Theresa - We were so tired and jetlagged that we pretty much slept the 5 hours to Hanoi on the airplane. The flight was great until the last hour when we hit some rough turbulance! My parents were quite nervous about going through Immigration, but it was quite easy and no interrogations at all. When we landed in Hanoi, I was a little nervous of what had become of our checked in luggage which were supposedly sent to Hanoi even though we stayed in Tokyo. Before we left, I called Delta and Vietnam Airlines several times to figure out what would happen to our checked-in bags because of our layover in Tokyo. I got different and very noncommital answers. Much to my delight, all our luggage arrived except my sandals were missing?! Two were in Lost Baggage and had flown to LA to China then to Vietnam! After collecting our bags, we walked through customs without so much of a glance and found our driver waiting to take us to the Sofitel Plaza Hanoi.
After checking in and freshening up, we hailed a taxi to take us to Hoan Kiem Lake to have dinner and experience the "Night Market." It was scary to watch all the cars, buses, and mopeds manuerving through the narrow streets even though we were sitting in a car! There were very few traffic lights, so the rule seemed to be whoever could squeeze in got to go first! Those small little mopeds with up to 3-4 riders would just weave in and out of traffic. As Clint says, it was organized chaos! The "Night Market" street were narrow and the sidewalks were packed with vendors that sold just about everything - food to clothes! It was difficult to walk because you had to keep your eye out for the mopeds zooming up and down the street.
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