Hanoi (9)

The traffic in Hanoi is extreme. Forget off roading on your motorbike, this is much more fun. Think motorbike meets Tetris, you have to see it to believe it. The only other time I recall experiencing this much chaos was in Madras.

Motorbikes are literally everywhere and weave in and out, ignoring for the most part traffic lights, one way streets and any other rule. The taxation of cars is quite hefty, so a lot of people only have motorbikes and you regularly see whole families on them, the littlest standing up at the front, then the driver, then the next child and lastly usually the mum at the back, with just enough room left on the saddle to perch on. The locals also will and do carry anything and everything on their bikes. Their balancing feats are impressive, as you can see from a few examples below.

Arriving in Hanoi,  I have to ride through quite a lot of it to get to my daughters apartment, which I find without too much difficulty.  It’s really great to see her after 6 months or so. She lives on the 6th floor and has views over the city. It’s good to be able to unpack my rucksack properly for the first time in over a month. There is even a parking space for the motorbike.

Danika has to work for the first couple of days until she is on holiday so I take to the roads of Hanoi to explore and do some Christmas shopping. The Aeon shopping mall is about 20 minutes away on the other side of the river, reached by a very long bridge. I didn’t allow nearly enough time as the shopping centre is pretty big. It has a fabulous bakery and the parking is free, but you still have to stop at a little window and be given a ticket when you arrive. I park in a veritable sea of motorbikes. You wouldn’t want to forget where you parked that’s for sure! When you leave you hand the ticket back in at another little booth, there is no charge. I will certainly come back tomorrow much earlier, so I can do it justice.

I then visited the huge Dong Xuan market that sells everything from handbags to turtles. The tiny narrow alleyways between stalls are difficult to negotiate when busy and as one section gives way to another you feel you are in an Aladdins cave of every conceivable product. 

Unlike in Hoi An and Thailand in general, they don’t seem particularly keen to try and sell to me. The occasional seller calls out to me, but otherwise I’m left alone, which is probably a good thing as there are so many sellers, it would be a constant barrage.

Danika and I eat out at some local restaurants, mostly at lunchtime as they serve Pho, which is very popular, but not in the evening. It is very cheap as well as filling and tasty. It is a noodle soup, with bits of chicken or beef and vegetables, spicy and hot. Bun cha where you add the noodles and have a dipping sauce on the side is also delicious.

We are keeping with tradition and doing stockings this year, so I have lots of little stocking filler gift to buy, which take me all over the market and shopping centre. 

I also buy a shirt and a few other bits as it is a lot cheaper here. I bought a really nice oxford shirt, for about £12. Hanoi is quite polluted, but you only really notice in the traffic, especially at rush hour. The way the motorbikes are loaded up with things never ceases to amaze me.

I am not really doing any sightseeing or going to tourist places, as this is all about visiting Danika and spending Christmas together, so I don’t have much to report on that front. We did briefly visit Train street, which used to be a great place to have a coffee or a drink from one of the tiny cafes lining the sides of the track. Sadly there was a disagreement with the train company demanded a cut of the cafe’s profits for providing the ’entertainment’. In other words a train passing by. They couldn’t agree and so now the cafe’s are gone. The cafe’s provided train timetables, so you knew when the train was coming through. Apparently it goes at a fair speed and takes up almost the whole street. Danika said it was quite a sight as she saw it a couple of months ago, before the disagreement.

There is also Beer street, which is Hanoi’s answer to the Khoa San Road in Bangkok, but we didn’t go there, although we could hear the music driving past one time.

I seem to be having difficulty with the coffee here, much to Danika’s bemusement. I never get more than about an inch of coffee in the bottom of my cup. It doesn’t matter what I order, black or with milk, latte, americano, you name it. I only get a bit in the bottom of the cup and I have to mime adding extra hot water, which if I’m lucky gets me about another centimetre.

I cooked a few times, which made a nice change and then discovered Danika’s Grab app. You can order just about anything at almost any time and it will arrive very shortly after. It’s amazing for lunch or dinner as well. One evening we found ourselves in need of some wine glasses and Danika ordered them via Grab. Fifteen minutes later they were delivered. It was 5 minutes before 11pm! 

We discovered a lovely cocktail bar that we went to for mulled wine, which was lovely. There are numerous restaurants etc here that would fit in perfectly in Europe and they rub shoulders with the numerous street food type places, where you sit on low plastic seats and tables. At home these would be classed as child seating, but not here. 

It is quite different to Europe, where we don’t have the street food type places. There doesn’t seem to be many in the middle. Either a classy western style venue with prices to match or the basic on the street type place. Both are great though. There is a good selection of wine available as it was a former French colony and although we only bought some for Christmas, one particular label caught my attention, which I share here for especially for my French friends 🤣.

We only have a small oven and turkey doesn’t seem to be a thing here, so it will be a Christmas chicken. I managed to buy some whole chestnuts, which I crumbled by hand as I also did for the breadcrumbs, so we have some stuffing, which will hopefully help elevate it, from a mere roast dinner to a Christmas dinner.

Disaster looms for the dinner as the oven unfortunately doesn’t work properly. Fortunately like most things here it is easily sorted. A quick call to the owner and 10 minutes later he arrives lugging with him another oven, which is soon installed and set to work roasting our Christmas dinner.

We went for a drive around the lake just by Danika’s apartment and stopped for a coffee and to enjoy the view. Nearly everything is open on Christmas day as, although they appear to celebrate it, if all the christmas music and decorations are anything to go by, it doesn’t seem to translate to a day off. Outside, the main church in the middle of Hanoi there was a photo shoot going on with lots of young women dressed as Father Christmas sitting on their mopeds.

I’m back off to Bangkok, bright and early in a day or two, so next update will be from Thailand again.