Hanoi nights…
Well, I went to Hanoi last week to attend the Joint Commission Meeting between Malaysia and Vietnam. Man… there was a lot of sleepless nights doing work. Even when I get to sleep, I dreamt of doing work… didn’t really rest until Friday… tried to have a nap at about 9 p.m. Friday night, after all the meetings was finished, before going out on the town but with even the lights on and the TV blaring, I only woke up at 3 in the morning. Sheesh…
I did get in a bit of souvenier shopping in Hang Gai, but I didn’t get to tour any of Hanoi’s sights except those that I passed by in the car. You can see some pictures of my Hanoi trip at my fotopages, not that many different places in Hanoi but at least more than the pictures I managed to take when I was on holiday in Jakarta.
The traffic situation in Hanoi is best described as my boss said it "systematic chaos". The vehicles move at a constant average speed 40-60km/h however they rarely stop. Makes crossing the road an adrenaline rush in itself. However, there is a street in Hang Gai, where there is no traffic lights and just a zebra crossing but the vehicles will stop, I have no idea why. If anybody knows, please enlighten me.
It is also surprising how small the Vietnamese are, somebody mentioned the tunnels used in the Vietnamese wars was made for even smaller people, so they might have increased in size after a few decades. Well, they kicked the US ass, so they’re big in my book.
My cousin mentioned that somebody said that Hanoi was a romantic city, I asked her whether the guy was drunk. It was a nice enough place to visit, but romantic???
Although being cooped up in the secretariat doing work and not having a chance to really see Hanoi might have biased my opinion about Hanoi being a romantic city.
So tell me what you think… until then… see you on the spin side!
