisherman, who cruise Halong Bay for 200 species of fish and 450 type of mollusc. As we continued our slow boat to China and the sun began its slow retreat from the day, I sat on deck and decided where my vote in the Natural Wonders of the World poll would go.
Next morning, as if revived by the power of nature itself, I plunged merrily into the Gulf of Tonkin for a pre-breakfast swim. I wished we could have stayed longer, but we were setting a course back to Halong to start the next leg of our Vietnam journey.
After a day to ourselves in downtown Hanoi, our Intrepid passengers re-assembled in the evening for the overnight train ride to the central coastal town, and former capital of the country, Hue. We travelled first class on the train, which meant dormitory-style bunks with four to a cabin. My first ever all-night train journey was fun, despite the lack of sleep on the creaky old locomotive.
Next morning, we awoke to a sight I had not expected to see on this trip: rain. Vietnam’s dry season is officially from November to April, but as with the rest of the world, the country is not immune from the effects of climate change.
Little did we realise what we were in for with the rain, for we had arrived to catch the tail end of some of the worst flooding seen in central Vietnam for almost 100 years. The floods lasted from mid October to mid November and would claim the lives of over 100 people.
As the rain beat down incessantly, the roads remained impassable and we found ourselves stuck in Hue for two more days than expected. Our next port of call Hoi An would be a shortened stay as a result.
Despite the rain, Hue offered one of the highlights of the trip in the form of a motorbike ride across the town and into the surrounding countryside. Six of us, covered from head to toe in plastic see-through ponchos, piled on the back of a convoy of motorbikes and were driven across flooded roads and rough rural paths by a team of local riders.
We made several stops along the way including a visit to see how Vietnam’s famous conical hats are made. The group also visited the majestic burial ground of Vietnam’s last emperor, Tu Duc. It was an exhilarating three-hour ride, the monsoon-like rain adding a tinge of drama and risk to the whole occasion.
More drama was to follow after lunch when, upon returning to our hotel, we were informed that the nearby river was about to burst its banks and we would have to evacuate the premises pronto. While we quickly packed our bags to relocate to a hotel on higher ground, I made a mental note never to complain about Irish weather again.
Arriving In Hoi An two days later, we enjoyed a fine dinner for next to nothing in an Italian restaurant. Vietnam is a seriously cheap country with prices for most goods and services less than half of what you would pay at home.
Next day we had time only for a quick visit to the town’s massive market before catching an afternoon flight to that most musical of cities, Saigon. Officially known as Ho Chi Ming City in commemoration of the leader of the Viet Cong forces, Saigon is one of the south-east Asia’s largest and busiest cities with a population of over 5 million and an urban sprawl that stretches for miles in every direction.
On our first full day in the capital, we revisited some of Saigon’s recent history with a tour of the famous Cu Chi Tunnels, a two-hour coach ride from the centre. The tunnels were used by the Viet Cong to control a large rural area stretching as far as the Cambodian border.
In the area of Cu Chi alone, a vast network of more than 200km of tunnels existed, some of which were 30 to 40m in depth and contained three separate levels, which people spent weeks living in.
Descending into these dark, extremely narrow chambers, you realise how brave, yet how frightening it must have been to spend any length of time in here– especially when the Americans discovered the tunnels and began to systematically bomb the whole site.
The Cu Chi tunnels are now a major tourist attraction and people travel in great numbers just to see how the ordinary Vietnamese as well as soldiers managed to live for so long in such cramped, claustrophobic conditions.
The history of the tunnels is told in the form of historical newsreel footage and a walking tour of the area, which includes some grisly examples of how the Viet Cong soldiers ensnared American G.I.s with a series of clever, cunningly disguised jungle booby traps.
Returning to Saigon, we continued our conflict theme with an afternoon visit to the War Remnants museum. What was particularly shocking, amidst all the images of war is the ordinary, innocent lives that were affected. We are all accustomed to the iconic image of the naked Vietnamese child crying on the road, the victim of an American chemical bomb attack.
That famous photograph is here along with a great many others equally powerful. A strong stomach is required for some of the exhibits, particularly those which deal with local birth defects, which resulted from the widespread use of Agent Orange. Some of the museum’s pieces are more subtle though, and all the more poignant for it.
Amidst all the military hardware and violent representations of war, I was drawn to a small glass case which housed the remains of Vietnamese children’s clothes; one a girl’s dress, the other a boy’s pyjamas. They were tiny specimens, dating back over 30 years but what those two young children must have witnessed is left entirely to your own imagination.
Cheering us up after our war day, the group assembled later for what was to be the final meal of our Vietnam trip. As we enjoyed a few beers together in a bar, which reflected the modern face of the country with its cool music selection and young globe-trotting crowd, we raised a glass to the end of our south-east Asia adventure.
Cheers, Vietnam. Our brief sojourn in your charming country left me, for one, thirsty for more.