The silent killer in Hanoi

After just some hour in Hanoi I felt the chaos round me.

Traffic

Only 3 days I could resist in Hanoi, the noise of tooting motorbikes made me crazy. The traffic is irregular and for my surprise  and disappointment the number of all the traffic lights I saw, you could count just on the fingers. Big city with about 7,6 million people and don't have traffic lights, how you can imagine that? Well better not to imagine it, it's a nightmare for people who are used with controlled traffic environment. An extreme journey, every time I went out I had the same thoughts: I hope I will not die today, I hope I will not die in Hanoi. I saw many foreigners just staying in front of pedestrian crossing sign for minutes but nothing happen. The adrenaline rush in to the blood, heart rate increase to the limit until you made your decision to cross the street. There is solution to this madness: first is improving the behavior of road users because many of them just don't have driver license; second upgrading the traffic-safety management system with traffic lights.


Pollution

And now also head ache, I couldn't understand why pressure and temperature in my head skyrocketed and signs of vomiting appeared but I have a glue why. This of course is the result of poisoning, I get poisoned from the pollution but I couldn't know how bad it was. At the hostel I made a research about the air in Hanoi and it turns round that Hanoi is one of the most polluted cities in the world after Beijing. Meaning that to be in Hanoi is the same as to smoke two packets of cigarettes at day. Well,for me one cigarette is more than enough to get sick but getting two packets of course that mean that I was poisoned all the way. At evening in the night lights you could see how thick the smog was. A mixture of exhausts from burning coal , dust, gasses from the car and motorbike, smoke from grilled food and cigarettes, no chance to escape. According to World Health Organisation in Vietnam dies 164 people every day of bad air. My advice, if you want to live longer avoid Hanoi.

No service for money

The locals are so used with tourist that they don't feel shame to charge you with more than double. Perhaps this would be fine if just one thing: the value of service is not compared with many European countries for the same prices. The prejudice about wealthy countries in Europe still persist in local's minds and doesn't matter if you try to reject most of them you will still be treated as traveler who always have money.
The tourists get trapped in this vicious machine of making money with promise that everything is so cheap and good. And yes is cheap and yes it is dirty on the streets and yes is full of rats and cockroaches, garbage and waste laying in piles of debris. But in the end for everything you will pay 100 times more if you will get food with viruses or bacteria or even worse a disease you don't have vaccination. Then you will need medical treatment for what maybe you have insurance but if not have than you are in trouble. And yes corruption and people that don't pay taxes are some reason for all this cheap paradise. As many say ''Cash is King'' but where is cash there is not trace.