Ha, no joke that was my first thought as I turned off the street our hotel was on and entered into the hustle and bustle of the Old Quarter. I have been to a lot of places, but I had never experienced the congestion and chaos that envelops the area! I didn’t even know how to cross the street without getting hit by the herds of scooters, buses, cars or pedestrians!

All the streets looked the same so we could not figure out where we were and we walked in circles because there were no street signs, it was a rough first hour ha ha!! But we found a coffee shop, ordered two ice coffees with a fair amount of ease, and sat outside at a little table lining the sidewalk…and then it hit us!!

It was the best damn coffee either of us ever had! We figured out where we were on the map and fell in love with Hanoi from then on! Sure we were taking our lives in our hands every time we went to and from our hotel, but that ended up being the fun part!! My advice, just cross and keep walking! The scooters will move around you…hopefully!!

I ended up taking over a thousand pictures per day in that city! Everywhere I looked there was something exciting and interesting and like nothing I had ever seen before! Talk about sensory overload! We have been home from our big journey for about two months now and I have yet to get through the first few days of shots in Hanoi! So far I am in love with a few photos and I thought I’d share some that I’ve enjoyed! I am not even close to a final product for my essay, but these are some of the shots I’m choosing from:

Thanks for checking these out! Look for more shots from our trip on my site www.mjanephotography.com! I hope to keep adding countries!!