Vietnam & Singapore 2023 - Hanoi

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I’ve arrived! First impressions? Heat and noise! But more about that in a bit...

The first flight (LHR -> Singapore) was long – a little over 12 hours, but my seat was comfy, the food was good, the wine and my Singapore Sling were tasty, and I was very well looked after by Lou-Lou and her colleagues. It was my first experience with Singapore airlines, and it was excellent.

I had a 3-hour layover in Singapore before my second flight, a mere 3 ¼ hours from Changi airport to Hanoi. Changi airport in Singapore is very clean and contemporary, with lots of shops and stuff to entertain one during the wait – a crystal garden, a fishpond covered in glass that you can walk on, a virtual waterfall... travel between T3 where we landed and T2 where the second flight was leaving from was by sky train – quick, easy and clean.

I met up with Paula in the departure lounge. We had a group WhatApp before we set out, and we knew we were arriving on the same flight, the last arrivals in the group for this trip. It was lovely to say hello and to be able to chat to someone else who was as tired as I was! She had flown out of LHR about 90 minutes after me.

We were about 15 minutes late arriving into Hanoi, with a huge queue for immigration to negotiate. Once through and after a huge sigh of relief (does anyone else feel anxious when entering other countries legally? I blame the Border Control TV programmes!) luggage was quickly found, a local SIM card was purchased, some Dong were extracted from the ATM and the man with the Way To Travel sign was found. He deposited me, Paula and our luggage into a very comfortable air-conditioned taxi and we headed off to the hotel Mina, about 45 minutes away.

Hanoi is a city with lots of hustle and bustle, many tooty scooters and a few hooty cars, The population of the city is around 8 million, and there are approximately 5 million scooters, and the toot is used as a ‘get out of my way' signal. Progress through the city in the taxi was slow and there was more than one occasion where I held my breath, not believing we hadn’t hit the scooter turning in front of us, or that the scooter hadn’t hit us!

Arrival at the hotel was approximately 14:00 local time, or in my mind 06:00 in the morning. I had woken up at 04:15 the previous morning and had managed about 2 hours sleep on my first flight, so I’m sure you can imagine how tired I was!

Paula and I were planning on a quick G&T in the hotel bar before an afternoon sleep, but the bar didn’t open until 18:00, so to bed I went. I awoke feeling relatively refreshed. The peeps in the group who had arrived a day earlier had been out visiting a craft village making incense and weren’t yet back. I did a bit of sorting of my luggage and was about to jump in the shower when there was a knock at the door – Susan was home! It was lovely to see her again, and I’m really looking forward to sharing another adventure with her. After a quick catch up I jumped in the shower – my goodness it was fabulous - and she went out for a massage she;d booked earlier.

I met up with the group for dinner, led by Tuan, or as he prefers to be known, Mr T, our guide for the next couple of weeks. The restaurant was a few minutes walk away from the hotel, and I had my first experience of the streets of Hanoi. And what an experience! There are pavements, but they’re mostly filled with wares for sale from the numerous shops lining the streets, and parked scooters, rather than being available to walk along. The streets are full of scooters, cars and people. I don’t know how it works, but one just has to ‘go for it' and the vehicles stream around you, reminding you they're there with the toots and hoots you as you walk along or across the roads, missing you sometimes by mere millimetres – but they do miss you! We arrived at the restaurant unscathed and enjoyed a delicious meal with the aid of chopsticks. I’m not sure why, but previous to the trip it hadn’t even occurred to me that I’d be using chopsticks; as I’m reasonably competent using chopsticks there wasn’t a problem. To be fair, there were spoons available which Susan was grateful for, but when in Hanoi....

We then headed to the famous Train Street, sometimes seen in documentaries, to witness the train running down the narrow street between the homes and bars. The bar we were in had a yellow line which we were instructed to stay behind to avoid injury. The arrival of the train was announced by whistles, and the train itself was very loud, long, and certainly an experience!

We arrived back at the hotel reasonably early, my head hit the pillow and I was asleep.

We woke as the sun shone through the crack in the curtains after a very good night’s sleep, refreshed and ready to go! After a briefing by Jane and Mr T, the morning was a walking tour of the city, led by Mr T. We visited the local market area in the Old Quarter of the city. Organised chaos was how it came across to me as a stranger. Each street has its own speciality, with one street selling mattresses, one selling meat, one selling mushrooms, one selling electrical goods and so on... All streets were busy, bustling, hot and noisy with the tall buildings towering above the narrow streets.

An interesting observation is that ‘meat street’ doesn’t appear to have any flies, if any! There are many many stalls with raw, uncovered meat, the street smells of raw meat, there is beef, pork, chicken, and probably other meats I’m not able to identify, but I didn’t notice a single fly. Quite amazing really.

We did witness the death of several frogs. There was a man with a large bag of frogs, he grabbed one at a time, put it on a slab, hacked the head off with a machete, then put the body in one pile and the head in another, leaving a smear of blood on the slab. Now I’m well aware of where animal protein comes from and that it involves killing animals, but honestly, this was quite gruesome to watch.

There were sack and sacks of dried mushrooms, fish, shrimps, and probably anything you could imagine, all looked after by people keen to sell them. It was very humbling to see when one thinks of how we shop in the UK and other western countries. And we have other organisations like Amazon!

We were treated to a rickshaw ride to a Pagoda. The main religion in Vietnam is Buddhism, and people engaging with Buddhism worship at Pagodas. It felt like a very spiritual place; peaceful and with rooms around the outside for the resident monks. As soon as you walk through the gate of the Pagoda, the sounds of the busy, noisy city disappear and you are surrounded by a welcome calm. Mr T instructed us in how to worship Buddha; we lit incense sticks, held them with two hands, bowed three times, asked Buddha for something, then bowed three times again before adding our incense sticks to the others on the incense urn.

Buddhists also believe that the dead need the same things as when they were alive, but in paper form. Historically they would have offered paper elephants, paper goats etc. More recently it’s paper houses and paper Mercedes! We wrote the names and date of birth of deceased loved ones on paper money and burnt it on the pyre, of course checking that it all burnt away so it would be available to whoever we had offered it to.

After the Pagoda we walked to the nearby Catholic St Joseph’s Cathedral, built in 1886 during the French colonisation of the country. Sadly it wasn’t open to explore the interior, but it is certainly quite an imposing building, Gothic in style, with grey grubby streaks marring the exterior, but the statue of the virgin Mary above the door an unblemished white.

We wandered to Hoan Kiem Lake, and Mr T told us the legend of the turtle in the lake who gave a sword to the king – the Vietnamese version of King Arthur and Excalibur!

Mr T took us through a narrow alley and up some ancient steps, which after a couple of flights open up into a cafe area serving various beverages, including the traditional Vietnamese Egg Coffee. When in Vietnam and all that... to be honest it was quite yummy - a sweet frothy coffee similar to a vanilla latte, but with a tinge of egg flavour.

The weather was really hot and humid. I’d been sweating all day, starting almost as soon as we’d left the hotel this morning. The difference between the air con of the hotel and the smash of the damp heat as you walk outside is quite striking. The temperature hits you, and within minutes you can feel the sweat running down your back, your hands become sticky, your face is shining, and your clothes feel damp. This gets no better until you find a shower!

After a bit of a break back at the hotel, we met up to walk to the Water Puppet Theatre. An interesting experience with 45 minutes of puppets story-telling in waist-deep water, accompanied by Vietnamese music and song. I enjoyed the puppets, not so much the music , but I can say that while similar in style, I didn’t find it as ‘piquant' as Chinese Opera! More info here: https://thanlongwaterpuppet.com

Dinner was our welcome meal, with Jane and her husband Matt joining us. Way To Travel is Jane’s company, and she is an absolute delight! Matt also has his own tour company doing similar tours but aimed a younger age group. Jane was born and brought up near to Hanoi. Matt originates from Yorkshire and their son, Phi, was born in Hanoi about 5 months ago.

After a huge meal and a few drinks, some went to a bar, but others, including me, headed back to the hotel. Tomorrow we move on to Ha Long Bay.

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