I had read about the streets of Hanoi; the motorbikes, the honking, the difficulty crossing the street. But to witness it myself was nothing short of amazing. We got our first taste of how the city lives our first night in our hotel. The honking never stops. Literally. It continues 24 hours a day! We had a room that faced a small street and we were fascinated with the noise. It would die down from time to time, but it would never completely stop. It actually became kind of soothing, believe it or not! And the honking in Viet Nam is nothing like the honking here in America. The Vietnamese use their horns as a warning. "Hey, I'm coming up beside you. Watch out!". It's not hostile and there's certainly no evidence of road rage. Drivers never even seemed stressed by the chaos that they were contributing to.

Crossing the street was not as bad for me as others had led me to believe. It is an interesting experience, and it's hard to describe. You really just need to step off the sidewalk, put your blinders on and go! The huge masses of bicycles, motorbikes and cars will go around you. Honestly, they will! There were a few times that I actually shut my eyes and hurried across the street because it was so hard for me to believe that they would really stop or swerve to avoid hitting me. If you wait for a break in traffic, you are likely to be waiting a very, very long time.

The motorbikes in Viet Nam are the primary mode of transportation and they are EVERYWHERE! If you ever have the chance to ride on the back of a Vietnamese motorbike through the city, you should do it. It is an amazing (and fast!) way to see Hanoi. It was really shocking to see the various items and number of people that a motorbike would carry. It's not unusual to see motorbikes loaded with mattresses, copy machines, or entire families cruising down the road. I never got used to seeing the young children and babies on the scooters. I saw so many young toddler aged children sitting on the back of a motorbike, not even holding on! The babies are usually placed in the middle between the mom and dad, so that seemed a little safer to me and didn't cause me to gasp every time I saw this.

In the photo you can see the massive rows of motorbikes lined up. This is a common sight and you will often have to leave the sidewalk due to the parked motorbikes in your way. We came across quite a few "parking lots" that just looked like a sea of motorbikes. It made me think 'how do they know which one is theirs and how will they pick it out of the crowd?'. I'm sure that if a scooter owner came here to a crowded parking garage at a mall in New Jersey, they would think the same exact thing!