Stepping off the bus in Hanoi was probably the most overwhelming introduction to a country I’ve had. The streets are complete chaos, with motorbikes swarming in every direction, seemingly with no rules to the road. If you wait for a safe time to cross the road you won’t be going anywhere, so we learned its best to take the ‘walk into oncoming traffic and hope for the best’ approach. Although the horns and the nightlife spilling into the streets were overwhelming, I actually warmed to the madness and the energy of the city pretty quickly. 

The whole gang’s back together

In Hanoi we were excited to be reunited with Ana, Rita, Eamon & Mario and we made plans to meet for dinner in a tucked-away family restaurant, Cumulus, found by Eamon on TripAdvisor. It was the definition of a local dining experience, set up in the dining room of someone’s house, the kids playing on the computer in the same room. 

The smiling restaurant owner came over and pointed to a sign, saying that he’d like to share the origins of his business. He brought over a laminated sheet of paper which told us the story of how he’d gone from a shoe-shiner on the streets as a child to a proud restaurant owner. He was now giving back and helping other street kids with the profits from his restaurant.

The food itself was incredible, he continued to bring over far more than we’d ordered – soups with unbelievable flavours, extra stir fried vegetables and endless sticky rice. It was a completely unexpected hidden gem and we were so pleased to have met this humble and inspiring man. 

After dinner we visited ‘Always’, a Harry Potter themed cafe that we’d passed on our way into town, that I may have slightly overreacted to on first sighting. It was a Potter fan’s dream, decked out like the inside of Hogwarts, with an expertly themed menu of cocktails and juices. I went for a Goblet of Fire, whilst the others ordered Felix Felicis and Polyjuice Potion. Needless to say I was in my element. 

Ba Vi National Park

It was Eamon and Mario’s last day in Hanoi, so instead of exploring the city we joined them and a whole group of new friends on a trip to Ba Vi National Park. We hired a minivan driver through the hostel to drive us the hour and a half out of Hanoi, and round to various points of interest in the National Park. 

From our first drop-off point we attempted to follow the slightly confusing map to the French ruins. We ended up hiking in a huge circle back to the starting point, but we weren’t too bothered about the end destination, more interested in watching the views go by. We could see out over the misty valley below as we walked through the fields of bright yellow flowers.

We spent the whole day exploring the park, stopping at waterfalls and viewpoints. Our driver took us high into the mountains where we were the coldest we’d been after weeks of 30 degree heat! 

We visited the Mountain God temple, making hard work of the 600 steps to the top, while monks breezed past us with heavy bags carried on sticks supported on their shoulders. The last incline was seriously steep and had us climbing using our hands, really feeling the effects of the altitude up there. From the top we had views over the whole park and the Ho Chi Minh temple on the even higher mountain opposite, that appeared every now and then through the clouds. 

Having failed to find the French ruin before, we asked the driver to take us on the way back down. The road was a very steep and awkward turning to navigate from the narrow mountain road. He gave it a good go, but the engine spluttered and we started to roll back towards the edge of the road (and the edge of a cliff). A few of us were ready to abandon the ruins at this point, but he reversed right to the edge, stepped on the accelerator and managed to drag us up the hill, to a round of applause. 

Going Out with a Bang

We couldn’t let Mario & Eamon leave Hanoi without one last night out together, so we headed to Beer Street in the Old Quarter. As the name suggests, all the drinking here happens on the street, with tiny school-style plastic tables and chairs where we shared bottles of rum for a fiver each, being dodged by passing motorbikes. We whiled away a good few hours there playing drinking games, then on to Tom’s Bar where as is customary in Southeast Asia, everyone is the DJ and the music is played from YouTube on someone’s laptop. 

Hotpot Hangover Cure

We surfaced sometime around midday and went in search of some food, and settled on a veggie hotpot at a tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant in the Old Quarter. Despite the casual attitude towards customer service (one of the family was having a pedicure in the front of the restaurant) the food was absolutely delicious. They brought over the pot and enough veg to feed a small village, and soon the broth was bubbling away waiting for us add all the ingredients we wanted and watch it cook. Hangover cured. 

Afternoon on the Lake

We wandered along to Ngoc Son Temple, built on an island in the middle of the lake and accessible via the Red Bridge. More misty views awaited us, as well as the pretty pagoda and a bronze statue of the lake’s legendary giant tortoise, Vietnam’s symbol of longevity. We stayed a while to take in the peaceful views over the lake and light some incense. 

We walked home past the lake all lit up for the evening, and went to say goodbye to Eamon and Mario for the last time on the trip!

Hostel Jams

Back at the hostel we took advantage of the guitars in the chill-out area, Annie teaching Alpa some chords and a Bob Marley tune. We started to get a jam session going with more people joining us and playing their own songs, but we were kicked out for the 11pm curfew.

Historical Sights of Hanoi

The next day we woke up to rain, for what must have been the first time on our travels! We packed our raincoats for a day of exploring with our new pals from the hostel, Nick & Nate. First stop was train street, a narrow road with houses built either side of a working train track. We didn’t time it right to see the train passing through, but that meant we could get on the tracks for the best photo ops, knowing there would be no train for an hour. It was very surreal to see people going about their day right on the tracks.

We then walked to the Temple of Literature, the first University in Hanoi, preserved to honour the importance of academics and learning in Vietnamese culture. There is also a shrine to Confucius – scholar, philosopher, politician and founder of Confucianism, that we later found out is the most followed religion/philosophy in Vietnam. 

There were large groups of students taking what looked like graduation photos at the temple. Annie had previously read about fake wedding and graduation photoshoots at attractions like this in Asia so we were unsure if they were genuine. The jury was out for a while, but as bus loads more arrived, we figured it must be a real graduation day.  

The Military History Museum was first on the agenda for the afternoon, and we were all keen to brush up on our Vietnam War knowledge. The first building we entered as pretty promising, detailing the many nations that have invaded and colonised the country throughout its history, but we found the rest of the museum lacklustre. All the captions for the artefact displays were translated in English, but unfortunately the bulk of the text explaining the history was only in Vietnamese. We found that the museum was primarily there to celebrate Vietnam gaining independence (understandable) but didn’t go into too much depth about how that all unfolded. 

After the museum Nick & Nate went home, while Annie, Alpa and I wanted to squeeze in a visit to the Imperial Citadel. We somehow got sidetracked along the way by a junior football academy. We asked if we could borrow a ball and spent a while playing one-on-one with the third person in goal. 

We did get a quick look around the Imperial Citadel site, mostly the ceramics and art exhibitions, but sadly, the main ruins were closed. 

History Buffs

Back at the hostel, Alpa had a genius (and nerdy) idea for how we could make up for the lack of knowledge gained at the Military History Museum. We each took an aspect of Vietnam’s history and culture, researched for 15 minutes and shared our findings. We covered the French occupation of Vietnam, Vietnam as a communist country, relationships with other communist countries, religious demographic and Ho Chi Minh’s history. Afterwards we all felt we had a much greater understanding of Vietnam’s history and gave ourselves a pat on the back for being top academics. 

A Day of Ho Chi Minh

Our final day in Hanoi was one of those travel days when nothing goes to plan. We rocked up at Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum to find guards with whistles shouting at us to leave the premises; it was closed for the next 2 and a half hours. We went in search of a specific restaurant on the map to kill some time, but it seemed not to exist. We spent the next hour or so trawling the streets for a restaurant with decent meat-free options for the veggies and vegans amongst us, only to give up and settle for french fries. 

We returned to the Mausoleum in the afternoon, struggling to find our way to the correct entrance due to the poor signposting. Upon arrival we were informed that the Mausoleum was never open in the afternoon and actually closed at 11am. 

Thankfully we were still able to visit the Ho Chi Minh Museum, which was much more engaging and informative than the previous day’s. We very much enjoyed reading up on Ho Chi Minh’s patriotic emulation movements used to develop socialism in Vietnam, and walking through the abstract art installations celebrating Ho Chi Minh and Vietnamese independence. 

Despite the mishaps on our last day, we felt we’d managed to cover most of the things we’d wanted to see in Hanoi. It’s a beautifully chaotic city where things move at a hundred miles an hour, but it’s always possible to find pockets of calm amongst the madness. We had only scratched the surface of things to do here, but we were ready for our next adventure: Cat Ba Island!

Chloe x