Sleep, blissful sleep, until past noon, before we slunk out and managed a light lunch at a place called “La” — nice enough, although the soft shell crab and chicken curry were fairly average. Spring rolls and dessert were brilliant, though, and having the place to ourselves (not counting some overly enthusiastic waitresses) was a nice touch. Apparently 11 a.m. is the time to eat here, not the outlandishly civilized mid-afternoon hours we’re used to.
Hanoi is difficult to judge so far, especially since we’ve only passed a few hours here. The weather is bloody awful, with all hints of sun blocked out by a steel-gray overcast, underscored by drizzle and smog. The Vietnamese are freezing, as seen in the sweaters and windbreakers they’ve all taken to; at 19 degrees, it’s still a balmy early summer day in Europe. If we get to see any sun at all, we’ll live. If not, well, we’ve promised ourselves to grab a long weekend sometime in February, egads where, as long as there’s sun.
It’s an odd city, seemingly jumbled together from chaotic bits of colonial / Chinese-looking tiny houses, narrow alleyways, overhead birds nests of telephone and electric cables, guys in ill-fitting army/police/unidentifiable security uniforms with epaulettes full of shiny brass stars sitting on upturned plastic buckets, playing Chinese checkers. Boutiques of comically ’80s revival wide-shouldered dresses sit side by side with one-room ground floor apartments open to the insane traffic, television sets inevitably playing random Asian soap operas at full volume.
Nearly every travel site warns against cheating cabbies — we’ve encountered one so far, taking us for the equivalent of about three euros, but at least we got a spectacular ride out of it, through the honking, madcap height of Hanoi traffic. That is, if traffic has such a thing as a “height” — it always seems insane. Note: to cross roads, just go and hope. Usually it will find a way around you. “Usually”, because our observational evidence has not yet been contradicted. Hopefully, things will stay this way.
Karin gets stares, more so than in any place we’ve ever visited. Including Morocco, where the local disenfranchised young men shot daggers out of their eyes at the shorts-wearing, ponytailed blond foreigner stealing their women. Karin has not since worn indigenous garb and makeup in any place known for its particularly chauvinist male population. Even my attempts to stare down her admirers are ignored, as seemingly every middle-aged Vietnamese man’s eyes are unabashedly locked on my girlfriend.
Today we’ve passed through several neighborhoods, most memorable among them what seems to have been the moped repair area. Every doorway housed a grimy, parts-strewn baby garage, with an interminable stream of Japanese scooters being pushed onto and off of the sidewalk. The mechanics all seemed to be following the usual technique of dealing with construction / repairs — get a bunch of guys together, squat around the object of your attention, and poke at it with hammers. Somehow, things seem to get done. However, this particular style of working goes miles towards explaining the hodgepodge the city is.
Here’s hoping the weather clears up. In a refreshing change to the Netherlands, I can finally see over people’s heads, but as a result, I don’t think I’d fit in many of the fur-lined jackets for sale here.
Hanoi Elegance 4 hotel
No 3 – Yen Thai Str, Hoan Kiem Dist
Hanoi, VN
+84 (0) 393 809 63 / 393 809 64
www.hanoielegancehotel.com/he4/
