Day two in Hanoi=I love this city.
Woke up this morning and realized that, with the Vietnamese lunar new year of Tet coming up, I needed to find out where I would be from now until Feb. 16. The new year is a three to four day event running from the 12th through the 16th, and the people here take it very seriously. The streets of Hanoi are already filled with vendors selling party supplies and creating flower arrangements/ light displays for the festival, even though it's nearly two weeks away. I found out today that open bus tickets will keep rising in price (they already went from about $50 yesterday to $64 today) and hotels will become fully booked because most Vietnamese take the entire New Year's festival off of work and travel home to celebrate with their families. To top it off, many bus companies don't even operate during that time. Not wanting to be stuck in Hanoi for an extra week with all city buildings and shops closed, I decided I'll head for a beach town and hunker down in the sand until the chaos is over.

So I bought a ticket to Halong Bay tomorrow morning, 7 a.m. sharp. I'll hang out on the water for three days, then take an overnight train to the mountain village of SaPa Saturday night, spend three days there, take an overnight back to Hanoi, then head to Nin Binh that evening to see what I've heard are amazing karst cliffs on the rice paddies. I'll catch an evening bus to Hoi An the next day, and arrive there in time to spend a week lounging and exploring while the New Year passes. After that, who knows? Eventually I'll end up in Ho Chi Minh City, and from there head to Cambodia.

Although most of the day today was spent making onward travel plans, I still had enough time to fall even more in love with Hanoi. It's as busy and crowded as Bangkok, but with a much more laid-back, fun loving feeling. Here, the chaos is a welcome one, and the people seem to take joy in the overcrowded, unplanned nature of living here. In Bangkok, it seems everyone is annoyed with the city's congestion.

Wandering the street tonight, we came across a stage performance going on in the downtown square. Saw snake wranglers, trapeze artists, contortionists, Backstreet-esque dancers and something along the lines of a juggler, but using feet instead of hands. Hung out with the locals over dinner and learned the Veitnamese word for "cheers," ( I can't remember it now) and bartered for some sandals with a feisty old woman who drew a hard bargain.

The only complaint about Hanoi: pickpockets seem to be rampant. At the stage show, encountered two would-be pickpockets who clearly were scoping out my purse and the grocery bag I was carrying. Luckily, we noticed their eyesiness and attempts to scoot closer to us, and were able to discourage them with a couple of skunk eyes and choice words. Apparrently, the term f-off is a universally-understood phrase. But pickpockets aside, the people here are genuinely friendly, relaxed and open. The city is beautiful, pleasantly cooler than Bangkok, and has an amazing atmosphere, with ancient architecture, a rich history and great natural spaces, with the urban areas situated between many lakes and rivers.

I feel a bit guilty that I haven't seen any of the heralded sites of the city--Ho Chi Minh mausoleum or the old Hanoi Hilton, among others--but I know I'll be back here and I hope to catch those all in due time. For now, I've found a new place to list among my favorite spots in the world, in good company with Istanbul, Ramsi's Cafe, the Peanut Barrel.