Before I went to Vietnam, friends who had been there had said that I should go there very soon as it is changing at a very rapid pace. Some other friends who had been to Vietnam about six or eight years ago said that Hanoi was a good place to bicycle around.

Bicycles are definitely a thing of the past and motorcycles are the transportation of choice now. Unfortunately the car is becoming more popular in Hanoi and traffic congestion is a real problem.

Since the road rules seem to be treated as suggestions rather than law and the pedestrian crossings appear to merely function as decoration, crossing the main streets in Hanoi takes some getting used to. After watching how the locals coped with what I thought was utter chaos, I came to the conclusion that one just walks straight out into traffic in the hope that the motorists see you and avoid running you over. It worked for the locals and also surprisingly for my wife and I

Some of the back streets of Hanoi did match my preconceptions (based on travels in South East Asia many years ago).

This is how the trendier areas of Hanoi are now starting to look like as the economy grows and the populace becomes more prosperous.