Day 17. Vietnam Diary – Hanoi to Nội Bài International Airport/HAN

Vertigo, earlobe river, Cigarettes After Sex

Day 17. Monday 3 June 2024

It’s 07:57 on my last day in Hanoi, indeed Vietnam, for this trip. I’m definitely in the top 3 (possibly even #1) sweatiest I’ve been. I sat in the shade on a smooth, dark stone wall about 20 minutes ago and left some sweaty bottom patches. I’m not proud of this achievement. I doubt this leather seat I’m currently sitting on will be dry by the time I leave. I’m in a large, lovely, hip coffee shop near the Red River called Mono Coffee Lab. To my horror, they don’t serve phin coffee. Hanoi really isn’t working out well for my phin coffee with condensed milk thing. I am instead awaiting a Kenyan pour-over and a croissant.

A few days ago, I had an egg coffee at Café Giong. I had an article in my “phone listening to me” recommendations tab for 50 best cafes around the world. It wasn’t “best”, it was slightly more specific than that but I can’t think what it was. I mean, it’s a load of bollocks and very subjective, obviously, and most looked stunning (I imagine their placement in the list had something to do with the ambiance). Anyway, only one café in Vietnam was on the list, Café Giang. Saigon should have had at least one. Café Giang is old, large and brown and does a lot of proper/traditional Vietnamese coffees. It’s not a place of great beauty, but I expect it’s something of an institution. [Brace yourself for a staggeringly, valiant attempt to continue a sentence – I reiterate it was handwritten – without crossing anything out; a minefield of grammatical horrors!] I mean, it’s a great place, but in a country where coffee is grown and it’s one of, if not the, highest coffee-drinking-per-head countries, with its own tradition of coffees, it’s disappointing that only one café in Vietnam is mentioned. There are a few listed in some cities (not just countries). Why do I get so irritated by lists? Let it go.

I have just eaten one of the most perfect croissants ever. It was warm,  lightly crisp on the outside and just the right doughiness inside. Contender for 50 Best Croissants Around the World? I think so. My Kenyan pour-over is also excellent. That’s the second pour-over with Kenyan beans that I’ve really enjoyed.

[Because sometimes I’m a coffee ponce, I bought some Kenyan beans when I returned to the UK and they made up the coffee I have coincidentally just drunk. Nice beans, but not my favourite. Apologies for that pretentious addition.]

Thanks to all the amazing cafes I’ve visited, I’ve Shazammed lots of music and now have a mildly pretentious Spotify playlist entitled Vietnam Cafes 2024. There are a few repeat artists in it. Taylor Swift (she wasn’t even on my radar until about a year ago), Cigarettes After Sex and HYBS all feature more than once. The latter two I had never heard of before. [I am now in the midst of a Cigarettes After Sex obsessive phase]

The AC in this café is amazing. I feel kind of normal again. At first, my imminent melting seemed a concern. I had three different members of staff topping up my water. I’ve drunk approximately half a litre of bottled water and quite a few more glasses since arriving here, and my coffee. I still don’t need a wee.

I feel more settled now, in fact I’m really enjoying sitting here. I felt a bit self-conscious when I arrived as I know I looked like the overheated hot person I was. I couldn’t sleep much last night, I’m not sure why, maybe just pre-travel anxiety. This morning, I just felt on-edge and troubled. I want to be at home now. I feel like I’m waiting. I wouldn’t have chosen a 19:30 flight but, for reasons I can’t now remember, possibly to do with flight prices, that’s what I picked. It is so easy to get taxis in Vietnam and I know that on my departure day from anywhere I go for longer than a weekend is a day I spend just wanting to get going; an early morning flight would have been a better choice, and easier than I would have anticipated at the time of considering flight options.

Amazingly, before I’d booked this week’s AirBnB, I’d talked to the host about possibly extending check-out time until about 15:30 (from the official 12:00). She’d said yes. But it seems someone is now booked to check in at 14:00 today. So I will be leaving at 12:00 but can leave my rucksack and keep the keys until 13:30. I’m then homeless and with my luggage until about 15:45. It’ll be particularly hot at that time and the storms that didn’t come yesterday are forecast from 12:00 today.

I didn’t feel massively enthusiastic about being out this morning. I didn’t feel like I did on my sort-of-homesick day on about day three and I do actually feel a bit better now. But I think that once I know I’m going home and I’m waiting, I have mentally checked out.

It was sunny this morning, even from 07:00 when I set off (actually, a bit before 07:00), and it was hot. The route I took to go to this café and Red River was out of the tourist direction. It was much more reminiscent of Saigon. But I felt a bit self-conscious and it felt like people were watching me and talking about me. I know, I know, my paranoia. And then I got super sweaty. [I actually wrote “super”. The word I should have used was “very”; I get annoyed when I, or other people, say “super” when “very” is entirely appropriate. I get annoyed about lots of things like that, it would seem]

I walked to the river first, via the first main road underpass I’d encountered in Vietnam. I walked to the end of that street and knew the river was behind the row of houses and shops in front of me, but I didn’t know if I could walk through any of the private-looking alleyways. I’d previously looked on Google Maps and was anyway heading for a sort of viewpoint. I got there (all fine), by which time it was even hotter and sunnier and no shade. There were also very steep, wide steps to join a path along the river bank below. I have vertigo and I couldn’t go down the steps. And I was getting hotter and sweatier and more in need of shade, of which there was some on the path below.

The big surprise was that I was so pissed off with my vertigo, it was too hot to sit in the sun looking at the river … I made it down the steps. By holding the rail and not looking down much beyond my feet. I knew that going up would be easier for me. I made it. It’s mildly embarrassing how proud of myself I felt on reaching the bottom. Most people wouldn’t have thought twice about going down those steps.

It’s a very wide river. I could see a few of the long road bridges. Opposite was green, like the edge of the city. There was nothing beautiful or magical about it, but it had niggled me that I hadn’t been to the Red River.

I paused to Google.

The Red River is the 26^th largest river in the world, the 12^th largest in Asia. It starts in Yunnan Province, China, and runs through North Vietnam and is more than 713 miles long. That don’t impress me much – cringe, bad Shania Twain reference. But stats like that aren’t much use to me and my reference points. Ah, it is quite long. The Thames is 215 miles long. The Red River is shaped like a paper fan and through Hanoi it’s known as “Earlobe-shaped” River. It carries a lot of water and silt/alluvium, the latter being fertile and good for crops, including rice, sugar cane, corn and potatoes. Over dry and rainy seasons, the water levels drop and rise dramatically, being at its highest in August. It’s massively important for transport and the economy of Hanoi in ways that UK rivers were many generations ago.

As a bonus, I also saw Cầu Long Biên. It’s one of the few bridges you can walk over. However, its biggest draw is that it’s a steel cantilever bridge designed by French engineers, I believe opened in 1903. It’s a massively important trade link across Red River, ultimately leading to the port of Haiphong. It’s 1,680 metres long and holds the train tracks. Scooters and pedestrians can also cross it, not cars or bigger vehicles. You can walk on the tracks, apparently, and it’s exciting, apparently – I’m sure it is when trains pass. But from what I’ve read, it’s not a comfortable walk or ride across as it’s rusty and crazy busy with scooters. I’m sure it would be exciting to cross but not in my sphere of adventure. It was not designed by Gustave Eiffel; that seems to be a common misconception.

I don’t think I managed to highlight any particularly fascinating facts there, but I feel a mild sense of self-importance for imparting some facts and stats.

It’s 09:01, time to go.

It’s now 10:07 and I’m very hot, surprise, surprise. I’m sitting outside, albeit in shade, at a very nice-looking café just down the road from Café Giang. I ordered a hot phin coffee with condensed milk but I got cold. Normally, I’d have drunk it but today I really just want it hot so I’ve told the barista and, the joy, I now have a hot coffee. The drip/phin has been removed (probably from a large one anyway) and the milk is a stripe at the bottom, the coffee on top. I’ve just stirred and, result, just right.

This page of my notebook is quite impressively smeared with sweat. [I’d never have known, a month later, that it was sweat that made the page so crinkly!] The previous page, I have inadvertently pressed some croissant flakes. I only have 15 of 144 sides of notebook paper left. I’m thinking I could fill it, though I’m clearly at random waffle phase.

I put Café Giang in Google Maps, 26 minutes’ walk from where I was, because all the cafes I stopped at didn’t do phin coffee. It seems that the espresso machine is the thing in Hanoi. I’m in Hanoi Coffee Culture, which has a lovely UK-familiar brunch menu, including a 149k vnd “English Breakfast” and a 185k vnd “Super Big Breakfast”, along with avocado grilled cheese. I’d have come here for breakfast one day, phin coffee and some less Vietnamese breakfasts. In my defence for enthusiasm for a less Vietnamese breakfast, I’ve only eaten Vietnamese food for over two weeks, with one McDonald’s breakfast, one dim sum breakfast, one Thai dinner and some French-Vietnamese pastries and cakes.

It’s a 20-minute walk back to my accommodation. I will cool off, have a shower and get changed into my (hot) travel clothes. I’ve found a restaurant about 10 minutes’ walk away. I’ll go there for lunch, return to the flat for my bag and dawdle, laden with my rucksack to the café I’ve earmarked for sitting around in until I need to head to the airport. I doubt I’ve ever sat in a café for two hours. I expect I’ll end up going to the airport even earlier. Right, I’m off.

I’m making progress. It’s 14:09 and, after over 30 minutes of sitting in this air conditioned café, I’ve finally stopped sweating. I’m now at my last stop before a taxi to the airport.

The shower, unfortunately, didn’t go to plan. There had been no water issues all week and this morning it was fine when I set off before 07:00. I arrived back just before 11:00 and wondered what the bubbly water noise was in the bathroom. It sounded like a lot of water was trickling into the loo. Nope. I did then use the loo. Hmm, no water to flush. So no shower. I’ve no idea what happened, but after 30 minutes, I just about got a full flush, which was a relief. But no shower.

The café is playing Oasis, Wonderwall. Nice.

I had lunch at a restaurant called Luk Lak. I had a delicious chicken and rice lunch special and excellent plum and apricot iced tea.

So far, I’ve had a black pour-over, I finally had my hot Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk, an iced tea and an iced Vietnamese coffee. I do actually feel alert.

I bagged up some clothes to leave behind in the flat. Via the cleaner, I was reunited with them. I left them again. It’s like the 50 Shades book, the cleaner doesn’t want to chuck them out. They’re all grubby, ripped, white clothes, which probably seems a bit weird to have left behind.

I quite often take old clothes with me when I travel so I can leave them behind. I usually bring them back. The nightshirt that’s now been left has been a “to chuck” item for a lot of journeys. It had holes in it and was no longer white.

I don’t use hotel laundry and usually bring enough clothes for an entire trip. But when there’s a washing machine, I bring fewer clothes. I had thought there was a washing machine at my second Saigon accommodation, the place I didn’t like. But the free laundry was that, very nice, they did it. It was then that I realised how many of my clothes aren’t in great condition. I couldn’t put some of them out for cleaning, I was too embarrassed.

Even with fewer clothes than usual, I didn’t want to wear a couple of things, particularly a black top.

If I came to Vietnam again, I would only bring colourful clothes or the thin black trousers I find cool and comfy. I felt conscious of having dressed in white and in black in a country where there are lots of not necessarily positive connotations with black and white clothing.

That said, I did go past a shop here the other night which only sold white clothes. It was more white stuff than White Stuff.

Now that I’m very much thinking of home and just want to be there, I’m starting to fret about my usual stresses and concerns. It’s a reminder what a relief it’s been to have more than two weeks off everyday worries and stresses. All the things I feel I should have been thinking about, including a job, I have also not been thinking about. I had ten minutes of feeling overwhelmed at the thought of all the things I need to deal with on my return. But I really feel that I needed and benefitted from this break.

Returning to some practical things about this trip. I’m going to write a few reviews of sorts, mainly just the good and the bad. I keep wondering what I’d say to anyone who asked me about travel between Hanoi and Saigon.

Put it this way, if I’d had to go back to Saigon, I’d have flown. I’m definitely glad I didn’t do the whole journey in one go, two nights/three days.

It was an experience, for which reason I’m glad I did it. I think getting a longer chunk out the way first is better than doing a longer chunk after knowing what it’s like. Although the bus was a lot more comfortable, I think I’d rather go by train than the roads. But I like how I did it, 24 hours by train (oof) and 14 hours by bus. I say “like” but not in the way I “like” iced coffee. [I’m clearly still banging on about the bus v train; it was definitely a clearer, less favourable memory soon after than it is from the comfort of home six weeks later!]

It was all an experience. It’s worth doing but don’t expect it to be your most fun time. The scenery is great, as is the train-y-ness of those old trains. If I was travelling with someone else, I’d probably get a bed. But not expect to sleep. Oh I don’t know, just see it as a one-off experience. With hindsight, I’d have missed an interesting experience that has taken up a lot of writing space had I flown.

It’s almost 15:00. Hipster-like cafes here are for studying in, it seems. I’m not the only person writing. I’m sure everyone else is studying.

This morning when I walked after Mono Coffee Lab on P. Nguyễn Huy Tự and across the small park of Vườn Hoa Pasteur and along P. Tăng Bạt Hổ, I really liked that area. There’s very much pavement activity that I now associate with “I bet that’s a hospital …yep.” However, the main entrances to the hospitals, and there are indeed more than one, are on the other side of the buildings. [That sounds weird, but there are a lot of people who seem to be waiting for family/friends outside hospitals and lots of goings on that seem to go with those hospital visits]

Last night, I went to a MET restaurant (there are a few here). I’d looked on the map so knew where it was. About half way there, I wanted to take a photo of lovely dappled pre-sunset light on one of the roads bordering the lake. That’s when I realised I’d left my phone in the flat. Had the flat not been on the 5^th floor (4^th in terms of steps), I’d have walked the ten minutes back. So I was finally without my mobile phone. I got to MET easily, and had a delicious meal of three kinds of spring rolls (two of each, very good) and a tasty stir fried duck dish with onion and mushroom. Seriously, the mushrooms here are excellent.

After my meal, I decided to walk a bit. No Google Maps. I ended up going down alleyways I’d not been down before. I came out at the side of the big cathedral where something big was going on. It might have been a wedding, but based only on a lot of women and girls dressed in white. The many possible bridesmaids were young girls with white wings on their backs. Hmm, probably not a wedding. The front of the cathedral was full of people, including nuns – nuns? – some all in black, all in white, all in red-burgundy and other colours. Then a brass band started up and everyone dispersed. It was quite something. By not having a camera, I made more of a mental note of the scene than I otherwise would have done.

As I walked away, I spent more time focussing on what I was seeing. Interesting. I saw a kind of moped truck, the truck being a kind of cage of shelves full of poodles. Many of them had bright pink dye on them. There were signs attached to the cage, including in English, and the owner of the truck was an alternative-looking 60+ year-old Vietnamese woman. It seems that she rescued the dogs – no idea what the pink dye was. Is it a dog fashion thing or is it a stray dog marking? Or something else entirely. It was just surreal seeing all these patchy, bright pink poodles. The woman was seemingly accepting donations to help with the dogs, though not asking for money; it just mentioned on the English sign that help would be appreciated to fund the upkeep of the rescued dogs.

I walked along the road closures, enjoying the vehicle-free roads. It was lovely to see families with children out and about. A lot of small children were riding on little electric trucks and cars. Street vendors were selling prepared ready-to-eat fruit and interesting-shaped sweet-savoury – meat? Fish? Veg? Other? – things on sticks. Pop-type music was blaring from a speaker. A bit further along, some blind young adults were playing instruments while a young woman was singing opera. They were really good.

I enjoyed my walk back on my last night in Vietnam of this trip.

I’m very fidgety now. I’ve made it to almost 15:30. It should take 45 minutes to drive to the airport. I’m thinking to go to the loo here and set off, probably too early to check in.

The music today is on a loop of Oasis, Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey. Wonderwall is less appealing the third time round. I wonder if this is a café tactic to discourage staying too long. I’m amazed I’ve sat in a café for two hours. The last time I did that was probably while I was at university at Ole Miss in Oxford, Mississippi and doing homework in coffee shops, particularly late at night, was quite the thing. Hardly surprising really as we were in two-person dorms and I don’t remember there being much – any? – desk space. Mind you, I was sharing with a friend/fellow student from the UK but I have no recollection of doing any studies in our room. Ole Miss is very much a sorority/fraternity university and being foreign students we were very much not in an in-crowd.

Right, the café is now playing Cigarettes After Sex, a track called “K”. I really like them, having never heard of them before this trip. But I think it’s time to make moves to the airport and back home to reality.