Hanoi

Xin chào, you little sheep 🐑

We had actually booked a normal bus in Cat Ba that was supposed to take us to Hanoi. Luckily for us, we were picked up by a luxury bus because not enough people had booked the normal bus. The drive onto the ferry was extremely interesting, as the bus was only raised with a few pieces of wood so that it could drive onto the extremely tiny ferry. Three hours later we arrived in Hanoi and walked to our hostel. This was in a very narrow little alley where you had the feeling of walking right through the residents' apartments. Our host hadn't shown up the entire time, so we checked ourselves into our basement dorm, which smelled a bit musty, and went to get something to eat. Prices in Hanoi are shockingly high, which made it difficult to find somewhere inexpensive to eat. We ended the evening with a few beers with two other backpackers from our hostel.

The next day we visited the old quarter of Hanoi, which was mostly spared from the war.

Quick fact check: Hanoi was founded in 1010 by Emperor Ly Thai To as the capital of the Dai Viet Kingdom and was named Thang Long, meaning "Rising Dragon." Until French colonial rule in the 19th century, the city was given countless different names as it was repeatedly taken over by various powers and also repeatedly lost its title as capital. Hanoi was largely destroyed during the 1955-1975 war. At Christmas 1972 alone, the city was bombed by 40,000 tons of American explosives.

After our visit to the Old Quarter, we also visited the Phung Hung Street Murals, which artistically depict the life and history of Vietnam. Only a few minutes walk we saw Train Street, which unfortunately, like so many things here, you could only really visit if you paid. We also wanted to visit the War Museum, but unfortunately it was closed that day. So we spent the rest of the day planning our trip... To be continued.

This means, your travel group is chaos.