Hot Hanoi Nights
The lights seemed quite dim as we arrived in the terminal, like there were fluorescent bulbs missing. In hindsight I think it was just the grime of age and probably cigarettes. It felt a little creepy for a capital city airport and I noticed the indifferent faces on the uniformed security. Sometimes it’s hard to work out what time of the day or night it was in the place you left and that feeling of sleep deprivation and pressurized brain lock just makes things surreal. There wasn’t much chatting at the carousel and I was relieved when my suitcase appeared, mental tick.
When the terminal doors parted the air outside was thick with the smell of Asia. I love that smell and the heat and the noise. After hours of travel and air conditioned nothing, I felt excitement as I always do arriving anywhere, but here, the assault of noise and chaos hit me with a smack. The heat and the thick wet air wrapped around my lungs, and it took a minute before I could breathe again. I wasn’t sure I would ever get to Hanoi, but here I was. Every face beyond the air-conditioned terminal was talking at me, yelling, and gesturing towards a taxi or van and sometimes a laughably small bicycle with a double passenger seat. I was with Quang, and happy about it. Some hotels offer a taxi service, and I realized this small pre-organized $20 luxury was probably one of my finest organisational milestones to date. He swept the chaos aside with a few words. The door to the minivan slid open and cool air curled onto the pavement before we set off into the night time traffic and beeping horns.
The road into the city was dark but all along the way there were pockets of light offering fascinating glimpses into shops and tall apartment buildings with washing fluttering, set beside small metal or wooden and cement shacks where people were sitting cross legged or standing looking out. Dogs and children and micro roadside restaurants flashed past and the driver jabbed at the brakes and sounded his horn flipping from one lane to the next around other cars and vans and bicycles, both motorized and push pedal.
The drive didn’t alter my state of mind, I needed sleep if I was going to relax and get rid of the uneasy suspicion I felt towards my new surroundings. That first night I was too scared and excited to sleep much. I will have to get used to the all night sound of horns blaring and motor bikes passing relentlessly in the darkness because this, I would learn, is Vietnam. I wanted the sun to come up so that I could take it all in.
In the morning I swung the large shutters open and looked down from my second floor room. The Old Town was like a movie set. Below where only the night before there was an empty street, there was now people slurping Pho perched on tiny stools. A lady rang a bike bell as she picked her way across the traffic selling oranges from the back of her bike and on the corner, a couple of women haggling over a small basket fruit. Little shops had sprung up with their wares lined neatly along the walkway, selling everything from cigarettes to plastic raincoats. A woman saw me looking down and held up a package of rice and curry wrapped in a leaf. “ You want. Lady ?”
I was sold. I was in awe and love with this tangle of humanity. The never ending bikes, the endless food and the smell, yes even the smell. It all made me feel alive and lucky and ready to get down there.
Tania Cusack
