New Year’s Eve in Hanoi and Other Adventures

After a wonderfully hung over Christmas Day, Monica and I departed on a night bus to Hoi An. Hoi An is a relatively small town that is well known for its tailors. We were both advised to have custom clothes made for ourselves like suits, coats, dresses, etc. Buuuuuut, we didn’t. Instead, we rented bicycles and rode all over town.  We even found a few places that made their own beer and sold pints for $.20 (Yeah, I know, fucking awesome). Those were two relatively quiet nights. Good thing too because our next destination was Hanoi for New Year’s Eve and we would be staying at the infamous Hanoi Backpacker. 

Our four nights in Hanoi surrounding NYE were a blur of binge drinking and nursing hangovers. And for dignity’s sake, the camera was never brought out of its case. However, I will provide a brief description of our NYE celebration, the Hanoi Backpacker, and some of the uniqueness that is Hanoi.

First of all, you must know that in Hanoi there is still a communist influence which heavily plays into the bar scene. At midnight, police roll through the streets and shut down every bar in the city. Some bars will reopen and invite small amounts of people through back doors and such. Others will pay off the police to let them continue staying open. During the time shortly after midnight, the police are also not too fond of seeing you on the streets either.

Second, the Hanoi Backpacker, which there are two in Hanoi, is based around social drinking and promoted by heavy peer pressure. Every day from 5-6pm it is happy hour for beer and 8-9pm is happy hour for cocktails. If you are in your dorm room at these times, typically the staff will bust in and demand that you come join the fun. At 9:30pm they begin a pub crawl which always begins at the other Hanoi Backpacker.

So on NYE, the night began like any other and around 11pm we, being led by one of the staff, tried to find a different bar to celebrate the New Year. Turns out our guide was plastered and got us lost in the streets. We were a crowd of about 75ish in the streets when 2013 began. Beer and Champagne was sprayed and everyone celebrated while the cops uncharacteristically enjoyed watching. After about 20 minutes they demanded that we clear out. Moni and I tagged up with one of the other tour guides and found a few bars that were still open. The rest of the night was awesome!

Side note: On NYE I had one of my hostel mates cut my hair into some hybrid Mohawk/Fohawk/Tin Tin haircut. Yes, I am still rocking it. HAHA!

From Hanoi we went to Sapa. This is a small town in the far northwest of Vietnam. The attraction here is the many surrounding minority villages that still carry on a very old school traditional Vietnamese way of life. Unfortunately, our festive lifestyle in Hanoi caught up to Monica and she spent our two days there in bed. I went on a guided day trek to visit some of the minority villages. The guides for these treks are the women of the various tribes.