Vietnam - Hanoi 1

In the first half of being in Hanoi we visited dead Ho Chi Minh in his Mausoleum, did a coffee workshop, explored the Old Quarter, and I went to see water puppets.

Our first five days (23-28 April) we stayed in a studio in an apartment block in Ngọc Hà neighbourhood. Ngọc Hà is a mass of twisted alleys with very few main arterial roads. The laneways are narrow and there’s often barely enough room to squeeze two motorbikes heading in opposite directions. Which happens often: you need your wits about you. Hanoi has been rapidly developing, and as people renovate and construct new homes they build ever upwards on tiny foundations. Property tax is charged by the square metre in Hanoi, making houses notoriously thin and tall. (No planning permission exists - your daylight or view can be completely blocked by your expanding neighbour and there’s nothing you can do).

Ngọc Hà’s maze of residential laneways give the area a community feel, with vignettes of daily life all around. However, it sounds like this community’s days are numbered. Nick, an Irish man in the same apartment block who’s lived in Hanoi for ten years working as a teacher, told us there were plans to knock the whole area down. Redevelopment will get rid of all the scooter-only lanes - flattening it to make it more car friendly. Vietnam currently has high import duties on cars to try and limit their numbers as the country’s scooter-built-infrastructure can’t cope. However Japan invests heavily in the country and is not happy Vietnam is restricting Japanese car selling. The city also needs to adapt to climate change. Redevelopment will introduce better flood-controls in a city increasingly vulnerable to frequent typhoons and flooding.

We quickly discovered our favourite thing in the neighbourhood was sitting in a rooftop cafe above Hồ Hữu Tiệp, better known as B52 Lake, marvelling at the wreckage of a US plane. Shot down in 1972, the plane apparently fell first onto a nearby rooftop before sliding into the lake and is now something of a victory monument.

Our first few days were all about catching up with ourselves: doing laundry, finding groceries, finding bike boxes, boxing up the bikes, researching China. We explored the neighbourhood we were in and cycled the ten miles around West Lake. This is a ‘thing’. Expats starting running/cycling around the lake and now Vietnamese do it too.

On the 26th we visited dead Ho Chi Minh. ‘Uncle Ho’ was Chairman of the Workers' Party of Vietnam 1951 until his death in 1969. As required by strict protocol, we wore the neatest clothing we could muster, modest, covering shoulders and knees. We joined the respectful quiet long queue walking single file up to the large square Mausoleum. The memorial is located in the center of Ba Đình Square, where in 1945 Ho read the Declaration of Independence, establishing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Nearing the doors of the Mausoleum the respectfulness upped a notch. Inside it was cold, and silent. Immaculate white uniformed guards kept us briskly moving through his tomb. Such a strange thing to put a dead person on display for decades. Vietnamese people from all over the country travel to Hanoi at least once in their lives to view his resting place. Two minutes later we were outside again. Back amongst the living we enjoyed the colour and patriotic dress of the visiting Vietnamese posing for photos.

On the same complex is the Ho Chi Minh Museum. There was an exhibition on Lenin which was quite ‘normal’. What was unusual to me was the permanent museum exhibition. Less about Ho Chi Minh’s biography, it was a confusing mix of dusty documents and surreal exhibits - a room-sized abstract volcano, a massive oversized wonky table with out-of-scale fruit - propagandist metaphors for the powerful revolutionary movement and bountiful harvests. Equally unusual was that no-one visiting was at all interested in the museum. Children ran screaming around the abstract art landscape and families used the symbolic glory of communist rule and socialist ideals of Vietnam as selfie backdrops.

Having had our fill of Uncle Ho we wandered towards the oldest part of Hanoi to find some food, passing a large bronze statue of Lenin on route. After grabbing some banh mi, we serendipitously crossed Train Street, just before a train was due. Invited by a cafe owner to make ourselves comfortable on a seat next to the rails, we sipped our coffee and waited.
The track is the mainline connecting Hanoi with Ho Chi Minh City, 36 hours by train to the south. Four times a day a train passes through this narrow residential alley, thrillingly close to the local cafes that have sprung up to serve the tourists intent on experiencing Hanoi’s ‘must-see’ attraction. As the train approached there was excitement in the air, a long line of phones expectantly held up. As the train passed I loved the risk element. Used to regulation, precaution, railings and painted lines in the UK I liked the novelty of these norms being turned on their head - watching the train run centimetres past me (and drip water on me!) highlighted I was elsewhere, in another place, where other perspectives exist.

Monday 27 April and I wake on my birthday in another different place. On my 18th I made a pledge that each subsequent birthday would be spent in a different place and so far I’ve kept this promise to myself. 2026 and I’m in Hanoi.

This morning I’ve booked us onto a Vietnamese coffee making workshop. We spend two hours learning from Finlay how to make Vietnamese iced white coffee, coconut coffee, egg coffee and salted coffee. These aren’t the only coffees - ever creative with their caffeine hit, we’ve also seen but not sampled, banana coffee, avocado coffee, and weasel coffee (a speciality where farmed civets are fed raw coffee beans, and their resulting poo is harvested to make the coffee. I kid you not).

We’re joined by two other couples - first by fun loving Anna and John, and latterly a young Belgium/French couple. Chatting to Anna and John we learn they’re originally from the UK but have been Christchurch residents for the last 16 years. John is a retired engineer and they both make jewellery from anything they can find (stone, metal, old cutlery). Check them out: Erosionz 171 (www.erosionz.nz).

Whilst enjoying the workshop we learn coffee was bought to Vietnam by the French. With a lack of milk and refrigeration, condensed milk (invented by Americans in the Civil War) was used as a practical substitute and is now a cultural staple. It pairs well with Vietnam’s bitter Robusta beans harvested in the Central Highlands. The famous egg coffee was invented in Hanoi during the Vietnam war when condensed milk was in short supply - instead a cafe owner whipped egg yolks and sugar together as a milk substitute.

Back out into the sun we set out to explore Hanoi’s Old Quarter. A maze of streets, originally named after 36 historic trades that supplied the royals in the nearby Thang Long Citadel, many of the streets still specialise in particular products. A hectic area, it’s great fun to explore. We wandered streets dedicated to packaging, rugs, knock-off clothing. Hàng Bạc (Silver Street) is where silversmiths still craft jewellery. On Bamboo street large bamboo ladders line the pavement. Whilst wandering the streets, people weren’t shy in offering their services to Lilz - a man on a scooter pulled alongside and asked if he wanted to buy some weed or coke. A street shoemaker opportunistically started repairing his shoe as Lilz stopped to take a photo - Lilz had to politely decline and move away fast!

To take a break from the hustle we disappeared into a narrow almost imperceptible gap between two shops, squeezing past products to enter a narrow alleyway that we hoped led to a cafe nestled somewhere in the building above. This is completely normal in Hanoi. Finding a bar or cafe often involves braving mystery tours through implausible twisty passages and stairways. Seated on a balcony above a busy crossroads we delighted in watching the chaos of the four way traffic.

Tuesday 28 April and Lilz had arranged a birthday surprise! Checking out of our studio room at Eco Nest, we took a taxi to a hotel he had booked for the night! I was delighted by the celebratory balloons, fruit, and neon Happy Birthday sign the hotel had put in the room! On the 7th floor the room’s balcony provided rooftop views! Not surprise enough, I was treated to afternoon tea in the hotel’s restaurant with views across Hoàn Kiếm Lake.

At 6pm I took myself off to the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre. A very localised cultural show, it started as 11th-century folk art practiced in the nearby Red River Delta rice fields. In my element I sat right at the back looking down at a stage filled with waist-deep water. A small live orchestra sat on an elevated balcony to each side of the pool, providing the show’s music, sound effects, and narrators. The unusual (to me) instruments were brilliant and I loved the vocalists singing traditional Northern Vietnamese folk opera (chèo).

When the lights went down I was captivated from the very start. A spotlighted female solo instrumentalist played the đàn bầu, a traditional Vietnamese instrument that uses a flexible bamboo rod to bend the tension, and change the pitch, of its single string. It produces a distinctive and very beautiful haunting sound.

The spell was broken when the puppets arrived ‘on stage’, gliding and dancing cheerfully across the water. Puppeteers hidden behind a bamboo screen controlled the brightly lacquered wooden figures using large underwater bamboo rods and strings. So clever and like nothing I could ever have imagined! The puppets acted out a series of short vignettes depicting rural life, farming harvests, and national historical legends. The side narrators shouted out warnings or humorous banter to the puppets making the whole show lively and joyful. Glad of my English audio earpiece it was really enlightening to learn about these founding stories - like the belief the Vietnamese people descend from Lạc Long Quân (a dragon king from the south) and Âu Cơ (a mountain fairy from the north) - and about Vietnam’s four Sacred Animals - the Dragon, Phoenix, Unicorn (not like our familiar 🦄), and Giant Turtle. The whole hour was enchanting and charming.

Full of smiles, I left the theatre, snaking my way through Hanoi’s busy night-lit streets, to meet Lilz in a rooftop Northern Soul bar! Mojito and Mai Tai in hand we listened to the music looking down on colourful streets below. Amazing pizza for dinner and a nightcap on the hotel roof watching an electrical storm light up the sky ended a pretty perfect day.

From our hotel it was only a short walk to explore Hanoi’s French Quarter. Large leafy boulevards, colonial French buildings, and high end shops, did make it feel more European. Checking out the lovely staff at the hotel invited us to have another free afternoon tea and we spent a lovely half hour talking to one of the waiters about his grandfather, the local area, and its history. People in Vietnam seem so proud of their country.

Finally leaving the hotel bubble behind we grabbed a Grab to take us to our last Hanoi neighbourhood of Trúc Bạch, about 3km northwest of Hoàn Kiếm Lake. Based in a little Airbnb for five nights (29 April-4 May), the streets here seemed less rushed, more chilled, with a definite cafe culture vibe. I think we are going to like this neighbourhood.Read more