We landed in Hanoi for the final month of 2017. Hard to believe this was already month three of my journey around the world. I didn’t know much about Vietnam before we arrived, but I was excited as always to explore a new city.
The United States doesn’t have the best history with Vietnam, and for good reason. The Vietnam War was a difficult and conflicting part of our history. Accounts and opinions of the war are (obviously) very different over here. While most Vietnamese (especially the younger generation) have no issue with the US anymore, a portion of the older population still remembers the terrors of the war and holds a grudge against the US. Most of the month I found myself (as a precaution) claiming to be Canadian — because let’s face it, who hates Canada?
There are numerous monuments and museums commemorating the war and the “Vietnamese victory”, including a small square body of water in the middle of the city where a US Bomber was shot down during the war. The plane rests in the same place it crash landed many years ago. What an eerie sight. As you’ll see in the picture below, a tree has started to grow directly out of the middle of the plane, symbolizing (I presume) new life growing out of death.
I won’t get into the semantics of the war. The fact that the communist party won out is enough to understand why the Vietnamese wouldn’t be too fond of our intervention (kind of like the opposite to what happened in the Korean War, where we saved South Korea from the communist North and the South Koreans are incredibly grateful). But all in all, I didn’t feel uncomfortable in the country — the Vietnamese people on the whole are quite welcoming and hospitable.
Our apartments for the month were located in Tay Ho, an expat-heavy area located on the West Lake, just north of the Old Quarter and center of the city. Compared to Chiang Mai’s 100,000 residents, Hanoi and it’s 8 million people was a big change for me and everyone in the group. Yet Tay Ho, with it’s narrow streets and short buildings, felt much smaller. The neighbor wasn’t nearly as crowded and didn’t have close to the same hustle-and-bustle as downtown.
The first thing I noticed in the center city was the traffic. It’s nuts. 5 million scooters “grace” the roads and utter chaos ensues like nothing I’d ever seen before. Crossing the street was a constant game of real-life frogger, and it was scary. For the full perspective on the traffic, check out my post Scootering in Hanoi is Pure Madness (coming soon).
Hanoi was founded in 1010, and the maze-like system of small roads and winding alleyways is evidence of how the city was built out over many many years. Navigating is a nightmare.
One sunny afternoon towards the end of the month, Eva and I went for a walk to explore west of the Old Quarter and got lost for almost two hours trying to find our way through the backroads. We passed by dozens of small shops and even ground floor apartments that doubled as mini markets during the day. Vietnamese families come up with many creative ways like this to make a living.
Food in Vietnam is fantastic and outside of the touristy and expat areas prices are rock bottom. The food markets are eye-opening to walk through, with everything from ducks, bugs and fish all the way to — apologies— dogs available for purchase (I did not indulge in that last one).
Pho became a regular part of my diet (fantastic for breakfast) and for the equivalent of $1.25 a bowl, how could I say no? The tasty noodle soup was a great way to start each day!
Banh Mi is another popular lunch item, and places like Banh Mi 25 serves up delicious sandwiches for 20,000 dong (~$1.50).
Many restaurants extend out onto the sidewalks, and if you walk for long enough you’ll find yourself tempted to sample some of the many tasty-looking options.
Beers are cheap (outside of fancy bars) — to give you an idea, one night was sat outside on little plastic red chairs on the sidewalk drinking $0.50 drafts tapped straight from a keg a lady had wheeled out from her apartment. While we were drinking, a local shoe-repair man came by and resoled my shoes (long overdue) for the equivalent of $4.
I’m a big fan of craft beer and surprisingly, Hanoi has a pretty rocking scene for it. We sampled at least 10 different local breweries over the course of the month, and while it’s been too long for me to remember any of them, don’t worry — they aren’t exported anyway.
The nightlife and people watching downtown is excellent. Vietnamese young adults love to party, and there are countless wild bars and clubs to choose from in the city. We even got to see Tiesto perform!
You might remember the nitrous balloons teens loved to do at Dave Matthews Band concerts years back. Turns out those are actually legal here, and are as ubiquitous in bars as cigarette smoke is. You can literally order a beer and a balloon from the bartender. Not something I’m used to seeing.
Rooftop bars are spread throughout the city. The temperate (though often hot) weather is conducive to sitting outside most of the year. On warm evenings, we’d hop from one fancy rooftop bar to the next, sampling the bartender’s best cocktails and smoking the occasional cigar.
Only a few kilometers outside of the city and the landscape drastically changes. Our group did a bike tour out to the banana fields to visit a small floating village and hear stories from some of the locals who lived there. Seeing places like the village always helps me reflect on how lucky we are in the developed parts of the world, and yet it’s amazing to see how happy these people can be living with almost nothing.
I wouldn’t say Hanoi is isolated, but it is a bit of a trek to get to the other beautiful parts of northern Vietnam. Sapa & Ha Giang are about a six hour bus ride, and the famous Halong Bay is about three hours east. All are worth visiting — and I wrote about my day trips to Halong Bay and Ninh Binh, as well as a three-day motorbike trek through the Ha Giang Extreme North motorbike loop, in other posts.
I definitely had a lot of fun in Vietnam, but will be honest —the smog was pretty bad during December (we caught the tail end of “smoggy” season), the weather was damp and chilly, and I (along with most of the group) battled colds for a good chunk of the month. Korea and Thailand were a blast and we did so much, I think I was just a little burned out. That said, Vietnam is a fascinating place to visit and the surrounding areas of Ha Giang and Sapa are well worth the trek. If you go, just choose a different month to visit.
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