Tag: vietnam

Vietnam. The ubiquitous destination to “find yourself” while you get your A-levels or IB remarked for a deferred entry to university. Top Gear did it first, and by the looks of it, they won’t be the last by a long shot. Cynicism aside, Vietnam has always been alluring to me and I can understand how alluring it is to thousands of tourists every year. I can also confirm in multiple cases that motorbiking across Vietnam on a gAp YaH is and can be a life changing experience that I do not overlook.

Vietnam in my mind wore a shroud of mystery. Francis Ford Coppolla’s Apocalypse Now evokeda feeling of intangible curiosity and mystery about this country that would have made Joseph Conrad froth at the mouth. Naturally, this film touches on a slightly more uncomfortable part of Vietnamese cultural identity, and is most likely unfair to use this as a proxy as to how I felt about the country. Nevertheless, the overhanging enchanting mystery of Vietnam has drawn me like a moth to fire, and quite unintentionally at that.

I am sat in my hotel room in the Hoan Kiem district in Hanoi. The air conditioning takes my mind off the sweltering heat outside, and the ruckus of scooters, taxis and vendors on Bat Dan street 5 floors below is soothingly familiar. Hoan Kiem is one of the most remarkable places I have ever seen. The only place I can remember in my memory that comes close is the Jemaa el-Fnaa souk in Marrakech. Old districts of old cities are understandably and frequently crowded, close, and (now) busy – the one thing that I finds unites these kinds of places is that they feel more like organisms than streets and shops. The streets of Hoan Kiem are literally alive.

Food stalls spill onto pavements catering to army officials, grandmothers, men in suits, whilst families of 5 zoom by on their scooter with the daily shopping hanging precariously off the sides. Tourists (myself amongst them) are all too familiar with the traffic situation in Hanoi: red lights and green lights feel like a pure courtesy rather than law. Terror grabbed me when I got off the bus from the airport, but it turns out that navigating the heaving anarchy of Hoan Kiem’s daily traffic is simple. Like schools of fish, the oncoming traffic swarms through you. The incessant honking and shouting of the driivers is the unsaid language that allows for such chaos to function in such a crowded space.

The thing I love the most about discovering new places are the smells. I think I have a particularly strong penchant for associating memory with smell – the smell of my first time in Japan will be engrained in my mind forever, as will the smell of this city (this is the hard part). Let it first be said that Hanoi is hot in July. Hoan Kiem especially oozes with the sharp scents of lemongrass and gasoline, coupled with intoxicating odours of fried meat and the sickly sweet smell of what I can only assume is either durian or festering waste. Hanoi smells heavy. It smells close. Not many people would describe this city like this, but to me this is so intricately part of the animate quality of the city that I feel that it alone can characterise what it feels like to walk down these old streets.

Having arrived in Vietnam at 4:30 this morning, awake since 7:00 the day before and with a check in at 12:00pm, I’ve spent the majority of the morning walking these streets getting my bearings. Bahn Mi, Bun Cha have been the highlights of today’s culinary side. I did not however locate the shop called Bun Cha Obama, blessed by the presence of the former president and endorsed by him… I have however, found my quiet place in Hanoi today. It is hard to describe the calm I felt sitting at the edge of Hoan Kiem lake with a book for 3 hours. Sure, I was asked for 3 interviews with high school kids doing an English project and took 5 photos with 5 different groups of Chinese tourists in the space of an hour. But I didn’t mind. Exiting the Hoan Kiem labyrinth to relax and read by the side of a lake in the shade is an experience that maybe, just maybe, I could put on par with the gappies who found themselves too in Vietnam.