Hanoi : Day One-and-a-bit

Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?
A. It didn't

If there's one thing we learnt in our first 26-or-so hours in Hanoi, it's how to cross the road. This lesson transpired to be essential, lest we remain holed-up in our hotel for our entire stay as, whilst the door from our lodgings technically opened up onto a pavement, pedestrian walkways aren't really a 'thing'.

Instead, the 'pavement' as it were or would be were it a 'thing' is utilised as a combination seating area, barbecue pit or, most commonly of all, parking space for motorbikes. As such, one doesn't wander beside the street but instead on said street, aside said pavement and both alongside and in direct conflict with such things expressly designed for traversal on said streets most commonly, as I said, said motorbikes.

Walking parallel within isn't too tricky; just find a gap and join the traffic lane like any other vehicle, maintaining consistent speed and clearly indicating any sideways shifts. You don't have to emit 'brum-brum' sound effects, but it's fun.

Crossing perpendicular to traffic flow, however, is a teensy bit more perilous. With traffic lights functioning as mere suggestions and zebra-crossings simply exceedingly-neat graffiti, picking a suitable point to cross is both difficult and easy, insomuch as every potential choice is equally unsuitable.

You have to unlearn everything you learnt about crossing safely. Looking both ways is a sign of weakness. Traffic won't stop and the cacophony of blaring horns is mere background noise. You simply take a breath, shake hands with your compatriots whilst expressing fond sentiments for your time together (actually happened), then...walk. To misquote but ascribe rythmn from Dory of Nemo fame, and latterly of Dory fame, you 'Just keep walking, just keep walking...'

If it feels like you're going to die, you're doing it right. Bikes will swerve, cars will slow and I'm not sure what coaches do since we're not idiots and obviously don't step blindly in front of speeding coaches. In summary; be brave, don't hesitate, stay alive.

We first began honing this technique on our first night in Hanoi. Landing rather late in the evening and reeling from being awake for 40 hours we had intended to simply a) find hotel and b) sleep. But so invigorated were we by our taxi journey through the vehicular insanity and sensory onslaught of the Vietnamese backstreets, with the musical accompaniment of local pop hit 'Welcome to Vietnam' blaring from Airport-Pickup FM, that we resolved to go outside.

Informed by the helpful hotel probably-owner that our first night was the final one during our stay when the local night market was open, we decided to go. Amidst a vast row of stalls selling all manner of fake good we carefully examined the various street-food stalls, then picked one at random and feasted on things on sticks, different things that looked like they'd be on sticks but were in fact chopped-up and mixed in a cup and finally some frozen stuff, on a stick. We had a beer on some children's garden furniture across the road, then called it a night.

Next morning we discovered breakfast was not only included in our ridiculously-cheap room-rate, but was also really good, definitively putting Premier Inn Leicester City Centre to shame (see TripAdvisor review entitled 'Fucking Terrible' for more details). Scrambled-eggs/pancakes/toast consumed, we headed out into the city.

First we went to jail. The remains of the former Hoa Lo prison, somewhat entertainingly referred to as the 'Hanoi Hilton' by Americans during their relatively pleasant detainment there during the American/Vietnam war and less-entertainingly a harrowing historical incarceration centre for heroic Vietnamese political prisoners resisting against the oppressive and ruthless French colonialists. There was an informational/propaganda video set to the music of Pirates of the Caribbean. Or Pirates of the Caribbean cribbed it's soundtrack from a patriotic Vietnamese anthem.

Mark, the exalted organised-one of our trio, guided us on a walking tour of Hanoi's Old Town. The streets of Hanoi appear largely segregated by the nature of goods for sale; there are streets dedicated to tin, some to knock-off toy brands, an odd cluster dealing exclusively in television remote-controls and others solely concerned with the prolonged suffering, torture and meticulous murder of marine life. We visited the 'Memorial House'; a preserved, traditional house that hadn't been actively lived-in since the late 90s, granting it equal historical credence as pictures from my 14th birthday party. We also ventured into a covered market billed as stocking 'anything you could possibly think of', which was true, so long as you limited your free-thought to stationary, confectionary and dried fish products. Should your imagination apropos retail possibilities be so restricted, check out amazon.com and thank me later.

During our tour we would intermittently pop-in to numerous small Buddhist temples and visited one very large Catholic cathedral. Like most people visiting such places, I couldn't help but be reminded of the evolving design philosophy of the Legend of Zelda video game franchise. The juxtaposition here of the many-but-small Breath of the Wild approach against the fewer-but-bigger LTTP through Twilight-Princess structure (discounting the obvious anomaly of Skyward Sword) helped me, in common I'm sure with most tourists, once again conclude that Ocarina of Time remains the definitive entry in the series.

At Hoan Kiem lake we visited possibly the most famous temple in Hanoi, Ngoc Son, dedicated to a legend about a sword of the lake and a Turtle God or something I'm not really sure it wasn't all translated. Nearby in the middle of the lake was a structure known as 'Turtle Tower', in memory of the legend or the turtles or towers. There was a resident hero-in-a-half-shell by way of a preserved giant turtle specimen that was either dead, bronze or dead and bronzed depending on who you asked.

From the makers of 'The Eiffel Tower' came the penultimate instalment of our tour, a bridge that we saw almost 75% of from a distance. Finally we experienced the Ceramic Road which, whilst admittedly an impressive four-kilometre mural carefully constructed and depicting beautiful cultural imagery, is in fact a wall next to a road and not technically a road so reportable under the Vietnam equivalent of the Trade Descriptions Act (Articles 103/106, 1992 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, fact fans!)

We returned to the hotel for a brief rest before heading out for dinner. On the suggestion of the hotel probably-owner we went to a local street-food venue, selected a few things off the menu and received at least 40% of what we ordered. What we had was delicious once coated in chilli sauce, following which we walked a few streets to an upmarket craft beer venue which we'd spotted earlier in the day. Turns out it's an outlet for a brewery we'll be visiting in a couple of weeks in Saigon, so functioned as something of a preview. They had a mix of delicious dark stouts and IPAs for people into that sort of thing. It was relatively expensive, but the 'relatively' aspect is key here since for five drinks each, several of which fell into the premium 'ultra-strong' category, total bill for the evening was just over a million dong; approximately a tenner a head. Or, to translate into a more relatable metric, around three pints of Kronenberg at the Trafford Centre Namco Station circa 2002.Read more