Hanoi Adventures Part I

We spent the rest of our Vietnam visit in Hanoi.  As I mentioned earlier, our trip happened to coincide with Lunar New Year (also known as "Tet" in Vietnam) which is a huge event there.  One of the guide books even described it as the equivalent of an American's Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving, and Fourth of July celebrations all combined!  Unfortunately, one of the few Vietnamese phrases we learned to say: "Chuc Mun Nam Moi" (Happy New Year) won't be very helpful if we ever make a trip back at a different time of year.

Traffic was CRAZY in the city.  Nobody really seemed to adhere to traffic laws (which we are used to from Korea) and what made it even worse is that probably 65% of the traffic consists of motor scooters rather than cars.

It was very common to see entire families traveling on one scooter together.  

And I thought it was bad being squished between my big brothers in the back seat of a Chevy Cavalier!  

The highest number I saw was a family of 5 on one scooter (granted the youngest was about 12 months and was being held by the mom so he didn't actually take up seat space, but still!).  Hubs spotted one that had 4 teenage boys on it.  Unfortunately we didn't get pictures of either of those or you could vote to help us solve our disagreement of which was more impressive!