Vietnam: Part Seven (Return to Hanoi and Saying Goodbye)

This time in Hanoi we decided to try a different, less wild accommodation. We stayed at a hotel a few blocks away but still in the old town area. Our host was very friendly and offered us some advice for exploring the area. We had built in some extra time here for doing some shopping, so a lot of our time was spent exploring the various markets. That night, though, all we wanted to do was grab a hot meal and get to sleep. Luckily the closest restaurant was also rated the number one spot in Hanoi for bun cha (rice noodles served with pork in a sweet pork broth)!

Our first market attempt the next morning was the banana market where, allegedly, there were dozens of boats lining the river of little old ladies selling bananas. After walking several miles through sketchy parts of the city, we did not come across anything like what we had read about. This was one of many times on the trip where we were let down by other travel blogs, but it was still just a small disappointment. We decided to shake off the disappointment and our fruit craving by grabbing some smoothies, then we walked around the lake in the old town area, which was closed off to street traffic because it was Sunday. On our walk around we were stopped several times by students who asked if they could practice their English with us as a school assignment. While their friends videotaped, we were asked several simple questions and then took a group photo. After this happened three times we decided to cross the street before we lost the rest of the afternoon! Shortly after we made it to The Note coffee shop. The entire place is adorned with post-it notes written by patrons. Some of them were inspiring, some were vulgar, and some were absolutely hilarious. We left a couple of notes ourselves and headed out to continue exploring the city.

That afternoon we hit the Dong Xuan giant indoor market, where we price checked some bags, clothing, and souvenirs to get an idea of what we might be bringing back home (everything was incredibly cheap, but we were still looking for some hard bargains). From there we grabbed some banh mi for lunch and started walking to the Hang Da market, but on the way we were stopped in a massive downpour. We waited over an hour for it to stop, but had to begrudgingly move on when it did not. We balked through knee-high rivers of water that had flooded the streets and made it to the market soaked to the bone. We stopped for chè, which ended up being a mug full of sweet soup that included jellied beets, sweet corn, ice, and other ingredients we can’t even name. It was odd yet refreshing, but they lady way overcharged us. Gringo-pricing strikes again!

That evening we swung back by our previous hostel as we still had some “free beer” tickets from our earlier stay. As we were drinking up on the rooftop bar, we started to recognize a few of the people. It turns out that some of them were from the same Vietnam group chat that we had been following along with in WhatsApp! We started talking and discovered that we all had a mutual hatred of another person in the group who constantly complained about his Vietnam experiences, as well as discouraging others from their explorations. Wherever you are, Matt B, you still suck!

We went to Hanoi’s famous train street that night. Houses in the area are built right next to the tracks, often with only a couple of feet of clearance for the trains to pass through. When a train is scheduled to come through, the locals run outside to clear off any clotheslines, children’s toys, pets, or anything else that may have crept onto the tracks. We ate our final Pho of the trip at a little place nearby, and then walked down the tracks to find a spot for a beer to wait for the next train to come by. After waiting 15 minutes after the schedule, we were starting to walk away before one of the locals shouted that it was on its way! We ran back to our bar and watched as it came by, and it was exciting despite it just being the locomotive with no other train cars. It was definitely worth the wait.

The next day we retraced our steps at each market to hit all of the best deals. We knocked out our shopping early so that we could check out and have a relaxing afternoon as we waited for our evening flight to Ho Chi Minh City. The bargaining was a blast at each place, and we even had a whole row of vendors laughing at Kyle for his proposed price…before they agreed to it as we walked away. We were kicked out of almost every shoe shop we walked into, pretty much immediately, as they did not carry anything close to Kyle’s American foot size. We tried some new fruits (rambutans). We then got massages and pedicures (for a total of around $30) and finished off with our last Vietnamese meal at Bun Cha Huong Lien, a place made famous when president Obama and Anthony Bourdain ate there a few years ago. They even put a glass case around the table that they ate at!

Our flight that night got continually delayed, so we arrived in Ho Chi Minh at 2am with a 6am flight out the next day. We still had to venture into the city to pick up the rest of our luggage, which we had left one month earlier. Despite the entire hotel lobby being renovated since we had been there, our bags were still in the exact same place against the wall we had left them (although now they were covered in construction dust). We spent an hour repacking and cursing ourselves for buying so much before we had to head to the airport. We were just a bit short on cash for the airport, so we had to make one last ATM run to cover it (Kyle somehow ended up buying a pair of sunglasses while he was running this errand at 4am…don’t ask).

Sadly, we were on our way out of Vietnam. We use the word “epic” a lot as we describe our various adventures, but our experience here was truly as epic as they come.

Additional random notes about Vietnam:

1. Things we saw transported by motorbike:

• a decent-sized Refrigerator

• a family of 5 people

• live pigs

• not-so-alive pigs

• live chickens

• not-so-alive chickens

• Same with goats, sheep, dogs, and fish

• sugar cane (carried the wide-way, taking up all of the road lanes)

• a large, ornate gate

• a full, office-sized rolling computer desk (to be fair this was being dragged behind)

• We even saw one motorbike with another one perched on the back!

• Note that some of the things above were being transported while the drivers were either smoking, talking on the phone, or both!

2. You eat on tiny little tables everywhere, with condiments and sometimes ingredients already sitting out. They seriously look like the table for little kids at family holidays. Kyle's theory: the smaller the chair/table, the better the food.

3. Weak iced tea is served with every meal and when you only order a cup of coffee

4. They use cows as lawn mowers, moving their ropes periodically throughout the day to get to other portions of the grass

5. Stray dogs everywhere, some chase your bike as you ride by

6. People can and often do move your scooter to random locations after you park it.

7. There are little trashcans at each table in a restaurant. If the trashcans are not there, people just throw their trash under the table.

Levi’s shirt count: 497