Travel Blog Chapter 7: Hanoi and the beard

By this time, my beard had grown quite long and was starting to look rather unkempt in my opinion. But you just don't bother so much with how you look when you are traveling. I had limited sets of clothes as well and basically I looked like I just came out living in the jungle. Now....where was I before this?

Oh yes..I reached Nam's friend, Drung's house at approximately 9pm the previous night, had a long needed shower, got introduced to his family and enjoyed my first North Vietnamese meal. I was beat, to say the least. I collapsed onto a very comfortable queen size bed and fell fast asleep. I thought that I had died and went to heaven. It was awesomely comfy.

I woke up to the sun shining through the windows at around 7am. I was getting used to the early sunrise. I had a good hearty breakfast with Drung at this colonial looking coffee house. Hanoi was an interesting sight. I felt that I have been transported back to the 1900s or late 1800s. The architecture was very colonial looking. It seemed that the city was suspended in time between a colonial era and an industrialized one. On my journey via the train to Hanoi, there were also a lot of French and Soviet architecture styled buildings in Vietnam. Hanoi was the cultural capital as well as the state's capital so that explains the preservation of all the colonial architecture.

Coffee in the alleyway

Colonial feel

Anyway I noticed another interesting thing, the people were much taller in Hanoi than in Saigon. I thought it was just me until Nam pointed out the same thing. On the first day, I basically just ease myself into Hanoi city life. The temperature in Hanoi was lower compared to Saigon as we were nearer to China. The traffic was less crazy as well. But you still have to activate the skill of crossing the road in the midst of ongoing traffic. That I must say, was a cultural experience on its own. And that also explains a lot of accidents that happen in Vietnam. In 2 weeks I saw 3 accidents. Two in Hanoi, the worse of the 2 was an old man knocked down by a taxi, curled up in fetal position in his own pool of blood. That really woke me up to be more careful when crossing the road.

Street in Hanoi

Cinema but not in the mood for movies

Motorbike country

Nam arrived in Hanoi the next day and the three of us hopped on to our motorbikes with me riding pillion and went to an expensive looking steamboat restaurant. It was awesome. I ate till I was seriously full and it was really cheap compared to the same thing with that kind of ambience in Singapore. It was only around 15 USD. The rest of the day was spent exploring Hanoi with Nam. We visited the bookshops and shopped around at night at the old quarters. The old quarters used to be the residential area of the Europenas during the colonial days but was now transformed to a shopping vicinity. It is akin to the bugis street of Singapore and the Luang Prabang Night Market of Laos. So there was the purchasing Lois Vuitton belts and adidas merchandize at bargain prices. Most of these pirated stuff come from China.

Posing as ushers

I lost quite a lot of weight. Looking skinny here.

Really classy buffet steamboat restaurant

And...yes the beard. Vietnamese dig beards. Especially the women. I have been complimented for that a number of times. It looked macho and manly. haha... People stared and stared again at this wonderful spread of facial hair. I almost couldn't recognize myself when I looked in the mirror sometimes. Anyway the beard is a wonderful thing to have when you are traveling. I'm sure, even though this is not statistically proven, that muggers will think twice before robbing you. And by the way, I was no longer Singaporean. I was Japanese, Korean and I had a name everyone started to know me by when I was alone further into the trip. I was Shane, the Japanese because Shane has a Japanese beard.