Hanoi

I wasn't sure when we landed at Hanoi. The sky was overcast, the smog was palpable and I wondered if we were going to be disappointed. This feeling vanished within 2 seconds of entering the city proper. Hanoi rocks!

First training in Hanoi life: the scooter is king. Everyone takes everything on their motorbike/moped, from their families (plenty of babies, toddlers, and dogs included) to mattresses, to huge containers of gasoline, to sides of pig and cow...you name it, somewhere in Hanoi there's an enterprising soul who's strapped it to the back of a two wheeler. A lot of the girls have helmets with a gap at the back for high pigtails. The place is full of mopeds, motorbikes, tuk-tuks, rickshaws, and for sure there are cars too, though these look faintly besieged as they try to drive through.The guide taught us the phrase to help us survive as raw pedestrians throughout all our time in Vietnam; Sticky Rice. Bundle together in a group, no stragglers or single file, then you walk confidently but at a steady pace when you cross, so that your trajectory can be predicted and you can be swerved round. Oh, and maybe pray before you start.


We took a ride through the city on one of those rickshaws where the bike is positioned at the back. It was fun and I would love to have recorded it on my phone, but was too busy gripping the handrail with white knuckled hands. Safe to say I learned a new respect for life from that particular caper. And of course we saw the sites, the ancient Quán Thánh temple of Tao, the Presidential Palace, Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum,the Confucian Temple of Literature, this latter still used as a site of learning;


But the unmissable story of Hanoi is on the streets. It's a sense of the people, a vivacity, I can't describe better than that. When it rained, folk gathered their chairs together and ate, sitting in every doorway beneath combinations of old french colonial architecture and new businesses. Also the food was absolutely banging, often at its best in street kitchens that rely almost entirely on local custom; our guide knew them all and we ate wonderful meals I miss even now.

Being British there were complaints about food almost instantly. Not the taste, oh no. We had been advised to have a light lunch because there was going to be a street food tour, understood by everyone as we had all signed up for it well in advance. Some ignored said advice, had a whacking heavy lunch, and then complained because we went from place to place eating all this delicious stuff. I was baffled. The guide had warned us, pointedly and repeatedly not to eat too much prior to the tour. What else was he meant to do? Slap our hands when we reached out for chopsticks? People made their choices and that really was that. Me, I ate til I was shaped like a walrus.

And then there was Train Street. Train Street looks like this:


The idea is that you find your seat, maybe on the tracks themselves, and sit down to wait for the train, having yourself some food and drink natch. When the train's round the corner, you promptly get your table and chairs out of the way, or perhaps you sit at the side to begin with (the safest places are balconies) and enjoy the adrenaline surge between your ears as the train rushes right past you and everybody cheers and screams. Utterly fabulous. Welcome to the Nam!