November 13...packing to leave Hoi An, with heavy rain still coming intermittently. We caught a mid-afternoon flight from Da Nang to Hanoi, and were excited to find lower humidity and temps in the mid 70s...a definite departure from our trip up to now! We got a chuckle driving into the city...it is going into winter here (just like home, but with much milder temps), and many locals were wearing down jackets!
As our Saigon guide warned us, traffic here is even crazier than Saigon. Nobody pays attention to such mundane things as traffic lights, etc. Several near-death experiences driving to our hotel...some for us and some for the scooter drivers!
By the way, the proper spelling of the city is two words: Ha Noi, not the customary one word, Hanoi.
There is a significant French influence in this city. Hanoi was the capital of French Indochina (a federation of the French colonies of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) from 1945 to 1954, and Vietnam itself had been a colony since the late 1800s. Thus Rita's comment that she felt like she was in Paris...and she hadn't had a drink yet!
Hanoi is the second largest city in Vietnam, with a population of just over 9 million.
Touring tomorrow!
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