HANOI We Have A PROBLEM 🇻🇳 VIETNAM by MOTORBIKE Ep:2

Welcome back to Hanoi in Northern Vietnam. In today's video, we're going to be leaving Hanoi and heading towards our starting point for this big adventure, which is the northernmost point of Vietnam on the Chinese border. But before we leave Hanoi, I do want to quickly share with you some of the local sights here, the colorful temples, my brutal review of egg coffee. We'll also be meeting fellow YouTubers who've just finished doing a motorcycle trip here, and I'll be asking them some brutal questions. What was the most overrated place? Overrated? Ooh. So yeah, come and explore some more of Hanoi with me today, we should have another fun day. Let's go. The Old Quarter is definitely the best, most atmospheric part of Hanoi. My little hostel is just down that little alleyway. This is an amazing little bar where you can drink beer, overlooking one of the gates here. The Old Quarter was historically the hub of different types of commerce. Each street would be a specialized commerce street, so one street would be spices, one street would be metal, other street might be meat and veg. Today it's more of a hustle and bustle backpacker area, local area. My goal is to take you through the Old Quarter, we'll go see what we can find, we'll try and get a bowl of pho, maybe some egg coffee, I've heard that's really popular. We're going to try and tick off some of the bucket list things to do today before we go meet up with that American couple. I think they're American, I've never met them, they seem really cool, and I've got something for them from Bangkok that they really need, so I'm thinking that if I give them the thing they asked for me to buy for them, that they'll exchange some wise knowledge on how to get through this country in one piece, because they've just finished it. If you're wondering, by the way, why are you walking on the road, Paddy, it looks dangerous to just walk on the pavement, you can't, every single stretch of the pavement is blocked with people selling things, people eating, people talking, people having coffee, people drinking beer. The pavements are not for walking, the pavements are prime real estate for selling stuff, so you have to walk on the roads in the Old Quarter. I'm not going to be comparing Vietnam to Thailand because, you know, you shouldn't compare countries, you should treat each country as its own entity. The only reason why I kind of sometimes do it in my head subconsciously is because I've spent so much time in Thailand. But the only thing that I'll say on this whole series of videos in comparison to Thailand is the face mask situation. I'd say 10 or 15% of the people in Vietnam are wearing a face mask, and 90% or a little bit less just don't wear a mask, and that's fine because the rules here are wear it if you want, don't wear it if you don't want. It's nice because I think you should have the choice if you want to wear it, but in Thailand, and this is the only comparison I'm going to make, if you don't wear a face mask you get a lot of dirty looks, whereas here, people smile at you, and like this lady here, she's got one on, that's fine, she wants to have it, but most other people, they don't want to, and they don't have to, and that's fine. That's the only comparison I'm going to do on this whole series, I promise. One more song, one more song. Behind me here is Din Cafe, and it's on my phone, so one of you guys must have left this as a recommendation, so thank you, I just checked, apparently it's the best place to get egg coffee. Now I am kind of hungry, and I'm desperate for pho, but egg coffee will keep us going, and I've never tried it before, so this should be interesting. Plus people just play badminton in the street here, which is really cool. Okay, here it is, it looks a bit weird, obviously I'm used to latte art in the west here, we've got egg art, and it's hot, and it's not really a drink is it, it's more like a pudding, like an egg, like a coconut pudding, do you drink it or not, oh it's not hot, why is it hot, I'm so confused, oh my god that's so sweet. Okay, it's, I'm so confused, okay you've got to really mix it up so that it gets hot, there is coffee in there somewhere, in the back of the shop, kind of, it's not the front facing coffee flavour that you would get if you were drinking a coffee, or a latte, or a cappuccino, it's thick, it's the texture of a coconut pudding, or a chocolate mousse, if you're in the mood for a coffee, don't get this, if you're in the mood for a sweet dessert, don't get this, get this if you want to try something new and strange, in a beautiful environment, it was beautiful, and it was sweet, but it's not for me. Yeah okay, so egg coffee was a bit of a miss for me, but we tried it, and across the street from the cafe is Jade Mountain Temple, 30,000 to get in, so 1.5 US dollars, and get this, local people and foreigners pay the same, same price. It was erected in the 19th century in commemoration for one of the greatest military commanders of the Tran dynasty, and it also pays homage to the Chinese god of prosperity, so you do see Vietnamese, and probably before Covid, and with all the crazy lockdowns happening in China, lots of Chinese people putting notes, and fake money, and blessings into a fire, and paying homage to the statues inside. There's also fossilized turtles in these boxes that apparently used to live in this lake, and they're absolutely huge, and very strange looking, kind of unbelievable really. If the hustle and bustle of the old quarter is a little bit too much for you, just come here, it's proper chill. Okay, so we've walked, we've sweated, we've explored, we've had a great time, the only problem is we haven't found any pho, so I've texted my friends, I'm meeting them in an hour, I have a half an hour walk back, and then we're going to go eat some pho together. Okay, I'm showered, I've changed my shirt, and I'm feeling fresh, and I'm off to meet the One Pack Wanderers, a YouTube channel that have just driven from Saigon to Hanoi. I'm going to give them this, this is the thing that they asked me to buy, DJI microphone system from Bangkok, and I can see why they asked, because there's not even a 7-Eleven in Vietnam, it's all independent shops, no big malls, and coming from Bangkok there's a mall on every single street, and it was like really easy to go get this, and apparently they really need it, so they'll give me the cash, and in exchange I'll grill them about Vietnam. Yeah, the One Pack Wanderers guys, these guys are awesome, if you haven't checked out their channel, definitely do it, it's always nice to meet other fellow content creators, and just talk and share, and just have that rare opportunity to crack heads over the industry, and the kind of work that we do, it's very rare that you meet other YouTubers, and so if you have a YouTube channel, you'll know that yes, it looks like everyone's collaborating all the time, but in reality meeting content creators is really rare, and yeah, we sat on these incredibly uncomfortable small tiny plastic chairs, which are very common here in Vietnam, and we got the pho, we got the beef noodle soup in the end, absolutely delicious, especially when you sprinkle in the chili, the chili sauce, and a squeeze of lime, absolutely amazing, we'll be eating lots of pho on this trip for sure, and then we went to Beer Corner, and had a couple of beers, and just talked more about Vietnam, but I wanted to save the best questions, the ones that I think are going to be the most useful for me, and for you the viewer, in a quick fire round, so we sat down, found a place that wasn't blasting copyrighted music, and I drilled them, okay here they are, it's the one pet wandering, so you've just finished, you started in Saigon, yeah we did, and you've just finished in Hanoi, the opposite of what you're doing, yeah, so we've had a few beers, we've had a good old chat, but I've got five quick fire ground questions, I don't want to like ask you too much detailed stuff, because I want to keep my trip spontaneous and fun, but I also want to get some useful information from you, all right, so the first question, and answer separately, okay, you can't have the same answer, you can't be a boring couple, and agree on everything, best place that you went to on this trip, your first, Phong Nha for me, Da Lat for me, okay good, what was the most overrated place, overrated, I think for me it was Nha Trang, it felt like Miami, but in Vietnam, okay, and that was, yeah, yeah, I'll say Nha Trang, Nha Trang, no it's okay, if she, if she agrees with you, okay, okay, that's fine, so Nha Trang is overrated, okay, good to know, where did you leave and think, damn, like we should have stayed there longer, Da Lat, oh man, okay, she's quick on that one, Da Lat, brilliant location, but I would like to spend more time on the Ho Chi Minh, good to know, I like regret okay, so the Ho Chi Minh trail and Da Lat is where I should hunker down a little bit longer than normal, I think so, yeah, best food in Vietnam, oh my gosh, you go first, what's the one we ate what is it, it's a pork, like sweet grilled pork, and rice noodles, and fish sauce, really good, okay, I'll write that down, it's a northern, so you get it in the north, yeah, all right, last question, okay, Vietnam or Thailand, oh, they're so different though, okay, so if you want like the wild west, we're in southeast Asia, crazy hecticness, then Vietnam, yeah, yeah, I completely agree, Thailand is, is such a nice launching point into southeast Asia, yeah, it has just like the perfect amount of like comforts and everything, it's just very easy, you know, but, but also different to that, coming from the west, all right, cheers guys, congratulations on making it, congrats on your trip, I feel like you're passing the baton onto me, yeah, and I'll keep the biking on the road series alive, on my new bike, yeah, are you going to name it Dreamy, oh yeah, have you named it, I don't have a name for my bike, yeah, it doesn't, I don't, you have to ride it, right, yeah, I've only driven it from the bike shop to the hostel, so once I hit the open road, maybe the name will come to me, also I'm asking my patreons and channel members, but like the names they've suggested are even worse than my one, I was like, we'll call it super dreamy, but better than that, yeah, the rest of you writers start thinking up a name for this funky dog, I don't know, something along the lines of say Poochie, only more proactive, yeah, so Poochie okay with everybody, yeah, yeah, you know, it's good, oh, I'm as rough as old boots today, today might be a struggle, why did I choose the day before our big first drive to go out with YouTubers who were really cool and who I got along with really well and stayed out till one o'clock in the morning drinking tequila with, and then today I wake up looking and feeling I need fuel and we're just going to head out of the city, we're just going to leave Hanoi, we're going to head north and see how far we get today, we'll see, maybe 200 kilometers, that would be nice, got to get fuel, literally on empty right now and I'm indicating left for some reason, I woke up this morning and the lady in my hostel, the manager, she said, oh, you've parked your bike outside for a long time, I said, yeah, it's been there two days, she was like, what, apparently it's really common for motorbikes to get stolen or towed away by the police because you have to pay for parking, you have to have a permit to park on that street and there's car parks that you have to go to, I think I just went through a red light and I said, what, I didn't know this, she said, you're so lucky and then she said, you better go now because they normally come in the mornings and they'll take your bike away, so I started getting like anxiety and then I couldn't find my passport and for some reason it was in my camera bag, I don't remember putting it in there, so I've got like two massive anxiety flares this morning, I've lost my passport and my bike is going to get impounded or something, so instead of being dubious and upbeat, I'm kind of just focusing on getting out of Hanoi, getting some fuel would be nice and then we'll take a second to breathe, find some food, what time is it? 5 past 10. And it's hot. Yeah, Paddy's a bit hungover and a little bit anxious and we're on the road and we're saying goodbye to Hanoi and this is where everything that could have gone wrong went wrong, including landslides and multiple punctures in very rural middle of nowhere places, lots of adventure, lots of mishaps to come and I'll tell you the full story and show you everything that happened to me in the next video. I'm so excited to share the rest of this series with you, it's gonna be just wild and I'm so happy that you guys are enjoying the series and I promise in the next video I'm not gonna be hungover. See you in the next one.