Drizzle, ponchos and beeping in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi. We spent 2 nights and a day here to get over our jetlag and prepare for a month around Vietnam.
With a Saturday misplaced somewhere between Brussels and Doha, we arrived into Hanoi Airport at very early o’ clock local time. In fact the expected 7.25 flight was almost an hour early and the airport is very small so we were outside before we were even supposed to land. And that included going through the visa admin.
Visas for a stay of up to 30 days in Vietnam
As a UK citizen, I had already paid for my visa online (25 USD for a stay up to 30 days) via this very unofficial-looking, yet correct link. When my passport was stamped I offered up the bit of paper I was told to print and bring with, but the chap didn’t even look at it.
As a Belgian, Kim could only order his and pick it up on arrival. It involved standing in a queue for a bit, handing over some paperwork and your passport, queuing again for a bit, then waiting till your name and face is shown on a screen (now everybody knows who you are…) then paying 25 USD in cash and getting back your passport with a one-page visa in it. All in all it took us about 20 minutes but of course after no sleep it feels a lot longer.
December drizzle
We already knew from the descent into Hanoi that the weather was bad. Very low cloud. And drizzle. Belgian/UK drizzle. And highs of about 12 degrees. Not quite what we were hoping for from our winter getaway. We got a bit worried when our pre-booked taxi didn’t seem to show up but we reminded ourselves we had landed early, and paced up and down a bit to keep warm. He arrived in the end and took us the 45-minute journey to the Urban Alley Hotel in Hanoi’s French Quarter. To sum up the ride: mopeds, ponchos and beeping. The Vietnamese really do know how to cope with rain. Helmet and goggles over a poncho that reaches all the way down so you can only tell if it’s man or woman by what shoes they’re wearing (that and a hairy ankle).
Pho Bo
After checking in we had our first taste of pho bo (beef soup with noodles, and at this hotel – a lot of garlic) which is the typical breakfast dish in northern Vietnam. It’s now Kim’s favourite breakfast dish and he even says he wants to learn how to make it… we’ll see about that. We weren’t able to check into our room already so after a good feed that may as well have been dinner for us we paced our way through the drizzle to St Joseph’s Cathedral and Hoan Kiem Lake via the madness of the Old Quarter. I don’t really remember much after that because with the tiredness, cold, excessive beeping and general culture shock it was all a bit of a blur. I’d already been to Hanoi in 2014 so it wasn’t new to me, but when you’re flung from somewhere like Ghent to Hanoi within 24 hours it’s very apparent that they are very different cities. You don’t get much cleaning your chickens in a bucket in the street in Ghent…
Finally checked in, we learnt quickly that photos on Booking.com of Vietnamese hotels are optimistic at best. There was nothing wrong with the hotel but (several hotels later into the trip) I’m still waiting for my folded towel duck on the bed and rose petals floating in the sink…The bed was comfy though so we were able to sleep for a good 4 hours or so.
Feeling slightly better we went back for round 2 in the traffic ring. I think the best tip I would give to anyone visiting Hanoi is walk around a bit then just pick a roadside bar, order a beer (average price in Hanoi was 30,000d – 1.13 EUR) and just play the Generation Game on a moped…fridges, entire families, you name it, it’ll scoot past…We chose Blues Bar Hanoi as our auditorium, mainly for its artistically lit crates.
Given our tired brains and overwhelming choice of places to eat, we did the sensible thing and picked Com Pho Co from the Lonely Planet. For 119,000d (4.49 EUR) we ordered the set menu with beef soup (not just a breakfast thing apparently), spring rolls, a main stir fry dish with rice, and – I kid you not – the best creme caramel I’ve ever tasted.
The next day we started with breakfast at Cafe Pho Co where the sun briefly came out. It would be another week before we saw it again. Then we decided to just do the LP’s walking tour of the Old Quarter because there needed to be some structured way to walk around this place. It kept us sane for a few hours.
In the afternoon we got a massage from Mr Thuoc and Ms Tan at Midori Spa 3. The reception didn’t exactly look luxurious but no complaints on the actual massage front. The masseurs are all blind or partially sighted and so these massages are a bit cheaper (less than 10 euros for an hour) than what you might pay in one of Hanoi’s downtown hotels.
In summary, we got through it. Cracked the jetlag (well, sort of), survived the rain, coped with the beeping, and didn’t get mowed down by any mopeds.
