A local transports a tree in preparation for Tet (New Years) on his motorbike. I knew that I'd evolved as a traveller when I arrive in Hanoi...and LOVED it. The type of situation that probably would have been overwhelming and intimidating last year seems a bit like home now. Motorcycles, traffic, chaos, people, markets, motorcycles, street food, honking, motorcycles, narrow streets, old architecture, chaos, and did I mention motorcycles?!
The morning after I arrived, I caught up once again with Stefan, who I had been running into a bit on my travels throughout the country. We decided to check out Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum later that morning, agreeing to meet at my hotel and grab a taxi from there.
Stefan arrives on a xe om - a motorbike taxi, which is essentially just some guy with a motorbike and not much to do. For $0.50 a km he'll take you where you want to go on the back of his bike, zipping through the streets of Hanoi with little more than an equestrian helmet as protection.
Something I wouldn't be caught dead doing 12 months ago.
But, oh was it fun! You experience the rhythm and the logic of the traffic and - no kidding - feel perfectly safe for the 2 kilometer ride.
A rare motorcyle-less shot in Hanoi, Old Quarter After the mausoleum (like Lenin...oh, so much like Lenin) we grab a ca phe sua (Vietnamese coffee with sweetened condensed milk) at the side of the road and head to the Temple of Literature, side tracked slightly by taking movies of the traffic at a particularly nutty intersection. After lunch, too, we spend an hour or so trying to take the perfect photo on slow shutter speed of the cumquat and blossom trees sailing past on the back of motorbikes - preparations for the upcoming new year festival Tet. I didn't quite manage a perfect one but there were some that came close.
Intrepid photographer Stefan stalks the elusive kumquat tree. Walking back through the side streets of the Old Quarter, where each has a specialty from toys to bamboo ladders to Tet decorations, we nimbly dodge the obstacles in our way - and there are many. Motorcycles rule here and that means that streets are for driving, but so are footpaths (which double as parks for the motorbikes, when they're not taken up by shops spilling their wares and conducting business in the middle of where you think you should be allowed to walk) - it's every pedestrian for themselves. But it didn't take me long to adjust to the pace and soon I was confidently maneuvering a packed intersection of moving vehicles.
Stefan & I head to dinner and confirm the lesson the smaller the stool the better the food. That is, we ate at a normal restaurant and the food was quite average - but the sights & smells of the street food vendors outside were confirming where we'd be eating the next day. And eat we did...pho, bun chua, barbeque...fresh herbs and a touch of chili, mmm.
And then, my favourite place in all of Vietnam - the intersection of Ta Hien and Luong Ngoc Quyen. It doesn't look like much, but oozes character when you realise that every corner of the intersection is a bia hoi joint selling 3000 dong glasses of fresh beer.
The plastic stools and chairs spill into the street as you watch the traffic, travellers, locals and street vendors vie for position on the pavement. Simply perfect.
Up the road is a small street, Ta Hien, which again doesn't look like much by day but at night turns into bar after bar of after hours lock in joints. You see, Hanoi being in a communist country has a curfew of about 11:30 pm, by which time shops, restaurants and pubs must close.
3000 dong beers, or around $0.15. And these aren't tea cups. The no-fun police patrol around ensuring this rule is enforced, however the pubs flagrantly violate it anyway by having scouts along the roads, alerting businesses to incoming patrols.
Roller shutters go down, music quietens, people aren't allowed out.
And...they're gone! Party's on again!
I think I stumbled out of there about 2:30 in the morning and took a xe om back to my hotel - in my somewhat inebriated state thinking:
"I love this city!"
