Hanoi day 1

Today we had a 7:40am flight from da nang to Hanoi, so we got up around 5:30 and got to Hanoi around 9:30. At the airport we had a quick bowl of pho before our flight

We booked two back to back tours during the next 5 days through a hostel here called Cheers, basically tonight at 7:30 we’re heading out on a sleeper bus to ha giang.

So we headed to the hostel to start off, dropped off our bags off there and confirmed the tour booking.

We then went off exploring Hanoi! We walked around the main lake, stopped in at a really cute second story cafe and had coffees overlooking the busy street and lake.

For lunch we went to this really fancy pizza place with these crazy pizzas we had one scallop pizza with a lemony cream sauce, and then one half like beef stir fry pizza, half prosciutto arugula with a huge burrata on top.

After a massive lunch we needed to walk it off a bit, we ended up trying to find the famous train street, and found it after a lot of walking. It’s just train tracks going through an alley very close to the buildings on either side.

We managed to find it about 40 minutes before the next train was scheduled to go past, they had chairs and temporary tables set up along the tracks and we had some fruit smoothies and spring rolls. At about 3:10 they told us to pay up before security came by, and then around 3:25 they collapsed our tables down and told us to get ready and turn to the side and tuck our legs in towards the wall because the train was about to come.

We were expecting it to kind of slowly come past but it was this massive train and it just whizzed by! Everyone was cheering as it went. The train came just about a foot away from us (see video).

Afterwards, we walked back towards the old quarter and roamed around the lake. We still had time to kill, so we went to Uniqlo (one of Jane’s favourite stores). To our surprise there was a coffee shop on the top floor!! I got an iced coffee to try and wake up since we were so tired. Just before going back to the hostel, we stopped and ate a snack at Burger King.

Then at about 7, we headed back to the hostel, and had to wait for about an hour before we got on the sleeper bus. But finally our 5-day tour is underway!Read more