Our journey begins Hanoi

The journey of Marcia and me begins on January 20, 2023 at Zurich Airport. We are both excited and just hope that we arrive in Hanoi safely and without any major incidents.

  

After about 15 hours, we managed to get to our hotel and we are incredibly tired. In order to avoid jet lag, we drag ourselves outside at around 12:00 pm (local time). We explore some streets, drink from a coconut, and eat our first street food. Finally, at around 5:00 pm, we finally collapse into bed and don't leave it until the next day at 12:00 pm.

The first (proper) day in Hanoi starts late, but we are full of energy. First, we need breakfast, which we find in a nearby bakery. There, you can find everything you can imagine (or not). Such as small rice flour rolls, donuts, baguettes, and many other pastries that we have never seen before.

On this day, we explored a large part of the old town. We walked about 25,000 steps in total. There are small stands everywhere, selling and eating street food. There is a lot going on everywhere, and even though it is loud and hectic, the city feels peaceful. However, the traffic is a challenge at first. When you want to cross the street, you have to do it through the moving traffic because no one stops here.

In the next two days in Hanoi, we explored the French Quarter and the government district. These two parts show a completely different side of the city. The buildings here are more voluminous and powerful. This was somewhat surprising to me after seeing the hustle and bustle of the old town.

At the end of our last day in Hanoi, we took a trip to Sa Pa. We booked an overnight bus for our accommodation there, which will take us to Sa Pa in about 6 hours. We had no idea what to expect. Around 8:30 pm, we found ourselves at the meeting point (a café about 20 minutes away from the center). A Vietnamese person, who spoke only a few words of English, came to us and showed us something on his phone. It turned out that the man belonged to the bus company. So we were in the right place.