This maybe another film I haven’t watched, but for 7 days from 30 September I was able to say this while actually being in Vietnam!

As readers know, I am not one for letting a holiday slip by without travel. Husband and daughter though didn’t quite share my enthusiasm so with their permission I went on a girls trip to Hanoi and Halong Bay.

My fellow travelling partners for at least some of the trip were Jill and Gabby, also with other colleagues and friends Ricky and Steph in Halong Bay and for a little part I ventured out on my own for a solo trip.

School ended on the Thursday afternoon after a very stressful start to the term. I am now a Head of House which meant that I had to corral 69 students and enthuse them into a House Music competition. When the song is Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” and includes the line “Don’t stop, won’t stop moving”, the irony is not lost on me that my House moved like trees during the calmest of days. It was really no surprise that we came last. The day ended with me going to get my nails done, and then being persuaded to go to the pub for a drink. With the promise of one drink and an early night, I went. Magically that glass was refilled three times, but I did get home earlier than my other travelling companions!

Friday morning, I packed everything in a rucksack. Not my usual luggage of choice but given my unusual travel arrangements during the trip, I felt it was a necessity.

A car picked us up to take us to Hong Kong Airport. This would be the first time since returning to China in the summer that I had ventured across the border. In the car we were given our arrival cards to complete. We got to the border, Jill and Gabby utilised their E-channel and I had to join a queue to get my passport stamped out. In reality my queue was just about a minute longer than the E-channel and given that it was a holiday (Moon Festival I was shocked that it wasn’t more of a queue). We walked out the building door and back into the car to then join another queue to go through HK immigration. That was also a fairly quick process and we were given a piece of paper for our passport. We made it onto the bridge that connects the mainland with Hong Kong and suddenly we were driving on the left and not the right hand side of the road. The car that collected us had a dual number plate and was a left hand drive which had confused me when I had opened up the car front door on the side I usually sit on to find the steering wheel.

Soon we were on the plane and 2 1/2 hours later we arrived in Hanoi. We had chosen to fly from Hong Kong because it was cheaper than flying from Shenzhen, but had we gone a couple of days later, the Shenzhen flight would have been cheaper.

Having picked up our luggage, we headed to the nearest cash point. We were instant millionaires and really none of us knew how much we would actually need. After trial and error with various cards at various machines and I with 5 million in a very small wallet we went our separate ways at the taxi queue. We would meet the following day for a walking tour but on Friday night I had a food tour booked and my own hotel in the old quarter.

Traffic wasn’t bad going into Hanoi. But the deeper we got in, the number of motorbikes increased. I was eventually dropped at the side of a road. On looking around, my hotel was nowhere to be seen. I followed (or rather didn’t) the map but realised that I had entered in the wrong hotel (same hotel name, different location) so I retraced my steps and found the hotel tucked down a dirt track alley.

La Storia Ruby Hotel was clean and my room on the 8th floor had a balcony but I was only in Hanoi and this hotel for one night. I dumped my stuff, worked out the money and then went out on foot to find the puppet theatre where I was to meet my guide for the night.

Crossing roads was dicing with death. Motorbikes did not slow down, a few would go round you and just by observing life around me I realised that there would be no break in the traffic to make a dash for it – you just had to walk confidently with no deviation or hesitation.

My food tour was with HanoiKids. It appealed to me because it was run by university students for free so that they could practice their English. My guide for the night was studying business. He also revealed that I was his first solo tour. There were only a few awkward silences but he took me to some street food places and I had Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) and then mango sticky rice and some fruit tea. We visited a couple of places, the food was cheap, healthy and fresh and I had no complaints. He talked about his family and the fact that he would go and work for the family business with his brother in law and that he would be living at home as expected of him when he graduated from university. After dinner we walked back the lake and he told me the history and myths surrounding the tiled arches over the bridge and into a temple.

It was still early when my guide and I went our separate ways so I explored some of the old quarter by myself. In the time of going for dinner and my exploring, night markets had sprung up and streets closed off.

I had a list of good bars to visit and so I went to find one. The one I wanted had no space. It had live Jazz and was fully booked! I left my name and number and hoped they would call me. They didn’t. But fortuitously, just across the street was another bar, this time I was able to walk straight in and was led upstairs to a seat at the bar. It was darkly lit, but the bottles back lit at the bar and a barrel of Campari told me that I had walked into a place that knew how to serve a good cocktail.

I was offered the menu. A gin based cocktail was obvious and the care and precision of placing the gold leaf onto the jelly was delightful to watch.

With one cocktail drunk, I left and made my way back to the hotel. The streets had been closed off, and to my surprise I happened upon lion/dragon dancing in celebration of Mid Autumn Festival. The street was buzzing.

I made it back to the hotel to make the most of snuggling down on my delightfully soft double bed in my air conditioned room since the next two nights would not be so comfortable.

The next day, Saturday, I woke up refreshed. Packed my bag and checked out. Thankfully the hotel kept my bag as I wouldn’t need it for the day and would only be going to my next destination after 8:30pm. The hotel even told me I could have a shower later in the evening before the next part of the journey.

I left the hotel and went exploring. I went into an art shop and fell in love with a large canvas of the train in the street. I didn’t buy it. I thought that getting it home might prove difficult though they offered to ship it. But given that our art in the apartment is now unwrapped but still on the floor awaiting placement I didn’t buy anything. Seeing the picture though, gave me the inspiration of what I would do that morning before meeting the others for our afternoon walking tour.

A quick google told me it would come at 11:20am so using google maps I hotfooted to the street. When researching it in the past, there had been mention that they had closed train street and when I got there, there were indeed barriers and on my first attempt to brazenly walk past the security/police I was indeed stopped and turned away. I stepped to the side and watched – there were other people doing exactly the same thing and seemingly getting away with it and were not stopped. I realised though that someone had come from further down the train street and picked these tourists up to lead them down. So the next guy that came to pick up a family, I followed behind like the ugly duckling and adopted the family to get past the guard.

Once through the barrier I dropped away and found myself ushered by someone else the side of the tracks. There I was given a small plastic stool and a menu. I was caught. As was everyone else. For people have ensured that if you want to experience the train centimetres if not millimetres from your face, you pay for the privilege. I ordered a coke.

In my blogs I sometimes censor what I say and what I go through, but for this part it is integral to my story. In the morning I had felt absolutely fine, but shortly after getting to train street I felt hot. Something was wrong. I needed to go to the loo. Could I hold on? Well it turns out I did. But only just. Clearly something I had eaten either at breakfast (some passionfruit) or at dinner had not agreed with me and my body was desperate to expel it. I had arrived at Train Street at 11:10. The train would be coming at 11:20. That is what Google said. Minutes ticked by. I was thinking what if I leave – this is one of the only chances I get to witness this. 11:20 comes and goes, as does 11:30, 11:45… finally all the people that have led all the tourists to the sides, start arranging us is single file pressed up against the wall. The Chinese family in front of me can’t all fit in as there is a motorcycle in the way so they have to go either side of the track. The son stands outside a person’s house, and the guy who owned the house came out and told him to stand elsewhere. Our plastic stools were removed and stacked up. Finally the train was on its way – but again we had no idea in which direction. I am also clenching my butt as if my life depended on it – certainly my dignity depended on it!

Finally whistles started blowing and we see it.

Arms are stuck out with cameras to get an iconic picture and then the train is right in front of you. 1 minute 40 of a train, lots of carriages and no breathing room between me and the train.

What struck me about the demographic of the tourists in Hanoi was the lack of Chinese. Yes, to my left I was sitting beside a Chinese family, but in my train street sandwich, there were many Indians. Far more than I had seen on my travels in SE Asia before. It only struck me, because the couple I was sitting beside told me that in India the spectacle we were about to see was common place, and definitely not a draw for tourists. I think they went away with a business idea!

The train passed with no incident and I made my way to a restaurant where I hoped I could use the facilities. I made it. Phew. I spent an hour in that restaurant, mostly killing time and charging my phone until I was due to meet Jill and Gabby. I drank a lot of liquid but didn’t dare eat.

The tour that we were all doing was booked through AirBnB. We didn’t know what to expect, but having booked one through AirBnB for New York and Edinburgh I reckoned it would be good. I made it to the meeting point, met our guide and then waited. We were joined by a Dutch guy, who didn’t speak to anyone, a couple from London who were actually on holiday, I say that incredulously because living in China in an expat bubble you kind of forget there are people who travel outside of main holiday times! The final person on the tour was a guy from UK who lived in Dubai and was a manger for Hilton. He had flown in for a long weekend.

We met our guide and she gave us instructions on how to cross Hanoi roads. I had cracked it by this time, just don’t make eye contact and keep going but for Jill and Gabby it was their first time in the old quarter. Our guide took us to a rooftop bar and then told us not to order any alcoholic drinks. From there we saw the river, new Hanoi, lake and the very distinct old quarter where no building is over a certain height. My hotel that I had stayed in the previous night was one of the permitted tallest.

Over drinks – water and a coke for me and at least 3 others ignored the plea of no alcoholic drinks and ordered beer – but restricted themselves to one -we got the brutal history of Vietnam, the colonials of course playing their part and the famine that wiped out a not insignificant part of the population. For a nation that has suffered so much, our guide confirmed that the country is looking to the future and is slowly prospering. It was agreed that none of us – separately or combined could actually afford any property in Hanoi’s old quarter. The property being worth billions (in Vietnamese Dong – no matter the exchange rate it is a lot of money!). Discussion also turned to why Vietnam had had a turbulent time, and of course it is about their biggest resource- their coastline. The conversation was one that the three of us did not want to partake in, but could only say we had seen the Barbie Movie uncensored.

On a part of the tour, the guide said that they are proud to be a communist country, and the people show that through putting up flags. Coming from a country where flags are a contentious issue, I wondered how the Stormont leaders would react if they knew that a sign of a proud communist country was flags!

The tour was interesting, we stopped by one of the smallest temples in the city, before heading to a doughnut vendor

– this woman is worth a lot of money due to her property being where it is in the old quarter but her family business is thriving and the filled savoury doughnuts are delicious. They are the first thing that I ate, and probably while it shouldn’t have been – I was ok and had no side effects.

We also went to a Vietnamese coffee café and art gallery. Here we learnt the difference between the Vietnamese robusta bean and the arabica bean favoured by chains such as Starbucks. I am not a fan of any coffee, but I ordered a coffee with condensed milk. Others ordered coffee and egg. Mine came layered and liquidy, whereas the coffee and egg was a dessert texture – thick and creamy. The art has been produced in an era where the government restricted what could be depicted and in what colours. The café owner was taking great risks when he provided a space for like minded people.

Our tour took us to two more places, one far darker than we expected. Between buildings are alleyways.

We were told to be quiet as we were taken down a narrow, pitch dark enclosed alleyway. On the right of the wall where electric cables and fuse boxes, a total of 11. 11 for the number of “houses” we would go past. In the building in total of 4 storeys there are about 200 people living like that. The higher up you go, the more likely you will have daylight. We got deeper in, and found that there was a square patch of daylight – the only daylight to be seen. We could have been underground. It felt cavelike and most definitely claustrophobic. We were chillingly told that in covid times, the people who lived here did not have see daylight for 3 months. Whatever I experienced being locked down on campus was nothing like this. With a few dead cockroaches on the floor highlighted by our phone torches we left. Back out onto the pavement where you can’t walk as bikes and motorbikes and rubbish are everywhere, we walked single file on the road grateful to have seen this but equally as grateful to be out in the open.

Our final destination as a group was the market. We got there just as it was closing, but it reminded me of the fake market in Shanghai and I wondered how much internet selling would affect it in the future.

We wandered through and then up onto a walkway where we had a bit of a photo shoot. While waiting for our turn to be photographed, we looked down on the food selling part of the market. We had walked past it and had seen fish and meat but when we had looked closer from above we saw a very determined lady with a machete beheading something. On closer inspection by some people in the group, word spread that these were bullfrogs being slaughtered. Beheaded and limbs chopped of with what appeared to be a blunt instrument before being skinned. Morbid curiosity took the better of most of us, but I couldn’t look for long.

Finally the tour ended and the three of us headed to “Bar street” to watch the world go by with a drink and some food before I departed for the next part of my trip.