2026 Hanoi, Vietnam

$1=₫25,875.99

Thursday February 12

EWR bound. Albeit at 4:00am, but when you are on vacation getting up at 3:15am feels like less of a chore than seeing this ungodly hour on any other day. Especially when everyone is getting up at the same time and you can spring up on a mission to be ready for the pickup. About a week ago I posed the question to the group: with a scheduled departure from Newark at 11:15am what time do you think we should leave? The answers varied, but once we worked backwards from departure time, factored in rush hour traffic once we got closer to the airport, finding a gas station, finding the rental return, and making our way through the check-in, security etc., it was decided that, unfortunately, 4:00am was our safest bet. Better to be early than late, right? And while it is true that we had plenty of time to sit and wait for the boarding to begin, after all was said and done, we were only about 8 minutes early, meaning we couldn’t possibly have planned it any better. The waiting wasn’t even that bad as everyone had time to relax, chat, and wait for the next boarding announcement. The plane takes off a little late, but with an 11 hour layover awaiting us on the other side, I think we’ll have plenty of time and not find ourselves running to make the next leg’s flight. 

When we started planning our vacation most of our thoughts were to go to Copenhagen this year. We have historically tried to head somewhere warm- or at least warmer than home. I am not sure Denmark would have qualified, but I thought about visiting a city that had to deal with cold weather in the winter, just to see what it offered. I don’t know, were there winter carnivals or special events that made use of the cold weather that would give us a new perspective on travelling to such a place in the colder months? However, as I sat to price out the flights and start really sketching out dates, unfortunately, our illustrious “leader” started floating the idea of taking ownership of Greenland. While Greenland isn’t Copenhagen, the threat certainly rattled the entire nation of Denmark. So, even though there were no specific travel restrictions to Denmark at the time, I figured the potential was there for an escalation at the worst and some unwanted scrutiny being an American tourist in the proximity of the good people of Denmark at the very least. It got me thinking about Vietnam that has been on our list for so long. The weather, depending on what part of the country you visit, ranges from warm to hot, and, most importantly, these days, our president is not actively trying to annex them! After a successful vacation with Bob and Lisa a couple of years ago, I ran with the idea of pivoting from Copenhagen to Vietnam, and surprisingly to me, they didn’t wince. While they were on board with Copenhagen, some preliminary research brought them squarely on board, leaving little doubt that our decision had been made. I started monitoring the flight prices. As with every year, I bought our tickets on Christmas day. While everyone else is opening presents, I was busy researching hotels and weird and unusual things to do in Vietnam. And I am getting a little ahead of myself, because once Vietnam became a serious contender, I had to figure out if we were going to do an extended layover in a different city on the way there or back and if it was practical to visit Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City or both. Would we add Cambodia to the itinerary or not? All options were on the table for a short time. While Cambodia and Laos are still on my list of places to visit, the current strife between Cambodia and Thailand pushed that option to a later date. Indications also recommended against visiting both HCMC and Hanoi in the same trip unless we were planning a multi week visit since they are about 1600km apart and we are only allowing about a week, we figured to exhaust Hanoi would be the wise thing to do. Further, most of the flight options included either Etihad or Emirates Airlines which fly through Abu Dhabi or Dubai and while we did consider extending the layover, the natural layover of 21 hours would be enough to get out and explore...possibly. We had our running directions. Tickets purchased that would include an 11 hour layover in New Delhi, India on the way, and the Dubai stopover on the way home. It was time to get researching. El and I started watching some YouTube vloggers’ posts and quickly started seeing some repeat items. Some vloggers are better than others, some videos more well produced than others, and some tips more useful than others. We were making notes and then I would try to delve further into the options we liked. The trip started to take shape and every day or so I would add what I learned to the travel doc I keep, which is our rough guide to any destination. Lists of museums, eateries, and experiences that we will try to fit in once we are there trying to knock as many off the list as we can. Additionally, I reach out to people I know who have been to Hanoi and ask about their experiences and memories. This time people were a little light on the suggestions, but universally emphatic that we were going to have a great time. I hope they are right. The flight today is 15 hours and seems to be a little heavy on the turbulence which doesn’t bother me as much as others in my group. I have faith in the pilot as she keeps coming on the intercom to update and reassure us. Our research tells us that even with 11 hours in Delhi, we will not be allowed to leave the airport, so our research had to focus on the offerings inside the airport. We tried to find recommendations for the best food in our airport terminal and other options such as sleeping pods and spas. Things that might help to refresh us while we are waiting. Our first stop in Delhi will be to check in for our flight to Hanoi at the end of the layover. Dubai however, is a different story...we have plans!

Well, this officially sucks. This could potentially be the longest non-stop flight I have ever been on at 15 hours, but we still have another 3.5 hours to go and we are right now over Saudi Arabia. My ass is sore, I am tired, cranky, and just plain ready to land and we still have more than 20% of the flight left! The bathrooms are well soiled by now and running out of supplies. The movie selection was mediocre at best and, if it was available, I could still watch the entirety of ‘The Godfather’ before we land. And it’s only going to get worse before it gets better. Some of the food selection has been better than I expected. A chicken curry for dinner and some sort of dal with rice for breakfast. So far not bothering my stomach. I need a shower. 

The flight lands without fanfare and with about 11 hours until our flight leaves we are on a mission. First stop, check in for the next flight. Next find the sleeping pods and food- not necessarily in that order. So, as expected, our plane has three kinds of people: those who have New Dehli as a destination, those that need to catch a connecting flight domestically, and those, like us, who have to catch a connecting international flight. Without checked bags, we head for the international transfers area. Now, this is where I have kind of dropped the ball. We couldn’t check in yesterday before we left because it was too far in advance of our flight, so we knew that we needed to check in here. We approach the desk with staff and they ask us which airline we are flying and I tell them Air India since that is how we got here. When we tell them we are flying to Hanoi, the consensus from all four is that the staff that handles Vietnam will not arrive until 7:00pm! It is around noon now. No problem, we ask if they can point us to the sleep pods and or the food we had heard about (there is supposed to be a food court with some better than average options). The only problem, they explained, is that we need boarding passes to access the terminal and without the desk agents who arrive at 7:00pm, our only options are a single coffee cart and a seating area with lounge chairs (think more like a chaise lounge, rather than some sort of daybed). Really, we are stuck here until 7:00?? Yup. We make the best of a bad situation and get as much rest as we can on these least comfortable lounge chairs. We all get varying degrees of rest- myself about three hours.

We are able to “freshen up” in the bathrooms. Then I have an epiphany, what if I took advantage of the free wifi to check-in online and got our boarding passes emailed to us? I move full steam ahead by accessing AirIndia.com to follow the prompts to check-in. Soon into the process I get a generic error message directing me to the gate agent. Back to square one we sit. At some point, on the off chance someone shows to work early, we periodically check to see if staff has arrived. When anyone is actually at the desk, they are all Air India staff that keep pushing the arrival of Vietnam staff. What started as 7:00, turns into 8:00, then 9:00. At some point, exhausted, Bob and I are casually chatting and he says something to the effect of waiting for the staff from Vietnam Airlines. Wait, Vietnam Airlines?? We are on Air India, no? Nope, the next leg is a different airline! Well, what If I go to the Vietnam Airlines site and try to check in again? I do and lo and behold, it works! I have to announce to the group that because I didn’t realize the change, I may have just caused us to waste so many hours since once we have boarding passes we can proceed through security and to the many terminal options. Everyone pulls out their docs and we take turns signing in. I get through the four of us and select “complete check in”. Emails arrive one by one, Ding. Ding. Ding. The boarding passes arrive. I look down to see three confirmations and one error message. The pass cannot be issued for Bob. No further explanation, just “see gate agent” to rectify. Well, we weren’t going to leave him behind and we head back to the desk to ask the familiar question again...when do we think the agents are coming? The guy points to a woman walking through the terminal, “see her?” he asks, “she can call Vietnam Airlines and get an agent to come here. Well, that was the most good news we have heard in hours. I approach the woman and explain our situation and she tells me to wait. She comes back a few minutes later and tells me that the agent will be here at 9:30. At 9:28 a young lady comes out and asks how many are going to Vienna! What? No! Not Vienna, we are going to Vietnam. Oh yeah, that’s what she meant. She invites us to the desk to get through. She collects docs and tells Bob that the issue is that he has been randomly selected to undergo additional screening and that without her to check us in, we would not be able to get the boarding passes. At this hour, there are exactly zero people at security and we arrive to no less than six agents in varying states of self importance who all begin barking screening requirements. Bags flat on belt. Computers out of bags. Liquids out of bags. Power bricks out of bags. No Metal. Belts off. My bag makes its way through the scanner only to be rejected. The agent’s tone gets a little more aggressive...cameras out! Wires out! All items with batteries out! I haven’t had to remove my belt or take my camera and especially my charging wires out of my bags in years. At least I jettisoned my water bottle before this point. I walk through and pass that screening. As Bob and I go to collect our bags Lisa and El are simultaneously detained to deal with what are deemed questionable items in their bags. What can only be described as a group of overzealous agents are conferring with the X-ray monitor who is flagging, of all things, their knitting gear. Now, since 9//11 every single official website exempts knitting needles and mini-scissors. While El may have been questioned about them before, no time have they ever been barred from passing...until now. And before we know it, both El and Lisa are extracting their needles from their current, unfinished projects and surrendering their "dangerous“ 4" “weapons” to the guard who will go home tonight knowing he made the world just that much safer because of it. Meanwhile, we just added a stop at a knitting shop to get projects back on track...though it was already penciled in. We get through security otherwise unscathed and head to our gate which begins boarding within the half hour. As we walk through the labyrinthian Delhi airport, at one point getting turned around in the maze of duty free shops, we come upon sleep pods, and food options that put the coffee cart we visited earlier to shame. Sadly, we don’t have much time to patronize and can only wonder how much more refreshed we would be at this moment if things worked out differently...and for all of the confusion and regulation, the desk agent that helped us with our boarding passes was able to get Bob excluded from additional screening because he was considered a through transit traveler who already went through security before arrival in Delhi. Our flight boards and leaves on time with an expected arrival at 4:55am. Now, we all need showers!  

Flight arrives early to Hanoi. The passport control is busy but moves along. We have arranged for the shuttle to get us from the airport to the hotel. We are told there will be a sign with our name on it at the arrivals gate. After customs, but before the shuttle bus, I stop at an ATM. In some countries it is more difficult to find a working ATM in the city right away, so I like to get enough just to get going. I withdraw three million dong! I am not sure that I have ever taken money with that many zeros out of an ATM. We find the man with my name on the sign just outside the terminal. The shuttle ride is fairly silent, save a couple of quiet observations on our part as we make our way into the city. At one point our driver grabs his phone and speaks into Google Translate (GT)- handing it to me. I take the phone and read his message out loud “Unfortunately, I speak no English, but I want to welcome you and wish you a pleasant stay in my country.” For 5:00am, the city is bustling. Lots of people on the streets and from the highway we can see some markets working, as well as people on scooters delivering to the markets, or driving their recent purchases away from the market. One of the funny things we see is a man on a Vespa with what appears to be an orange tree strapped to the back. Well, that is certainly something you don't see everyday! We can’t communicate with the driver to get the story, but we do get a good chuckle out of the sight. At  5:00am we have no expectation of checking in to our hotel, but we will drop bags and explore the area of the hotel for the morning. They do confirm that we cannot check in now, but point us to the bathrooms allowing us to change, refresh as best we can absent of a shower and get ready to start our first morning in town. We have a walking tour planned that starts at 2:00pm so we will take from now until then to get some food and drink as well as locate our meeting spot for the tour. I ask at the desk for a pho recommendation and she tells me her favorite. It’s a destination. According to the map it is on the other side of the Hoan Kiem Lake, so we take the time to walk around the lake that serves sort of like central park- a haven surrounded by urban bustle. On the way we spot the red bridge at the north end of the lake and pay our 50,000₫ each to enter.

The history itself is steeped in myth, but the turtles that feature heavily in the story are still populating the waters. We take some time to walk through the Ngoc Son Temple. We have been here for an hour and are already checking off things on our list! It seems after a quick poll of the group that I’m the only one getting hungry and wants to prioritize getting food. The rest are content to keep walking so long as coffee is included. We are all running very low on energy and sleep is still many hours away, so I am OK to push food for a coffee stop if we see one. We continue walking around Hoan Kiem Lake. It seems everywhere you look, there are groups taking pictures. Either this is the world's largest wedding party, or there is something else going on here. Most of the people getting their pictures taken are groups of men or (mostly) women and girls, which quickly squashes the wedding idea, We would learn later in the week that this is a tradition where people dress up in their finest traditional garb and go to their favorite location to get their yearly New Years photos. Some have professional photographers, while others have people in their group taking the photos. Lots of professional camera setups, not just cell phone pics, though there are a lot of those going on too. About ⅓ around the lake we spot one of the coffee shops we know about called The Note Cafe. That is our foray into Vietnamese coffee. I get a regular cappuccino. The cafe is several floors tall but not more than several feet wide. The gimmick at this place is that virtually every square inch of this place is covered in layers upon layers of post-it notes with messages written by customers who have enjoyed coffee here. Most that we saw are what you’d expect: standard “Joanie loves Chachi” to “hello from Anytown, USA”, to “let the new year bring luck, prosperity, and growth”. The pads are on tables, side shelves, and sills- basically within arms reach of most people here at any time. To play along, we each grab a pad and try to figure out a strategic spot to stick it that it wouldn't get covered in, say, the next 24 hours. 

We finish our coffee and now people seem to be more agreeable to food than before. The receptionist at the hotel gave me a pho recommendation called Pho 10. Her directions are spot on and we arrive to a line literally snaking out the door and down the block. While we wait our turn, we notice a couple of things, a sign on the door that says they are closing at noon today (it’s about 10:30 now) and that they have Michelin plaques on the building. The line moves relatively quickly and we are seated in no time. It looks like the main thing you get here is the beef pho. There is a picture menu that labels the options rare, medium, and welldone. In the interest of ease, we just get four welldone beef pho bowls. All of the beef is cooked. All of the broth is simmering. All of the noodles are precooked, so when you order a bowl, they pull a portion of noodles from the pile, put it in a basket, dip it into the boiling water for about 10 seconds which is enough time to fully heat them. Noodles go into the bowl, add cooked beef on top of the noodles, fill bowl with steaming, hot broth, garnish with some greenery. Everyone agrees the soup is very good, though I cannot help but ask myself, of all the people that enjoy pho so much, where do they land on ramen, which just seems so much more flavorful to my palate? As we eat, two additional customers are seated at our table and when they order the same welldone beef pho, they are told that that option is sold out now. Looks like we couldn't have picked a better time to come. As we finish, I can see there is still a line to get in, so I send the group outside while I pay. I approach the cashier who already knows what we ordered before I step up. 300,000₫ for four bowls of pho that's about $12 for all of it! 

We’ve been in town a grand total of six hours and we have navigated to their central lake, experienced the coffee culture here, eaten some great pho, and visited a pagoda even though we are all running on fumes. Between the hotel and the lake there is park that is mostly roped off with only one entrance at one end. Officials are installing giant flower arrangements and making other preparations for the holiday. Only one end of the park is accessible and some locals are getting their photos taken against the flower displays. On the way back to the hotel to see if our room is ready, we spot an Italian Club and send El in for some reconnaissance. She gets us seated for a beer- nothing special, just passing time. Afterwards, the room is ready, giving us a chance to take a quick shower and change out of our clothes we have been in for the past 48 hours. We walk to the walking tour meeting spot which is right by the pagoda we saw this morning.  Our guide, Misha, is a young woman from Tunisia that has studied travel, tourism, and hospitality locally. She is absolutely friendly enough, I just didn’t feel that some of the places she highlighted were worthy- though it did give us a chance to knock some things off the list that we will not need to see again this week. She shows us the art of crossing the street in traffic. You see, jaywalking is not a thing here. You can cross whenever, wherever you wish. First tip, as you step off of the sidewalk and into traffic you raise your arm with your hand making a stop pose. The second is once you start...do NOT stop. They will go around you. Later in the week we would be told additionally, do NOT run across the street and do NOT make eye contact with the drivers because it will be interpreted by one driver as you letting them go first while others will read it as you are going first. The amount of traffic here is unreal with motor scooters far outnumbering cars and trucks. The most incredible thing I notice is the lack of angry horns. There are many friendly beep beeps to let others know they are coming up behind you. But, the amount of people getting cut off and not being phased is weird. It’s like you are in an ultracongested area and you will see hundreds of vehicles going in one direction, but a scooter decides he needs to cross the street. There are no arm gestures, he just drives through the traffic crosswise and everyone just drives around him. It is quite remarkable! I digress, Misha starts by telling us the myth of Hoan Kiem Lake which translates as Lake of the Returned Sword. We would hear and see more of this myth later in the week. 

Next, she takes us into the Old Quarter which is the hub of activity (especially with the tourists). We go to Bach Ma Temple with lots of food donations where people bring food that, depending on the color, will be blessed for luck (red), prosperity (yellow) or growth (green). It is becoming clear just how superstitious of a society the Vietnamese are. Our tour continues through the Old Quarter where we learn some (minimal) history. She takes us up to the Dong Xuan Market, but this is the first place where it is apparent that preparations for New Years are underway. The covered market houses more than 2000 vendors. It is considered one of, if not the, largest indoor mall. It seems to come as a surprise to Misha as we arrive to locked gates with a darkened interior. Some areas are open, and those areas are a complete mess. The market (at least the parts we saw were generally three sections: food (cooked and fresh), goods (sneakers, cookware, and clothing), and supplies (textiles and hardware). But, if you can imagine crates of deliveries arriving with a lot of packing materials to stabilize in transit that are then unpacked- but the packing paper, bubble wrap, and cardboard just seems to get tossed on the ground. I am sure it gets cleaned up eventually, but as we walk through the market the litter creates an additional layer of tripping hazard. Maybe the janitorial staff has called it a day? There are two issues we encounter in the food section. The prepared foods area, well Misha must come through here often with her tours (as I am sure other guides do too) but as we stop at stands so she can highlight things that may be new to us, some of the vendors walk a fine line between frustration and annoyance- basically saying you bring these tourists through here every day and no one ever buys anything- which is fine, but you are blocking my offerings from the people that are here to spend money- keep moving along. Misha takes it in stride and moves us along without confrontation. We do pass through a few food areas where she points out food being cooked or prepped on the street- literally. They lay a piece of newspaper on the pavement and shell their beans by hand or cut cabbage onto it- and I am not sure I always saw the newspaper! I am a little surprised how it doesn't smell worse as we pass an outdoor fish stall in the 80 degree heat. I am guessing that we are going to have to take extra care to get fully cooked food when we do have any. The second issue in the food market is the extremely narrow corridors some of the stalls are located on, so we stop at a coffee stand and Misha asks the vendor to let us smell the roasted beans, while true customers are trying to get by, meaning we need to squeeze into the stall to let them pass, get our whiff of coffee before the next customer needs to get by. This scene played out several times. Many of the stalls seem to offer the same things and I suppose you would have to frequent this market/vendors to know which one has the one item you need that no one else has. Meanwhile, to us the sneaker seller has the same array as the sneaker seller one door down, who has the same shoes as the other two. Parenthetically, the paradoxical thing is that we see a lot of, say D&G sandals with not one genuine pair to be found in the lot, but they could all hang a sign that read “locally made with pride”. On our way out of the food area, in an ironic twist at some point we come upon a vendor selling an array of dried fruits and nuts. The group collectively decides that a bag of prunes might be a worthy purchase. Some start their inquiries, only to be told that unless you are willing to buy a half kilo of the dried plums, it was not going to be possible to just sell a handful of them. Misha wants to help us out and tries to find prunes at one of the vendors adjacent to that one, but they either don’t have prunes or they too have a weight minimum. Eventually the task is aborted and we continue out of the market. We have been hearing from everyone about how we should expect everything to be closed for Tet on Wednesday. Misha adds that she understands that the trains that are the attraction at Train Street are not running due to Tet! Really?! Train Street is one of the top tourist spots in this city! Just our luck to come here to find it not working, what an incredible disappointment. I am not sure what that means for us, but we will see later in the week. Lastly, Misha takes us to “Beer Street” where every establishment is a watering hole of some sort. As we walk through, many of the places haven't opened for the night yet. It looks like a place that caters to 20 year old college students who come here on spring break and can legally order a beer for the first time in their lives. Reminds me of Kao San Rd in Bangkok. Not a place we will probably need to spend much time. My feet are really starting to hurt and after the tour, exploring more on our own is not in my best interest. At first I wouldn't mind going back to Beer Street, but even though we just walked from there it is a little farther than I want to walk. I am exhausted. At this hour a coffee stop is nixed by the group, though I have no doubt everyone would be able to sleep right through any caffeine effects. We have a food walking tour tomorrow so I expect we may get some tips and tricks about avoiding foods that we don't want to eat. We are all a bit hungry and I suggest going back to the Italian restaurant where we had the beer earlier. It is near the hotel and the menu looked good. They are full and we cannot get in. Next door is an upscale Vietnamese restaurant that has plenty of room, so we head in. The beer is cold and the seat keeps me off my feet. I got an order of beef with vegetables. It is pretty good and hits the spot. My issue is that even though everyone is tired, I find myself actively nodding off several times during the meal. I have got to get to bed!!! We plan to meet at 6:00am to head to the Quang Ba flower market. 

Sunday February 15
We meet in the lobby at 6:00, but instead of heading out we just eat here. Turns out the breakfast offerings are impressive and we all agree it was a good move to grab food here. We head out towards the flower market. The streets are quite quiet with most of the people we see working on sweeping or washing sidewalks, setting up shop (whether a literal storefront, or just someone setting up their wares on the sidewalks). Eventually we reach a street that has been closed off to traffic with canopies and EZ-ups set up in the center of the street. These makeshift shops are in the process of tearing down, not setting up. We spy a coffee shop called Ji.an Coffee and agree to stop. We each get a coconut coffee which seems like a cappuccino with a shot of coconut flavor. El reminds me that before we came, one of the recommendations we got was that due to the Tet holiday, many ATMs will run out of cash and with banks closed for the holiday, we should plan accordingly. We are finding a lot of places don’t take credit cards. The money doesn't seem real...I mean we took out 3 million dong at the ATM yesterday and as of today we are almost through it all! I mean three cups of coffee ran 145,000₫. The point being is that when you spend that kind of money, it is easy to spend 1 million before you know it. I needed to get enough to cover our expenses. We’ll keep our eyes peeled. With the flower market here tearing down, I have to admit, I am a bit surprised that this is the market that got all the rave reviews. I saw a couple of places with orange trees- remember like the one on the scooter yesterday? Well, we have learned that just as Americans buy pine trees for their Christmas holidays, the Vietnamese buy orange trees (though they could be kumquat trees), cherry, or plum blossom bushes. As we sit and drink our coffee, I do some quick remapping and it turns out that the Quang Ba market is not within walking distance from us! 

It is a taxi/bus ride away! We immediately pivot to something else for today and agree to try again tomorrow. We wander a little further up the street and spot a temple called Hoè Nhai Pagoda. We stop in and take some pictures. I can’t find a place to sit down to journal, so I wait for the group outside. On the way to the Hoa Lo Prison, we find a working ATM and stock up for the week (we hope). We get to the prison and there is a staff member telling everyone that about 30% of the exhibit space is closed for renovation and while video presentations replace the closed parts, they want you to consider this before buying your tickets, which is admirable, but I would have preferred a discounted ticket price. We go in and get the audio guide rental. Entrance is 50,000₫ each plus 100,000₫ for the audio guide. The Hoa Lo Prison also known as Maison Centrale also known as the "Hanoi Hilton” is where American POW’s (including John McCain) were incarcerated during the Vietnam War (or the American War as the Vietnamese call it). The prison has been around since the 1800’s and primarily used during the French occupation to incarcerate, torture, and execute Vietnamese resistence fighters. As we had heard before coming here, people do agree that if you come to Hanoi, it is a worthy and important visit. The thing that is interesting is how the stories of those imprisoned here differ from the official narrative. Listening to this audioguide, you hear about how the prisoners were so lucky to have had such compassionate captors in the Vietnamese- though to hear the stories from those imprisoned here, that rosiness was a “bit” of an exaggeration. I follow along with the first half of the tour, but quickly decide I need to do this at my own pace. I work my way quickly through the rooms, but at the end I sit and journal listening to the rest of the passages of the audioguide. I can’t say that I am surprised about any of the exhibits. Eventually the guide and exhibits get repetitive and I feel I have gotten my fill of the tour. We regroup and after returning the audioguides and getting some souvenirs, we stop for a couple of photos on the way to the next stop, the Temple of Literature. 

On the way we see a section of Train Street that we at least take a couple of photos in case we don’t see more of it. Also on the way, El and Lisa spot a ceramics shop that they can check out. Meanwhile Bob and I grab a beer while we wait for them. They meet up and we each relax for a few minutes. We are around the corner from the Temple of Literature. The tickets are 70,000₫ each. They are sold out of audioguides, so we grab a written info brochure and do it at our own pace. There are five stages to the Temple and it is a symbol of the educational history with very few making it to the highest level of education over the centuries. It reminds me a lot of some of the temples we saw in China. 

Back to the hotel to nap before our food walking tour. I am able to sleep for a couple of hours while everyone else heads to a cafe to wait. I get up just before the tour. The guide is scheduled to meet us at the hotel to take us around. At some point she messages El to ask if there was a specific food we were looking to try. We have not tried bun cha yet, nor the bia hoi. We meet Hann when she arrives at the hotel, and set off for our three hour tour. She is a little light on the conversation and when she does speak, it is usually near traffic that is making it difficult to hear her. We walk along, gauging our ability to get effective recommendations from her. Her language skill is admirable, but as we will experience, a lot seems to get lost in the translation. For the most part we just follow as she sets off on a destination weaving in and out of traffic, we have no choice but to stay close, but far back enough to be responsible for our own street crossings. The first stop is a little bit of foreshadowing for us, as the Banh Mi stop she had planned is closed for the holiday. We pivot to stop number two, a bun cha shop. Once seated (the hostess instructs one of the two women sitting at a table for eight to pick up her food and move to the other end so that we could sit five of us together. We let Hann order for us and I am so impressed how fast the food comes out piping hot- like they just pull these food out of the fryer. Less than one minute later we are presented with a plate of spring rolls and a bowl of bun cha. As the food arrives, Hann says, “OK, eat up.” I explain that since it is new for us, we need her to take the lead and, with some prompting, tell us about the food we are about to eat. She starts with pointing to the food and says, this is spring rolls and this is bun cha. I have to pull some more teeth, but eventually she comes around and tells us about the ingredients and preparation of both the rolls and soup. Since this is a food walking tour, I am cutting her some slack about the cultural stuff, but I expect more when it comes to the food stuff! The spring roll is filled with vegetables and meat paste (ground pork), wrapped in rice paper, and then deep fried. They are OK, but really need a dipping sauce, which sort of defeats the purpose. They are OK, but I don’t need more than a bite or two. Next is the bun cha. Basically, like pho, it is a bowl of broth, served with a side of rice noodles. Hann shows us that we have to use the napkin to “clean” the chopsticks and or soup spoon before eating. Then you grab some noodles from the communal plate, submerge it in the broth, and eat. The two things that are unique to bun cha is the addition of a minced pork patty in the broth, which turns out not to be broth at all, but a warm mixture of fish sauce and vinegar. The fish sauce is nice and salty. Every table gets a communal bowl of raw, minced garlic and sliced hot peppers to add for individual preference. Bun cha also comes with a bottle of fish sauce and a bottle of vinegar depending on if you want more of either. The meat patties are a little greasy and the noodles have the consistency of overcooked pasta, even if that is the way it should feel in your mouth. I have tried it, wouldn’t go out of my way to get it again, but wouldn’t turn it down if it did come around again. The next stop for us is my first issue with a miscommunication that was not my fault. As we walk to the next stop, which I have no knowledge of what kind of place it is, Hann points out a small restaurant...and I use the term very loosely. Basically, it is a sidewalk stand with four kid sized plastic chairs sitting in front of it. She points and tells me that it is a very small restaurant. I agree and know that the other three could not hear, so I turned around and point to the place and tell them that this was the world’s smallest restaurant and somehow Hann took that to mean that I did not want to eat there and it took me a minute to figure out that she thought I was somehow not happy to eat there. I didn't even know we were headed there! I have to assure her an unreasonable amount of times that I am happy to eat here. She eventually relents and we each get to try a banh mi. 

There is no room to sit at this stall, so we stand on the sidewalk eating our sandwiches. In search of a bathroom, we head to a bar to grab a beer. Hann does not drink, so we buy her water and try to get to know her a little. There is another customer in the bar who is visiting from Texas. We chat with him for a while- he turns out to be a dick, however, while others are chatting with him and comparing notes for what we have done since we arrived in town, he pulls out his phone and shows them something that surprises me...he shows video of Train Street- this morning! So, after we were told there were no trains running this week, this guy saw the train today?! As we walk between stops with Hann, I notice she spends a lot of time on her phone. I can’t tell if she is texting friends or trying to google banh mi shops near me that are open. We arrive at another stop that too turns out to be closed for the Tet holiday. It is a little bit disappointing that she seems blindsided by all of the places closed for the holiday. We agree to call it a night and she walks us back to the hotel. We head up to the rooftop bar to have some beer and discuss tomorrow.

Monday February 16

Out of convenience we breakfast at the hotel. In an effort to catch the flower market before it wraps up, we decide to try our hand at Grab, which is the local version of Uber. We knew Grab was the thing here and as such some downloaded the app before getting here. What I/we did not realize is that there were several more steps to installing the Grab app than just getting the app- like you had to put in your payment info etc. After several minutes we abort and head to the front desk to ask them to call us a taxi. The taxi arrives within seconds. We show the driver our notebook and we are off and running to the Quang Ba flower market. The GPS says we have arrived, but with the complete absence of flowers, before I get out of the car I feel we need to do some quick research. The driver starts speaking to me, but gets the ‘give me a second, finger’ while I fire up the GT. He leans in and speaks into my phone- “what is the address you are looking for?" We furiously try to locate a number, though honestly, I thought the flower market was more of an area than a specific address. Somehow we find a street address and he plugs it into his GPS and we are still a while away- making me happy that we didn’t get out to walk the rest of the way. Several minutes later we are being dropped at the actual flower market. We had heard that the market is most active between 2:00-5:00am, but at close to 8:00am, many of the vendors have sold out and packed up or are in the process of tearing down. Enough are still selling their wears that we get a sense of what we came to see. That we are not in the market for flowers, it is more of a curiosity/something to do that many tourists probably don’t see. We split up and Bob and I walk around the area of the entrance, while El and Lisa venture further afield towards the far end of the market and work their way back. Based on their photos, they had the better experience, but frankly, I am glad they did as they were more excited to see the market than we were.

Once we regroup we agree that we are all ready to move on having gotten what we came for. Now, by now the Grab app is working, so we decide to try our hand at that for the way back. El and I have different methods of researching and I have to give her kudos for this. Remember when we were told that the Train Street trains were canceled this week? Then we met a guy who said he was at Train Street yesterday? Well, El set off to figure out what was what. She was able to figure out which train lines actually roll through Train Street. Then, she checked the live schedules to see if they were actually running this week. And, lo and behold she learned that while one of the three lines is canceled for the week, the other two are operating as normal. So, based on the timing and schedule we Grab to Train Street. We exit the car with no plan. As we stand on the sidewalk trying to get our bearings we are approached by a personable young woman wanting to know if we are looking for coffee. We are not tied to experiencing Train Street from any one spot, so her offer is as good as any. We get set up and order our coffee (a coconut coffee for me) and get ready with practice runs to capture the train with the one chance we get. As we sit, sipping our coffee all of a sudden the mood starts to change. An official arrives and manually slides the signal gate to prevent cars from crossing the tracks. With the train not here yet, he slides the gate open just enough to allow a few motorbikes through. We are prepared as I am in charge of selfie shots, Lisa video, Bob and El, photos. Hopefully something will come out. The train shows on schedule and rolls through at a pace much slower than I expected, but it’s a good pace. The whole thing lasts less than two minutes and is gone as fast as it came. We finish up our coffee and head off to find a knitting shop. 

Remember, El and Lisa had an airport security issue in India where their needles got confiscated, necessitating the prioritizing of finding a knitting shop for replacements in case time allows for knitting while relaxing here. A quick Google search tells us that the shop is open today and we set off on foot to find it. El is the navigator and we find ourselves walking through a maze of alleyways and hallways hoping not to lose connection to our map. So many times we question if we are walking in the right direction and every time we see something that says, yeah, I can see one of these stalls being a knitting shop, we will equally see something that gives us reason for pause to say check that map again and make sure we are going in the right direction. We know the name of the shop and around a corner, sure enough, the medallion reads MyLi knitting shop! We found it! The door is open and a man unloading a scooter is standing in front. We have no indication if he is connected to the shop. We peek in the open door but there is no movement inside. The man speaks to us using a lot of hand gestures, but not in an angry way. We pull out the GT and he speaks into it. Basically, “my daughter is not working today, but since I am here delivering some items, I will help you out” El and Lisa go in to explore while Bob and I wait outside trying to figure out what is in the area that we can head to next. The closest item on the list is the bun cha shop that Anthony Bourdain and Barack Obama ate at in 2016. At this point my feet are getting sore, but we press on to see the place that I have wanted to visit since I first saw the episode. It takes about 30 minutes and we arrive to find the all too familiar sight of a drawn metal door with a white sign that reads “closed for Tet. Reopening February 22”- the day after we leave. Dejected, but resigned to the fact that I will not eat in the footsteps of my travel hero in Hanoi. We saw an Aha Cafe around the corner and headed there. They have beer so we rest our feet while planning our next stop. We decide to walk back towards the hotel, but will stop if we see something on the way. More and more shops are closing early, so we are unsure what our options are going to be. Once we are in the area of the hotel we spot a banh mi shop that is open. We sit and order four sandwiches with four beers. We spend a while here, at some point getting the feeling that they may want to close up for the day, but are just too polite to tell us to settle up and go. We pay and head back to the hotel. As we walk we remark that the city is getting quieter and quieter as the day goes on. We don’t expect the bar at the hotel is open, but hopefully we can sit on the roof, journaling and chatting for the afternoon. We have reservations tonight at 10:30 at a rooftop lounge in the Old Quarter. Our hotel has some sort of private party planned for this evening, so the bar will be closed all day. We sit and each do our thing until we return to our rooms for a nap, since we know we will not last until midnight if we don’t. We are old. The plan is to meet in the lobby and try to find some food before getting to the skybar. We set off well rested and keep our eyes peeled for a food place. As we get closer to the area of the bar, we agree to actually find the hotel and then find the food. The hotel is easy to find and we make one trip around the block and grab four seats at the closest one. The place is pretty crowded, taking advantage of the holiday traffic, spilling not only onto the sidewalk, but also across the street as well. We sit and the waitress comes over in a matter of moments. We look at the menu, order two pho, two banh mi, and four beers. The beers and the pho come out immediately. The waitress speaks into her GT and shows me that what I ordered (banh mi) is only bread and asks if I want to order something else. I guess banh mi actually means bread, but is also the name of the sandwich we like with the skewered meat and veggies. Bob and I agree to an order of grilled beef skewers- where they bring you a mini-grill and a few skewers of raw meat that you grill to your liking. El and Lisa start eating their pho. I soak in the surroundings waiting for my food to arrive. All of a sudden there is a commotion behind me. Someone starts yelling through a loudspeaker, which isn’t immediately concerning as it is New Years Eve and maybe they are just wishing everyone well…except they weren’t. 

The tone is anger and with all of the subtlety of a drug bust, suddenly several police officers are approaching the tables individually, barking orders in Vietnamese and motioning everybody to get up. We are keeping our eyes on other tables to see if they are acting in a compliant way. We are not wanting confrontation, but a bit confused by what is actually transpiring. We stand and step to the side to witness as bystanders. As we are settling into our spot, we see all of the restaurant staff furiously breaking down the entire place. One person collecting up all of the 12” plastic stools, a couple tending only to the tables, with still others clearing the miscellaneous things that had to be handled separately. Eventually, the police have moved on and we are stood on the sidewalk, two of us with soup while the other two held the four beers between us- surrounded by empty sidewalks littered with the remnants of what was a bustling restaurant just minutes earlier. El eats what soup she wants and I help her finish it. The fact is though that we do have a reservation in about 15 minutes, so we finish up and try to remember what our server looked like to square up the bill we owe for the food/beer that was delivered. We find her and as I am fumbling through my wallet for payment, El and Lisa ask her about what just happened. She says that the police do not like the restaurant operating on the sidewalk and sometimes they come by and sweep the street. It's harassment and I wish they didn't do it the night of Tet. It’s really “shit” she tells us. We agree. We hand in our soup bowls and beer cans and press on around the block to the Triant Hotel. 

They have our reservation and we take the elevator to the 13th floor. Instructed to walk up an additional two flights of stairs to the actual skybar. When El was looking for a rooftop bar for us, she found what could be the tallest skybar in the city. At 15 floors we are looking down on many of them. So the New Years Eve package includes a platter of meat and cheeses, a platter of fresh fruit, one bottle of champagne and one bottle of wine. The reservation is for 10:30 to 12:30 and the weather is nice. Not crystal clear but not raining or humid either. We are only a couple of blocks from Hoan Kiem Lake which is supposed to be the epicenter of the fireworks display in Hanoi. There is a rather loud (for our tastes) DJ spinning tunes a floor below, but it is certainly thumping us pretty good.The place fills up as we enjoy our drinks and food. At some point the waitress comes around and instructs us to write a New Years wish on a Post-it note. Then, about 10 minutes later she comes around again, but this time with a bunch of helium balloons. Everyone affixes their adhesive strip to the side of one of the balloons and she moves on to the next table. As expected about two minutes before the strike of midnight the atmosphere starts buzzing with anticipation. Everyone is on their feet trying to get their best position then the DJ fades out the music and fades in a countdown, 10...9...8...3...2...1 Chuc Mung Nam Moi. 

Friends toast, couples kiss, balloons float our wishes skyward. The music fades in and everyone parties and cheers for the next fifteen minutes as the fireworks deliver over Hoan Kiem Lake. So much so that the amount of gunpowder smoke begins to obscure the crispness of the flashes in the sky. They don’t care, everyone is thrilled to be here and we are no exception. I do get bored with fireworks very quickly, so after our obligatory photos, I head back to our table to view the festivities below from the other side of the bar. One young Vietnamese girl stops to see if I am alright because I am sitting down during the fireworks. I assure her that I am fine and I do not wish for her to miss any of the fireworks on my account and I will chat with her after the display. After the last official explosion has graced the sky, I make my way over to her and toast a happy New Year to her. Within a couple of minutes, the DJ has wrapped up his gig and breaks down his gear and people start exiting in droves. We take their cue and retreat ourselves. The streets are filled with revelers either getting home or continuing their parties in the street. We stop for a couple of pics, but generally our evening is done and we retire to the room. It’s about 1:30am.

Tuesday February 17

Today is New Year's Day and we expect more stuff to be closed than even yesterday. However, with the amount we were told would be closed on New Years Eve, I am confident we won’t have to scout out a 24hour convenience store to load up on potato chips and candy bars in the absence of other options. Hey, worst comes to absolute worst, we could probably find a high end hotel (Hyatt, Hilton, Sheraton that surely have a restaurant...hopefully it won’t come to that). Speaking of hotel food, we have all been pleasantly surprised at the quality and variety of the breakfast at our hotel. No continental breakfast here. We are talking omelet and pho stations, and a good selection of fresh fruits and vegetables, and even an array of cooked things like curried noodles, stir fried veggies and of course, excellent coffee and teas. We don’t mind starting our day here, chatting about yesterday, what we are doing today and events that have ensued in the past 8 hours. While we are confident in the food options today, we are not as confident in the opening of museums and other ticketed sites. We choose the one site that is outdoors and can’t possibly be “closed” could it? Our first stop is Huu Tiep Lake. On December 27, 1972 a B-52 was shot down over the city and the undercarriage and rear landing gear landed in the middle of a neighborhood. The wreckage sits in situ to this day. It’s about 4km from the hotel to the lake. Today Lisa is tasked with navigation. It’s funny that Lisa is competent at everything in life, but somehow has a tremendous amount of self-doubt when it comes to navigating maps, subways, or bus routes. Since we don’t have any appointments today, she takes the reins and we head off to find the lake. A couple of km into the walk we come upon a rather large complex with a heavy police presence (in a guard station way, not a criminal activity way). I survey the buildings I can see while El and Lisa use the phone to figure out where we are. We all arrive at the same conclusion...this is the Ho Chi Minh (HCM) Mausoleum. With all of the people we see inside, it looks open! We pivot our plan, pausing the B-52 bomber and moving to find the entrance. By the end of the visit, it all made sense, but it wasn’t so obvious when I wasn’t prepared with my GT. Near the entrance we (mostly Lisa, since she has the shortest skirt) are approached by industrious entrepreneurs offering slip on pants that would qualify as “modest attire” deemed acceptable by the staff of the mausoleum. El knows better and works with Lisa to fashion Lisa’s silk scarf to a makeshift skirt that also passes the modesty scale. There are a lot of people here, but the line moves very fast, the security is not messing around. Put everything (wallet keys, phone) in your bag. Send bag through scanner, get wanded, X-ray tech hands me my backpack and two canvas bags, one red, one blue. I do not know what I am supposed to do with it but just keep following the staff’s hands gently guiding me where I need to go. In the interest of brevity, basically the red bag was for my camera and the blue bag was for my backpack. You check the blue bag (except my backpack did not fit, so I had to check my bag elsewhere). Pack checked, you take the camera in the red bag with you. Then you walk towards the entrance of the mausoleum, following the signs for camera check. No photos are allowed inside. You follow the path and military staff posted at every turn. You are guided in silence into a refrigerated room. It is very dark, save one light gently illuminating the ghostly figure of ‘Uncle Ho’. No stopping, no photos, just reverent, respectful acknowledgement to a man who means so much to the history of this country. For us it was a tourist stop, but for the Vietnamese paying respects is kind of a big deal. This site gets 1.5 million visitors a year...and they aren’t all tourists! As soon as you are through the mausoleum (it only takes about three minutes) you get your checked camera back, now making the choice to exit or explore the rest of the compound. So far the visit has been free, but if you continue, you need to pay 40,000₫. We pay our fare and visit the exhibits that include a lot of photos with historical explanations, a garage with some of the cars HCM used and eventually his stilt house that showed just how modestly this beloved leader lived. We collectively agree that we do not need to go to the HCM museum, opting instead to press on with one quick pitstop at the one pillar pagoda- which is just what it sounds like, a buddhist pagoda built on top of a single pillar. You take steps up to the shrine, say your prayers, leave your offering, or in our case, just take a photo or two) before descending back to the path towards exit. As we make our way towards the exit, we realize that we just completed a giant loop throughout the complex and find ourselves on the backside of the bag check station. We collect our belongings and find our way back to the street to continue to the B-52 wreckage. The GPS starts taking us through some very narrow alleys that frequently find most people asking “are we really on the right route?” But, as with most travel experiences...what’s the worst that could happen? You wind up lost in a labyrinth and it just takes a little longer to right yourself...and you probably saw a part of the city that most others miss. No matter, the GPS really does lead us this way and we keep looking to Lisa for confirmation. And just when you think we are going to need to backtrack, the alley opens up to a side street with a small lake punctuated by the remains of a B-52! We found it (more accurately Lisa’s navigation skills got us where we needed to go), perfect! There’s not much once you see the wreck. The “lake” is exactly one square block and you can easily see the 100 yards to the other side. 

We pull out the guidebooks and notes to do a quick read up on where we are standing. The text mentions a plaque that we haven’t seen, so we walk the perimeter of the lake finding it on the far corner. It does not offer any more information than what we have read. We don’t need more time here, but agree that this would be a good time for a beer stop. Most of this area is residential and almost nothing is open. Heading back towards the mausoleum through the maze is a little strange as many private homes are on the ground level and when doors are open, it is like you are looking through a window into the lives of families enjoying their holiday meals- only there is no glass. I try not to stare and just keep moving along. Once we make it through the maze back to the mausoleum, we look for a spot or beer. Luckily, it is about 200 feet to the closest place that fits. We relax with our beer, looking at the guidebook for other things that might be in the area that we can do because it is far enough that I have no expectation of getting back here again. A couple of minutes later we set our sights on Tran Quoc Pagoda. It is located in the bay and about a 25 minute walk. Unfortunately there are more direct paths that the GPS keeps trying to steer us to, but that we can’t take as they go through the HCM compound that is closed by military guard. So, we have to walk around. My feet are really aching and I float the concept of finding a bus back to the hotel. Everyone is down with that plan. We make it to the pagoda, but the amount of people here is overwhelming. Today being New Years is the day that everyone (seemingly) dresses in their best clothes and goes to the pagoda to make their New Year wishes and make prayers for the upcoming year. The crush of humanity as we get closer to the pagoda is more than I care to deal with. El will take the camera and if it is something that I need to see, she will let me know and I will decide if I need to pivot. Meanwhile there is a bus stop nearby and I opt to take a seat, watch bags, and map out getting back to the hotel via bus. Turns out, there is a free bus that stops here and goes within two blocks of the hotel! It is unclear if the bus is free because of the holiday or if it is a free circulator. We are just happy to not have to walk it and the price is an added bonus. As the group gets back they agree it was too crowded to get meaningful pictures, and that they didn’t feel right letting their tourism wants to interfere with the mission of the faithful’s needs. I’d like to think I would have had the same thought had I approached the building. Nonetheless, we regroup at the bus stop and wait for the bus. It takes about 20 minutes. For the insane amount of traffic around here, I'm consistently surprised how quickly the traffic moves. Once we get on the bus it’s about 25 minutes to the area of the hotel. The bus only has six people other than us on it. At some point the conductor addresses my group and I get audibly and visually shushed. Considering I didn’t feel loud, but not wanting to get the group ejected from the bus by creating an incident, I sheepishly comply. On the way we agree to try to grab some food before getting to the hotel. The consensus is to go back to the spot we were at yesterday for the banh mi. I am deciding that banh mi is my favorite of the Vietnamese dishes so far. Skewered meat grilled, on a baguette topped with shredded veggies (cilantro/cucumbers etc). The only mild criticism for me is that one skewer of meat is not much more than two good bites, so you get an 8” sub roll with a little meat and a bit of veggies. El doesn’t eat cilantro so it’s even more strange of a sandwich as the veggies are already mixed, so you get with or without, you cannot skip just one ingredient. We find our way to the place which is decidedly more popular today than yesterday when we were the only ones here for much of the time. We order four beer and four banh mi. A brief pause in her voice tells me that the waitress is going to lay some disappointment on us. “We are out of bread for banh mi, we only have skewers". We take four and they arrive in short order. As expected they are consumed in the matter of seconds. We arrange to get an order of french fries from the spot next door and order more beer...though we are told they are now sold out of beer (I am guessing deliveries are suspended for many places?) We finish our food and drink and head back to the hotel. On the way in we talk to the desk to see if we can sit at the rooftop bar even if they are closed. The issue is that since the bar is closed all day today, the entrance door is locked. We retreat to our rooms and nap for a while before heading out for the evening. We stroll through the Old Quarter, eyes out for a place to eat. In the absence of voiced opinions, I push for a banh mi place. As we survey the area we are in, we spy a beer place with a sidewalk banh mi stand in front of it. Perfect. We go in and ask if we can get banh mi to sit and drink beer. He says yes and we take seats. Ordering beer, snacks, and Bob and I get us the sandwiches. We stay here all evening and after several beers, call it a night. We did pretty great today, for a day that we fully expected everything would be closed. With no plans for tomorrow, we make our breakfast plans and retire. 

Wednesday February 18

I get up earlier than I expected, but even though we are meeting at 8:00 for breakfast, I shower and head downstairs to journal while I wait for the others. Everyone meets at 8:00 and we do our routine discussion over our eggs. Tomorrow we have to meet our boat tour at the Opera House at 8:00am and we agree though we have passed the Opera House a couple of times that it might be a good idea to do a dry run from the hotel to the Opera House today just so we know what to expect tomorrow. With stopwatches running we make the 5m38s trek to the front steps. Our first real stop today is Cafe Giang. This is the cafe that invented the ultrapopular “egg coffee" that you can get almost anywhere in this town. El has had one, but none of the rest of us has. It is really not too far and we find it with ease, sadly, they are closed. Fortunately, the sign on the door says they will reopen today, but unfortunately they don't tell us what time. We move on but will circle back later in the trip, if not today. We move on to St Joseph’s Cathedral.

We all start to point out things we recognize from past days as the city is starting to “come together” When you continue to explore a city taking different directions each day, until eventually, you start to recognize where you are based on previous days' exploration. Sadly, the cathedral too is closed for Tet and the iron gates surrounding it are closed for the week. While we move on from the church, El chooses our next stop, the Women’s Museum. It’s not crazy far, and we cannot get a sense if it is open today or not. While El points out that we are seeing a lot more open today than yesterday, there is still a considerable amount of closure that may or may not change by the time we leave. Bob and I hang in an empty cafe seating area for the ladies to return. We walk out of the museum with the game plan to head back to Cafe Giang by bus. As we step onto the sidewalk, like a chariot waiting, we arrive at the bus stop at the same moment as the bus and we jump on. The ride is supposed to be about 15 minutes, but about 10 minutes into it, we realize we got on in the wrong direction! By the time we realize it we are in a completely new section of the city for us. We learn that the buses are all free for the week because of Tet. One of the bus patrons tells that and I wish him a happy new year in Vietnamese and before I know it the conductor sidles up to me, discreetly holds her phone for me to see, shows me a GT on her phone that read “please keep your voice to a quiet level.” Hmmm, shushed twice in as many days. We take the bus back in the right direction all following along as the route appears way more on track than previously. After all that, we arrive at Cafe Giang only to learn that they have not yet reopened even though the sign on the door says they will reopen today. We pivot to Dinh Cafe which is a couple minutes away. They too are closed, reopening on Friday. We punt and just choose a random coffee shop in the vicinity. It’s fine, nothing remarkable, but gives us a chance to journal, discuss lunch, and post lunch plans. Our next stop is lunch at a restaurant famous for its fish recipe. Evidently, there is only one item on the menu. They have been doing it for 70 years. And it is supposed to be wonderful. Sadly, they are closed for Tet. We press on towards “beer street” with the option to stop if anyone sees a place that looks workable. 

We walk a while and are stopped by a hawker trying to drum up business for his shop. It is quite crowded which is always a good sign. We take our seats and are presented a visual menu with no prices, which is always a bad sign. We are too deep into it now, point, and hope for the best. The food comes out in reasonable time- each having ordered something different. I got duck with pepper sauce. It arrives with a thick brown sauce, sliced onions, and several pieces of chopped duck. A side of rice is served. The issue, I could tell as soon as it arrived, was the hacked poultry. It’s not like it was deboned! So when you take a piece of meat you have to be extra careful and slow to avoid chomping down on a shard of bone, risking swallowing or cutting your mouth on the bits. All in all it makes for an extremely slow process trying to get enough meat to satisfy hunger without dripping the sauce on your shirt all while sitting 12” off the ground on a chair made for a toddler. We each do the best we can (some of the food served had no bones). As I call for the check, just for fun I ask each of us to guess how much the bill is going to be. I fully expect it will be a lot more than even the highest guess. 240,000 says one. 280,000 says another. A third guess is wildly high at 400,000. I go even higher, guessing a half million dong. Thinking I don’t want to win this one, but I just might. The woman in charge comes over, grabs our order paper and scribbles some numbers beside each item ordered- the grand total...1.2 million dong! More than double our highest guess! Can’t say I’m surprised we ended up with about a $50 lunch. Fuck it, we’re on vacation. After the expensive lunch, we need (another) beer and head to Beer Street. Most of the places are closed- though I don’t think for Tet, more just not open for the day yet. As we walk down the two block section called Beer Street, seeing the places that are open, I can’t help but feel that I am in the most touristy feeling area of the Old Quarter. It feels like where the frat boys on spring break spend their entire vacation. I wasn't interested in this vibe when I was a college kid, I certainly don’t need it now. We need a pee stop though, so we spy a quiet sports bar showing Olympic coverage on multiple screens. We order beer- just so we qualify to use the bathroom. We stay for the duration of just the one, settle up and move on to the place from last night. The beer was decent and the owner was personable. Banh mi was available out front and it was small and quiet. It was everything we wanted. El and I work to figure out how to get there and in a few minutes we are sitting down to our last stop for the night. The owner is off tonight and the music selection blows, but everything else is the same and we are good to hang here for a couple of rounds. It’s not too late, but we do have to pack to check out in the morning so we don’t make it a late night. At about 7:30 we have worn ourselves out for the day. El and Lisa choose to grab a pedicab back to the hotel, while Bob and I walk it. We missed a lot due to Tet closures today, though we explored much of the Old Quarter to the point that we are really starting to recognize the streets better than we have in recent days. We are sleeping by 9:00.

Thursday February 19

We all meet in the restaurant, bags packed, ready to check out. Today is our day to go to HaLong Bay for an overnight excursion. We have to be at the Opera House by 8:00. It only takes a few minutes and we find ourselves among the sea of other tourists who are all waiting to rendezvous with buses and shuttles. Eventually, our bus arrives and we set off on the 2.5 hour ride to meet with our boat. Even though we are here on the 2 day/1 night package, the overnight program is run with the same efficiency as a weeklong cruise ship with thousands. We are dropped at the boat launch and told to wait until we are called. Eventually our cruise director comes to introduce himself and give us some insight into what we should expect. His name tag reads “Elvis Hoang.” Eventually the shuttle boat arrives to take us to the ship. We head directly to the dining room for lunch. The offerings are fine. As has been the case in recent days I find myself exhausted and in need of a nap. One of the activities offered is kayaking. Anyone who wants to kayak meets at the back of the boat to get suited up and set off. I have no interest in kayaking, so I retire to the room and sit on the balcony, journaling and enjoying a beer. Our cabin is on the bottom deck of the boat, which allows for the kayakers to paddle up alongside me for a photo op.

The other aspect of boat culture here is the enterprising locals who fill a rowboat up with an array of sundries and then pull up next to the ship offering their goods to anyone who makes eye contact. As I sit quietly journaling, I am somewhat startled by a voice softly speaking “want some?” I know I am alone on the balcony and I know El is off kayaking, for a moment I am confused, but as I turn my head to investigate, I am surprised at how stealthily she was able to row the boat right up next to me without me noticing until her announcement of “want some?” I look into the boat to see chips, candy, beer, cigarettes…basically, a floating convenience store offering anything she could sell to a shipbound traveller locked into ship prices. I will play along, but since I already have a beer, I am only on the market for a small bag of potato chips. I look over the offerings and choose a bag. She hands it up to me and flashes three fingers saying “three”. I am a little surprised as I am fumbling for my wallet and trying to do the math in my head, 3000₫ is, to my mind, about 15 cents. A bargain at twice the price, I am thinking. Looking into the wallet, I do have the small bills and pull out 3000, plus a 1000 tip for her troubles. Once she realizes what I am trying to hand her, she recoils and clarifies, “three…hundred thousand” which turns my 8oz bag of chips from a 15 cent bargain, to a $15 luxury! A little offended by the ridiculousness of her counteroffer, I respectfully decline- I am not that hungry! As she realizes I am a non-customer at this point, she spots a fellow ship goer on one of the upper decks and makes her pitch to them. He orders a couple of beers and she sets them into a fishing net on a pole and hoists them up to the customer. He puts his (600,000₫) into the basket and proceeds to enjoy his $30 worth of beer. Not sure if he can’t do math or if he is made of the stuff, but I think even the ship's prices may be cheaper than that! Nonetheless, interesting to see this slice of local entrepreneurship in action. 

After my beer, I head in for a nap, waiting for El to return from kayaking just in time for happy hour on the deck. Basically all drinks are 2 for 1. The four of us regroup at the bar and enjoy the beginning of our evening in the bay. As many of the passengers make it up for the happy hour, our director, Elvis, is setting up a table in the bar area. As the hour of happy lapses, he announces a “cooking” demonstration for anyone interested. We, along with about 15 others are indeed interested and gather around the table to watch him show us how to make fresh spring rolls. I may have mentioned that most of the spring rolls we have seen are deep fried, which usually renders them oil-logged and not always appetizing. But…these are fresh with no deep frying involved. I am intrigued. The demonstration consists of a tray with nine containers, each with a prepared ingredient (cucumber, pineapple, carrot, pepper, cilantro, basil, chicken, shrimp, egg). He points out all of the ingredients, tells us we can use as many or as few as you want. Then he pulls a piece of rice crepe from a package, sets it on a moist towel, grabs some rice noodles, and uses ingredients he wants, rolls it up, and voila, a fresh spring roll ready for dipping and eating. We are all offered the opportunity to roll our own. Mine has cucumber, carrots and shrimp. He pours each of us novice chefs a dipping bowl with a sweet and sour sauce to complete the experience. After we have all made and consumed our own amuse bouche’s we head to dinner. 

The food is certainly edible, nothing too spectacular, but no disasters either. After dinner everyone goes their own way and I choose to go sit on our balcony to journal and take in the sights and sounds of a still bay at night. The bay is pretty big, and for the most part, even though there are several other boats in the area, you don’t feel like we are crowded. As I look through the dark, I can see the lights of other boats. Beacons in an otherwise lightless nightscape. We sit on the balcony enjoying our beer and journaling/knitting. Eventually, one of the boats near us fires up their karaoke night and in an otherwise silent bay, save the soft lapping of water hitting our boat just below my feet, the offkey sounds of Backstreet’s Back pierces the black and reminds me I am late for bed. We head to bed early to get an early start in the morning. 

Friday February 20 

El and I get up at 5:30 in hopes of catching a sunrise on the top deck of the boat. We go up to the top deck and we are the only ones here. The boat has been anchored here all night and the water is completely still. We are surrounded by about 15 boats of varying size, but all doing similar to what we are...hanging in HaLong Bay. Our boat has about 100 passengers, but some boats can fit many more, while others are smaller than ours. We are not sure what the differences are in pricing or offerings on those other boats, but expect most everyone is having a similar experience. The eastward sky begins to take on an orange hue and over the next few minutes the rock formations that jut from the water begin to be backlit while reflections are mirrored in the still water. It is just El and I taking our photos and enjoying a quiet moment away from the chaos we have been enjoying for the past few days in Hanoi. At 6:00am all passengers are invited to the deck to participate in a tai chi session. I have never done more than observe a tai chi session, so I am happy to go see what it is all about. I am certain they are not going to have a novice doing anything that will maim them for the rest of the trip. About ten of us show up and Elvis leads the demonstration. He is doing a standard routine and we are all trying to follow along at our own pace. He starts off simple with just breathing and stretching each part of your body. The demo lasts about 30 minutes and I didn’t pull any muscles. While I didn’t exactly work up a sweat, I can see the benefits of the mind/body connection. We head to a morning snack (coffee and pastries and fruit salad) and get ready for our shore excursion. We meet in the reception area to catch our shuttle boat to Cat Ba Island. While there are several thousand people living on this island, the part we go to is uninhabited. Today we are heading to a cave. We get off the boat and catch a shuttle bus that takes us to the cave entrance. On the ride, we get some information about the island's history and he talks a little about animals and flora we might see on the trip. There are only about 20 of us on this excursion, so we can all move at a good pace with Elvis as our leader. When I heard the word “cave” I did get a little anxious. I know some cave pathways can be extremely narrow and with the strain my feet have been under this week from all of the walking, no amount of tai chi was going to erase that. He told us that the excursion was about 170 steps and not good for people with mobility issues. It gave me pause, but I am not ready to concede that I have mobility issues yet. The walk up to the cave was worse for those in the group with a fear of heights than it was for me. There were a couple of spots where they made sure you didn't bump your head by ducking or walking sideways, but nothing crazy like crawling on your belly. The caves are well lit and being only about 20 minutes to get through the trek, it was a good one for the beginners like me. 

Bus back to the boat, boat back to the ship, where we are given time to pack our bags and set them outside of the door to be loaded onto the shuttle boat while we are eating brunch. During brunch is also the time you settle up your bar bill that is inevitably way more than you realize it will be because you don’t spend any cash on the boat. I settle up and we sit on the deck. In a schedule timed down to the minute, we were told to get to the shuttle boat and are whisked back to the mainland. Basically, the cruise ships, while not ocean cruise size (these only have four floors) they are too big to bring into the piers every day to drop off and pick up the new passengers. So, they use the shuttle boat to do the small job while the crew stays on board to prepare for the next set of passengers set to arrive in about an hour. We are picked up by the van to take us back to the Opera House. The ride back, same, uneventful, and about 2.5 hours. I am able to nap for most of it. We get back to Opera House around 2:00pm. We know our first stop is to check back into the hotel before heading out for the night. We have the water puppet theater and a food walking tour tonight. El and I have a few minutes before we need to meet Lisa and Bob. We drop our bags and head around the block- first to see if the bar around the corner offering bia hoi is open (it is not) and try to locate an ATM I saw on our drive back into town. The first bank’s ATM is not working, but the second one is and we take what is hopefully the last of our cash withdrawals, then make our way back to the lobby to meet Bob and Lisa. Before the trip I emailed the water puppet theater to see about getting tickets. There were a couple of exchanges, but eventually, we got confirmation that four tickets were being held in my name and that I would have to collect them and pay cash before the performance. Just to be safe we head to the theater. It is a chaotic scene in the lobby. Families with strollers, kids running, kids screaming, kids running and screaming. People with tickets, people needing tickets, and I’m pretty sure, a few that just have no idea what they are doing here. I see an usher and ask her if I am supposed to go to the ticket window. She asks to see my confirmation, as I have purchased through a third party vendor and she will have to tell me where I need to go to get those tickets. I show her my email confirmation, and she looks in amazement, saying she has never seen tickets purchased directly through the theater box office, but confirms yes, we should be able to get our tickets at the window. I stand in line behind several people whose transaction takes way longer than mine. The sign clearly says every performance today is sold out except 9:15pm. So the amount of people asking if there are tickets available for the 6pm show needs a smack. I finally make it to the front and my name is already penciled in on the seating chart! I did it! I pay and get our tickets and confirm when to arrive before heading as a group to find a beer for the next hour. We spy a sit down place and order four beers. At 25,000₫ it was a bargain. So much so we order four more before heading to the theater. We head in and find our seats. The show starts at 4:10. An announcement comes on and explains in English, French and Vietnamese that these puppet shows came from the farmers working in rice fields, rivers, and lakes. In addition to the puppeteers the thing to see is the live band who sit above the performance playing traditional instruments and creating the atmosphere for the play. The lights dim and the show begins. For the next 50 minutes we are treated to one of the most clever performances we have seen. Even though the language is not something we understand, it is funny to see how much we do understand including the mythological story we have heard earlier in the week about the turtle that gave a sword to the warrior who was able to defeat the opponents and then returned to the lake and gave the sword back to the turtle. I understand that there are several stories that can be performed, but that this is the most famous one and is the one most likely to be performed. 50 minutes was the perfect length of time for us. 

a 1 minute clip of the water puppet theater in action. toward the end you can see some of the musicians performing live

After the show we head off to meet Tony for our walking food tour. The meeting spot is at St. Joseph’s Cathedral. We were there a couple of days ago, so we know where it is, but we also remember that it was closed, so we don’t expect it to be open today either. Nonetheless, we make our way there and wait for our tour. As we arrive, I see what looks like lights going on and off inside, like there is activity. As we get even closer, the side gate that was locked the last time is open now. I hang back in the plaza while El, Lisa, and Bob try to get inside. El and Lisa glide through, while Bob gets the “you shall not pass” determination from the security person. We all regroup in the plaza and eventually meet up with Tony. There are a couple of others on the tour and we make our way through 10 items. The tour was supposed to run three hours, but after about four hours, we find ourselves winding down with a scoop of strawberry ice cream on top of fresh chunks of mango. His company is called Tony Eats Hanoi and I got the recommendation from some bloggers I was researching. It was quite worthwhile! I guess the old adage, you get what you pay for applies here. He was personable, professional, and knew his stuff. He found great stops for us and much of it was foods that we hadn’t even had on this trip! I am actually glad we took this tour closer to the end as it filled some gaps in the list of foods we wanted to try while we were here. Tony had done a good job picking his stops and though it didn’t seem that he necessarily prebooked our tables, I got the sense that these were regular stops for him as when we showed up Tony and the staff would work together to quickly rustle up the tables and chairs while our food was being prepared. The stops were a snack of sticky rice with coconut and mung bean served with a glass of sweet lime tea. Don't recall if it was green tea with lime or if it was limes steeped with sugar added. Either way it was a refreshing limeade to get started. The rice was a bit dry, but I could see it being better with a dipping sauce. Next stop was a revelation for me. Many food spots in this city, as I have explained, are small cooking areas that spread out onto the sidewalk. When we were watching Anthony Bourdain he mentioned the world that goes on off the street and to try to find yourself in the world of hidden gems that go on in the courtyards that are out of sight, but once you find them can offer some of the best literal off the beaten path experiences. This stop was one of them. In this city there is virtually no space between many buildings, however there are many narrow passageways that when you look down them, you can only see about 40’ down the corridor before the alley turns and obscures your view beyond. That is, unless you know what you are looking for. We follow Tony down one of these hallways and after a series of twists and turns the hall opens into a courtyard with a similar setup to many of the food stalls we see out on the sidewalks- except I guess that they have less likelihood of getting swept by the police! The dish was called banh da tron and it kind of reminded me of a pho without the broth. The noodles were thicker and topped with peanuts, sliced beef and vegetables like bean sprouts and lemongrass. By this stop Tony is already looking out for my need for a higher chair than most. With the seats at about 12” tall, it takes a toll on my knees just to sit down and get up. But, 18” is much easier for me to navigate. Tony rustles up two additional small chairs which is greatly appreciated. At some of the stops he is actually able to score a regular size chair which makes me feel like the king of the kids table. Once we finish, we head to a bun cha spot. I already know this is not my favorite food, but I don’t decline. I prefer the sour component to the fish sauce forward broth that I have had elsewhere. Tony does a great job at detailing the ingredients and spends a lot of time talking about yin and yang and how it relates to much of Vietnamese cuisine. Sweet and sour. Bold and subtle. Spicy and fresh. During this stop, he demonstrates with El how to construct the perfect bite of soup on our spoon. Starting with noodles, then a nugget of fried pork patty, followed by raw garlic in vinegar, then a carrot slice and equal sized slice of green papaya, topped with a hot pepper. Once the bite is built you tip your spoon into the broth and slurp it down. Somehow it worked much better than my other experiences. As you can imagine, it does not take long to start to feel full on these tours. So our next stop is a coffee shop called Hansi. Once again, there is no possible way we would have known about this place had he not taken us here. Well, I take that back, though we did pass the entranceway several times in our Old Quarter exploring. The hallway, if you weren’t following someone who knows, you would think you were heading into someone’s private property. So much so that on our walk we encountered three small dogs restrained by an expandable plastic  barrier to prevent them from jumping out of someone's dining area/living room. It does not prevent them from seeing us and yipping indiscriminately at anyone who gets near them. Once past the dogs, you go up a set of steep cement stairs that are beyond what any code in America would find acceptable and work our way a few more feet into a cafe, a one man operation. We are invited to sit at a table or at bar stools. I take a seat at the bar and over the course of the next half hour, we are treated to a demonstration by one of the most coffee passionate people we have met since Colombia. He shows us everything in the coffee making process from grinding, to blooming, to creating the add ins depending on the cups that were ordered. Most go for the egg coffee, It is after 8:30, so I go for a hot chocolate- salted. Between steps, the barista tells us more about his operation- like where his coffee comes from, how he roasts his beans and his future plans for expansion. He is a very nice guy and at some point I ask, how people find this hidden gem of a place and he tells me, “if you like great coffee, you will find me” Tomorrow, I will find he is right. Once all of the drinks have been crafted and consumed, we press on for some “bar snacks". It is what Hann called “junk food” earlier this week. I did try to impress on her that we generally consider “junk food” to be more like potato chips and Fritos, rather than the more palatable sounding “pub food” like mozzarella sticks and nachos. Tony gets us set up on the sidewalk and leaves to order our samples. He delivers a tray of fried sticks and returns with a tray of beer. The fried sticks are “fish sausage” and the beer is bia hoi. I cautiously try the sausage which is basically a mild fish, ground with spices and deep fried. It is much milder than I expected and the spice is very heavy on the dill, which I like. The beer is very light. Basically it is “fresh beer” that is (what? less fermented”?) it has a lower alcohol content than most beer and is one of the things we should try to sample here, though many of the places that serve it are closed for the holiday, and of those that are open, I don’t know if one place is any better than the next. So far, Tony is steering us right and I trust this is a good example of it and while, fine, I probably don’t need to search out more- the bottled Sai Gon and Han Oi lagers that are served everywhere are quite drinkable. A pack of coconut and rice chips accompanies the beer and sausage- we feel like real Vietnamese hanging on the sidewalk on a Friday night eating our pub food, drinking bia hoi with friends, and people watching. 

The next stop we make is one I haven’t seen that much, not a pho, bun cha, or a banh mi stop, but a stand that does fresh seafood. There are oysters being shucked and roasted in the shell over an open fire, but this place specializes in clam soup. Basically, clams steamed in broth and then served in a bowl where you grab a long toothpick and remove the clam from the shell, sipping on some of the broth if you wish. When we arrived, I think the soup was not ready for serving yet and while we are waiting Tony asks the group if we wanted to try a “local delacacy”. In Vietnam, there is no way I am saying yes without knowing what it is. Lest I get served balut or fermented jellyfish. But when he says “snails” I perk up while others in the group recoil. I saw the snails offered at other stalls grilled (which I have never seen before), but Hann wasn’t stopping for that and I just hoped I would have the opportunity to try them later. Well, later is today! He explains that these snails are sea snails and they are fed eggs to “clean them out” before being cooked. He also explains that unlike French recipes, you should avoid what is left in the shell after the initial meat is extracted, as there is sediment below you don’t want to eat. Once we have eaten all of the snails and most of the clams, it is time for our last stop...dessert. He takes us to another hidden spot that feels more like the back storage room than an eating area, but we make it as comfortable as we can- whilst eating surrounded by broken tables and chairs and stoves and sink basins that just haven’t made it to the scrap metal heap yet. We are each served a plastic cup with fresh mango, a scoop of strawberry ice cream, topped with a dollop of cream. We take our obligatory group photo and say our goodbyes, each getting our last minute recommendations from Tony before settling up and parting our separate ways. The tour is 700,000₫ /650,000₫ with group discount and very much worth it. I guess you sometimes really do get what you pay for. We were planning to stop for another beer at the place from the past couple of nights, but as we walk by, we see the owner is not working tonight and just decide to head back to the rooftop bar at the hotel. We aren’t sure of the hours, so we stop at the front desk who tell us that it is closed, but agrees to unlock the door to let us upstairs. We still have most of the beer we bought a couple of days ago, and we stop at the room to retrieve them from the fridge. As we are pulling out our various projects (knitting, journaling etc.) the bellhop comes back to deliver four beers and four bottles of water. We drink and chat. There’s not much more left to the trip so most of the conversation revolves around the past week and future travel dreams. 

Saturday February 21

We know today could be somewhat of a challenge. Our flight to Dubai leaves tonight at 12:30am, and we have to check out of the hotel this morning. We meet for breakfast without bags. After we eat, we adjourn to pack, splitting into the stuff we have to store at the hotel vs. what we need to walk around with before the shuttle meets us at 8:30 tonight. Regrouping in the lobby we set off to Cafe Giang again. So, this cafe invented the ubiquitous (in this city anyway) egg coffee and we have been trying to sample their concoction all week, but it hasn’t been open so far. If they’re not open today, we will have to miss theirs, having tasted it or had a cup elsewhere up until now. We walk to the cafe and sure enough, they are open! We are seated in the incredibly busy restaurant and get what we came for- four egg coffees. With the speed of an industrial assembly line, four cups are delivered set not on saucers, but in an oval ceramic boat, filled half way with boiling water- presumably to keep your coffee warm while you drink it.

Truth to tell, this is my first cup of egg coffee this week. As I sip, I think about Tony telling us that basically back in the 1940’s, at some point,  there was a shortage of condensed milk which was a popular coffee addition. The owner of this cafe came up with the concept of whipping an egg yolk and sugar into a thick concoction that could be added to the coffee to produce a texture similar enough to condensed milk, but if made properly, would elevate the cup to another level. Like tiramisu in a cup. Everyone in town makes the recipe today, but this was the original. You know how Pat’s and Geno’s are the most well known Philly cheesesteak shops (both claiming to have invented it), but the fact is that by today's standards, neither are the best cheesesteaks in Philly? That’s what this reminds me of. Yes, he invented it, but other places have surpassed it in the ensuing better part of a century. I am glad we got to try it, but wouldn’t have needed another even if I tried it earlier in the week. It is crazy busy here, so we don’t dawdle. It seems that we have timed this pretty well and head directly for the bus stop to get ourselves up to lunch. When planning the trip I searched for the best restaurant in the city and while I got a couple of options, the Michelin rated Chào Bạn is the one I got lunch reservations for today. It won’t take us long to get up there, but we can explore the area of the restaurant before our reservation at noon. We are getting to be champs with the bus and to our surprise, even these city buses are free this week! We get off at the Quang Ba flower market stop (150,000₫ taxi vs. free bus) and walk to find the restaurant a couple blocks away. We arrive much too early for our reservation, so we walk around a little finding a lakeside park at the end of the street. We head in, sitting on a bench or walking around or trying out the public exercise equipment installed at points throughout the park. There’s elliptical machines, stationary bikes, and other simple body movement equipment that you can work up a sweat on...or not. I journal while others explore. Last night I had asked Tony if he knew if Cafe Giang was reopened yet, since we had stopped by a couple of times and it was still closed. He said he wasn’t sure. While I sit on the bench, I receive a message from Tony, telling me that he has called Cafe Giang and reports that they are open regular business hours. I smile, thank him, and report that we have just come from there! Heading off to lunch at the agreed time. We are seated immediately and are treated to the finest meal we have had in this country. As we eat, I am glad we didn’t do this earlier in the week. This felt like everything we had eaten up until now was practice for what we were about to have. It seemed like a great cap to a successful trip. I start with a gin & tonic. Our group photo seems to capture the mood well. I order the three course lunch which is a starter of both fresh and fried spring rolls. I don’t mind spring rolls, but most of the ones we have had this week have been deep fried (like an egg roll) and usually the grease makes the finger food a little on the disappointing side. Well, I don’t know what this place does differently, but even their deep fried ones were (probably) flash fried to keep the grease from soaking too far into the roll. The fresh ones are my preference. The next course was called bun bo bam bo + nam. It was basically a bowl of dry ingredients served with a side of broth that you would dip your dry ingredients into. It was incredibly tasty and once I asked for a side of hot peppers, I was very happy with it. For dessert, I got a slice of banana cake with coconut sprinkle. It has the consistency of bread pudding and is not very sweet, but enjoyable all the same. Everyone seems happy with the pick and agrees it was a nice end to the trip. After lunch we still have about 7 hours until we have to be back at the hotel. We decided to head back to the coffee shop from last night called Hansi. No dogs yipping at us today on the way in, but rather a family sitting and eating lunch as we walk by on our way to the steep stairs. It's quite a strange setup. Our barista is welcoming, remembering us from our visit just 15 hours ago. There are several people here- I mean the place is pretty small, so it doesn’t take too many to make it feel crowded. While I didn’t think to ask others how they did find this place, the owner seemed right, if you love coffee, you will find me. I enjoyed the salted hot chocolate last night, so I ordered another. I could have gone with another egg coffee, but I knew I liked this drink. We sit and enjoy a drink together before the rest of the group heads off to do some last minute souvenir shopping while I sit and journal. While I am waiting for them to return, I talk with some of the other patrons and not only do I see another tour guide has brought their group to this spot for the same treatment as we got last night, but sure enough, our man Tony from last night arrives with today's food tour group! We chat a few minutes, but not too long as he has today’s group to tend to. Once the shoppers return to the cafe we settle up and head back to the hotel, once again to sit on the rooftop bar. We enjoy the serenity of the empty bar, able to order from the bored bartender as needed while we sit at a corner table the same as we have done many times this week. As the sun sets, we get our last views of the city that has treated us well for the past week. The shuttle to the airport arrives on time and we are off to, what turns out to be our next adventure...Dubai. 

Sunday February 22 

$1 USD = 3.6725 AED

Much like our arrival in Hanoi at 5:00am, our overnight, seven hour flight gets us into Dubai at 8:00am. We knew that we were signed up for a 21 hour layover, when we bought the tickets. But, that didn’t stop El from leading the research charge to make the most of the time here. Our biggest challenge was going to be finding a way to sleep and/or shower to explore the city most refreshed. The plane lands on time and the passport control is quick. As usual, we have no checked luggage and once we are through customs, we start our visit. Unlike our layover in India last week, there is no visa required that would prevent us from leaving the airport. A quick ATM stop for a day's worth of cash on the way to the hotel shuttle. As we experienced in Hanoi, arriving so early in the morning, you cannot just go to check in at the hotel...unless...you do what we did, and book a room for Saturday night, so when we arrive at 8:00am, the room has been empty all night and ready for us upon arrival! This gives us until the 2:00pm check out time to shower and nap, rearrange packed bags to dress for our dinner tonight. We can’t say that we got great quality sleep but at least it was better than any alternative. We regroup in the lobby to figure out the day's plan. We know we have a dinner reservation at 5:30pm with a couple of options until then. However, when I awake from my rest, I check email to see that due to an impending snowstorm, our flight tonight from Dubai to JFK has been cancelled and we need to rebook. We pivot plans. Thinking that we very well may not fly out this evening, El quickly books a reservation for us for a room here tonight. The four of us take the free shuttle from the hotel to the airport. Bob and I go with all passports to discuss rebook options with the airline. Meanwhile El and Lisa head off to the gold and spice souks, even taking a boat ride in the process. Bob and I get what we think is the best option at the time and rebook us for Dubai to Boston. He has been keeping an eye on the weather and reports that from what he is reading, Boston has a good chance of getting cancelled too. I think we have spent too long here to allow us to meet up with El and Lisa, so we started a course to the Museum of the Future, which is a popular stop in this city. With its unique, unmissable design, Bob and I metro to the museum. However, once we arrive, it quickly becomes obvious that it may not be the most practical use of our time. The entrance fee is around د.إ140 AED, which is about US$38 each, and since we only have about two hours, I am not sure it would be worth it, but maybe we could move through quickly if we did decide to go in. We reach the end of the hallway into the main foyer for the museum- where you purchase tickets and actually enter the exhibit. We suddenly find ourselves surrounded by hundreds of people all in the process of buying tickets or waiting to get inside- if not doing exactly what we are doing and trying to decide if they want to go in. Bob seems like he could go either way, and standing among the throngs of people, my inclination is to start making our way to the Burj Khalifa area and spend our time trying to find a beer while waiting to meet up with the others. 

We take a few photos inside and out and start the journey on foot. The map says it’s about 3km, which is a little strange since we are starting off for the world’s tallest building, yet at 3km away, we can’t see it! This downtown area is chock full of skyscrapers, making our spot on the ground a poor vantage point. We have to trust the map. Dressed in our dinner clothes (long pants, long shirt) walking in the 80° heat is a little uncomfortable, but I'll take this over what they are dealing with at home! The city, at least the part we have seen, has a tremendous amount of construction going on everywhere you look. Unfortunately, this results in many sidewalks either being diverted, or just ending abruptly- requiring us to consult the map, lest we wind up walking to the right side of a driving lane with no shoulder. After some minor pauses, we can at least start to see the Burj peeking out from behind the skyscrapers in front of us. El’s  research tells us that even though the restaurant is on the 122nd floor, there is a specific entrance that accesses the elevator and it is in the Armani Hotel. My guess is that not many people arrive at the hotel via foot, and while taxis and Uber all know where to go, the fact that the entrance is not visible from the street does complicate finding it. Eventually we ask, and Bob and I find the hotel lobby, get onto their wifi and contact El and Lisa who are making their way towards us. We get messages that they are in the area, but can’t seem to locate the entrance either, no surprise there, considering we just went through it. After much back and forth, they do find the lobby and get changed for dinner. Once we are regrouped and ready to head up, the plan is to sit at the bar if our table is not ready. Even finding the welcome desk for the restaurant is a challenge! I don’t see any signs pointing us in the direction and the four of us just kind of wander with purpose, looking for a sign. An employee sees we are lost and helps us by taking us to the desk where we are greeted and taken to the elevator. The hostess informs us that this is one of the fastest elevators in the world and we will be ascending 122 floors in less than one minute- expect your ears to pop, she said. Well, she was right! Stepping off the elevator to the hostess station we explain our wish to hang at the bar if our table is not ready. They take us to the bar and we start our evening with a round of drinks. A classic gin & tonic works for me, though some of the house specialties did sound good. We enjoy our drinks and even though we are not seated near a window, we are getting a sense of the view we will see once we are. Eventually, the hostess comes to take us to our table. When El made the reservations, she specifically requested a windowside table and booked for early evening to experience the sunset from a vantage point a half a mile above the ground. The request was fulfilled, though the way the restaurant is set up, the dining area looks to the east, while the bar we were just in looks westward. It is a bit hazy this evening and we are not yet sure if it will contribute to a spectacular sunset, or obscure what could have been. While I am content to let El do the reconnaissance- I am preferring not to see our entire table get up en masse to walk into the bar to gawk at the sunset. I am letting El have her moment. 

She returns from her first bar visit reporting that the sun is not yet close to the horizon. The second time, she tells us that she did get some sunset photos, but that she was scolded by the staff for shooting with a camera “with a lens”. She returned to the table happy with what she had seen and ready to enjoy the rest of the meal uninterrupted. We each opt for the 7 course tasting menu this evening. 

1. Fois gras, truffle, apple, gingerbread

2. Pan -seared Hokkaido scallops, cauliflower, beef bacon, balsamic vinegar

3. Braised veal cheek, sage and lemon, parmesan

4. Wild Mediterranean turbot, caviar, cauliflower

5. Chicken and lobster stuffed in romaine lettuce, coconut and “dolce forte” sauce

6. Wagyu beef served with smoked onion puree, crispy potato, truffle

7. Walnuts, vanilla ice cream, maple syrup tuiles

The dinner is wonderful, and a little on the creative side, mostly in the way of foams and sauces. 

At the end of the meal, to remember the evening, I ask the manager if we can purchase two of the embroidered napkins that every place setting has. Unfortunately, he replies that it is not possible- with no further explanation. At least we tried, though I think El discreetly snuck one into her bag…shhhh. As we finish our evening, settling up our bill, the same manager arrives with a doggie bag that he sets on the table. Since we did not have any food we needed wrapped, I peeked inside to see two pristine napkins folded, embroidered side up, compliments of the restaurant. El, discreetly returned the used napkin from her bag to the plate.

After dinner, we don’t need to spend much time wandering, and actually during dinner, we got an email letting us know that our new flight to Boston, has now been cancelled. Half of the group wants to take the metro back to the hotel, while the other half wants to stop at the airport to discuss rebooking 2.0 options. The airport group prevails and we stand in the line with people who have connecting flights that are now canceled and trying to rebook themselves. We get to the front of the line and the agent says he cannot find us on any flight in the system! He directs us to the ticket desk who is able to find us in the system, but cannot rebook us for one reason or another- like she only sells new bookings and not rebookings. Whatever. When I tell her that I don’t have a local phone number, she offers to call the customer service line and stretches the phone receiver through the hole in the plexiglass window for me to conduct a rebooking attempt on the window sill, while the next people in line step into my personal space to address their issues with the agent. I spend an hour on the phone with the rep who says “he will send an email to the team” and then they will email me when they have rebooked us. We should have an email in the next four hours. We head back to the hotel on the shuttle. We are all very tired and disappointed that this isn’t more of an easy fix. 

Monday February 23

We were supposed to be home by now, but that ship seems to have sailed- or been cancelled as it were. There is a severe winter storm hitting the northeast today and all of the flights to JFK are cancelled. I wake up overnight and check to see if I have a message from the airline with our rebook. No luck. I head to the lobby at 5:00am to call the airline to try my hand once again. Going back and forth with them between already cancelled flights and flights that are full it is not turning out well. Today is Monday, and they can’t get us a flight into JFK until Friday! I am content to extend my vacation by four days, but I do understand that especially with an unrelated couple, some people have life priorities that prevent the extension if we can help it. Going through options, having the rep look into those options only to return to the line and tell me that it was a dead end. Until, as someone who is completely unfamiliar with the expanse of America he says, well, I can fly you to Miami. Well, unless they are willing to fly us home from Miami, that wasn’t going to be practical. He offers Houston, Orlando, Seattle, and Los Angeles, before hitting on something I can use…Washington DC! With Philadelphia, New York, and Boston all closed, DC does seem to be a viable option. And they can get us out tonight. We take it! We all meet for breakfast and discuss our options for the day. Bob calls the car rental company to deal with changing our pickup from JFK to DC. Then, we start planning our completely unexpected free day in Dubai. First stop…the airport again. Some in the group are concerned about the seat assignments on the 14 hour flight to Washington. I am not as concerned, so I let those who are, take charge. They are told that the seats have already been assigned and there are no seats available to arrange for us to sit in closer proximity. As a group we are resigned to what it is. First stop, the souks. We metro to the area. Souks are basically markets that tend to focus on one or similar products. It makes for a weird dynamic for me. There is the gold souk, for example. Almost every vendor offering gold in some form or another Each stall seemingly offering the same options. But all of the gold is concentrated here. I am not on the market for gold. Then there is the spice souk. All things spices. Each stall seemingly offering the same variety. I am not in the market for spices.

 with chicken. It was a new curry to me and it was very good. After dinner at Ravi, we get ourselves back to the airport to get the shuttle to the hotel. We will head back to the airport at 10:00ish tonight. The flight is at 2:30am and we still need to check-in in person so they can do a passport confirmation for us and issue boarding passes. Another successful day when we thought there wouldn’t be much of anything going on. Our 14 hour flight to DC is uneventful and a reality check when we arrive to 34° weather having just come from 80’s. We get to the car rental and of course, the customer rep who helped Bob yesterday and told him everything was going to be fine, was passing out some bad information and our arrival in DC changed the terms on our rental reservation. Unfortunately, we were stuck with not many options other than take the offer and hope to be able to call and plead our case later…basically they were saying that the one way reservation from JFK to Albany was one price, while the DC to Albany is a significantly higher rate even though they are being picked up at the same time and dropped at the same time. Complete bullshit, considering they knew they had us over a barrel with the weather diversion. The rest of the ride home was quiet, if uneventful.

Conclusion: I can’t remember when or why I first thought I would like to visit Vietnam. Maybe hearing about friends’ trips, watching Bourdain, looking for other southeast asia options after returning from Thailand and Japan? I don't know. With my favorite travel partner, and now our new travel partners along for the ride, I pretty much knew I would have a good time. And I did. I would like to come back to this country and explore more. I probably don’t need to come back to Hanoi, but the people here really made it a fun experience for us. This time Hanoi…next time Ho Chi Minh City? As for Dubai, I think we made the best of a good situation, followed by the best of a bad situation. Originally, we had a 21 hour layover in Dubai, the busiest international transfer airport in the world. I think we did the best we could with the little time we had, but when flights started getting cancelled and we were spending more and more time in the airport dealing with rebookings and figuring out options, it started to drag. The extra day helped temper the bad, allowing us to do some things we would have missed out on completely, as in the first 21 hours, I felt I probably didn’t need to come back to this city again. When I hear the term “concrete jungle” this is exactly what I think of. A city that is so involved in construction and progress, that everywhere you look, there are road closures, sidewalk diversions, building entrances closed for construction or just vacant lots where they are preparing the next big thing. Every city has its charm, and we did meet one woman visiting from Belgium who said this was her sixth visit to this city- she loves it. I didn’t get a chance to question her appreciation for this city, and who knows, maybe she would have hated Hanoi? To each their own, I guess. In a bit of a post script, we left Dubai Airport on Tuesday morning- coming off what can only be considered a successful vacation. Four days later, on Saturday, the United States began a bombing campaign on the country of Iran. Iran retaliated by attacking US allies in the region. One such attack occurred on the Dubai Airport. It is unknown to me how operations at the airport are affected. But, our hearts go out to the people of this city who were certainly welcoming and surely do not deserve to get roped into an unjust war.

follow me to the coffee shop and tell me you would have found it if someone hadn't showed you!