Hasta la vista Hanoi.

It’s been a little over two months since I touched down in Ho Chi Minh City with not a word of Vietnamese in my lexicon; staggered by the traffic and (absence of) laws of the road; and totally overwhelmed by the frenetic pace of life; the smells and sounds of everything around me. Fast forward to today, as I sit waiting for my overpriced airport ban my trung, I can reflect that that the last two months have been nearly, pretty much, everything I dreamed my (first) time in Vietnam would be. I can confidently cross roads, drive on them without mishaps or crashing (except that one time), and I now have at least 10 words of Vietnamese which I can deploy with all the confidence you’d expect from an Englishman abroad (although I do not yet know them with enough confidence to place them in an order which renders a complete sentence.)

Fortunately, I am not flying over the warzone that is the Middle East so, inshallah, this leg of my journey will be uninterrupted by drones or missiles. They’ll kill us all, Trump and Netanyahu, but at least, I hope, I’ll still be landing in Colombo without too much interruption. Remarkable tempting of fate/the nuclear apocalypse this.

(Note: since drafting this I have subsequently landed in Colombo and fallen in love with Sri Lanka. Head over heels.)

Not a bad place to rest your head

Anyway…

We took our final Vietnamese bus across country from Haiphong into Hanoi, arriving an hour earlier than anticipated. Our hosts were changing the locks on our arrival so we parked up at the cracking bakery directly across the way- a place that would be a proper regular staple for the ten or so days I would be in Hanoi. Our abode was perfectly located- a stone’s throw from nearly everything Hanoi boasts in every direction but not slap bang in the middle of backpacker/tourist Hell.

The lock change made significantly more sense when next day a trio of Greek tourists turned up to check into their apartment which in the photos from their own booking struck a remarkable similarity to our place… and whose apartment name was the same as that of our Wi-Fi. We shared a coffee and over broken Greek and English (both on my part) it was sorted and they were shipped off elsewhere.  

We were also a five minute walk from a 24-hour pub with extensive sports coverage which in addition to providing a location for us to ‘enjoy’ Ireland’s demolition of England in the daft sport of rugby. It was also the location for our meeting a local set of teachers who were selling the dream of moving out to Hanoi to teach. I consider myself sold on that front.

The location ensured ample opportunity to explore the city the best way- on foot. The old quarter, the French quarter, the parks, the lakes, the opera house. All absolutely stunning.

This ambling and milling about was a favourite pastime of mine in Hanoi, along with napping, given the high humidity. There was a glorious park only fifteen minutes away which was a fan favourite for its great views, super running route (okay. I only ran once. But the pace was much improved by having Harry trotting alongside), and advances have been made at shuttlecock with Harry and I managing three actual, proper rallies.

A real trip highlight has been watching the locals play shuttlecock in the parks and after venturing around the Presidential Palace, we sat down and took in a proper game played by people who knew what they were doing. It was class.

When Harry met Hanoi

As alluded to above, OH and I were joined on this leg of the trip by friend from Commish, Young Harold/Paperboy (PB). He and I had a big night out at Hanoi’s only gay bar which was… memorable to say the least and which ended, not with us going on elsewhere for clubbing and dancing, but instead the Leeds Man City game at the 24-hour boozer near our gaff. We had planned for this big night out by getting day passes at the completely deserted pool of the Army Hotel, lunch with the colonel, and, in my case, a two-hour nap.

PB joining also meant we ended up going to some newer spots and heading to places we might not have otherwise had ventured into. A hostel music quiz which I fear our team had some of the older nay more experienced players on (aka me and OH) was a laugh and our team ended up victorious. (Truth told- we’d probably have done this anyway…) We also ventured to the top of some posh hotel/skyscraper with views across the whole city, something we never would have done had I not now been in the minority of voters.

Tourist sites galore

Hanoi is absolutely drenched in historical sites from long before the wars of independence with colonial French and Americans, and the civil war with south Vietnam and most of the days in Hanoi were filled seeing all of them: the temple of literature, the B52 museum, the Presidential Palace, the museum of ethnography, the cathedral,and the museum at one of the sites of the Hanoi Hilton prison system(which had previously been used by the French to intern Vietnamese prisoners, and which had some interesting descriptors as to how the North Vietnamese then treated American PoWs). We also went to train street which despite, or perhaps because of, my love of trains, was shit.

One morning I dragged everyone up early doors to go and visit the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh where Uncle Ho’s body is publicly displayed- against his final wishes and not exactly in keeping with his status as leader of the people of humble origins and destiny. As with the temples of Angkor Wat, it was dead quiet (wahey) and the hours of queues did not materialise. In fact, it was so quiet that I slowed my walk such that I was told to speed it up by the soldiers standing guard. A very powerful experience if not slightly undermined, in all honesty, by the speed at which we got round.

Whilst not exactly Thunderbirds (Side note: some readers may not know that I absolutely love puppets. Like proper love it. Thunderbirds, Stingray, Joe 90, Captain Scarlet, stop motion puppetry… it’s all class. If you’d like to hear more, please do get in touch. Alternatively, do get along to the Museum of Brands in London for the Thunderbirds and Space: 1999 – a celebration of Sci-fi Toys and Collectables exhibition running until April) we also couldn’t miss the opportunity to attend a traditional Vietnamese water puppet show. It was good fun although the singing at the very start was decidedly wobbly and I couldn’t bring myself to look at either OH or PB lest I lose it in a fit of hysterics in the front row.

Three of the best meals of my trip so far

Hypocrisy alert. Here’s some photos of some absolutely cracking food. God I am going to miss it- the Phos, the fried rice, all manner of poultry, frogs, and sea snails. Just superb.

And finally…

In the last week I read ‘Brotherless Night’ before heading to Sri Lanka with thanks to Sarah H for that tip. It’s a great read. And I’ve played some more Resi 7. It’s still proper scary.

And so it is with gratitude that I say so long to Vietnam… for now. We hardly knew ye. I will be back, and very possibly sooner than either of us think.

Goodbye Vietnam. Hello Sri Lanka.