Downing Bánh Mìs and Dodging Motorbikes: Two Days in Hanoi

Hello from northern Vietnam, family and friends! Though this north-to-south adventure is a first visit for me in Vietnam, Matt made a two-week trip to this country in 2014 during his time living in China. We are repeating a handful of the key sights he saw on that trip and supplementing with additional stops. It should be a very interesting chapter of our backpacking trip, particularly due to Vietnam’s historical context and the role of America in its recent history. Over the course of the past month Matt and I watched the ten-part Ken Burns documentary series on the Vietnam War, which provided deep insight into US-American relations and civil conflict in this country over the past 60 years. Featuring extensive video and photographic coverage of the region during the 1960s and 1970s, the documentary series was moving, heart-breaking, and eye-opening. It left me very curious and somewhat emotionally invested in learning about how Vietnam has recovered since those tough decades.

We began in chaotic and vibrant Hanoi, the country’s capital and second most populated city. It’s always so challenging to articulate the experience of exploring a new foreign city; particularly because the process is so visceral; countless smells, sounds, sights, and interactions play into an overall perceptions of place’s character. Hanoi was no different, but I will give it a try! Notorious for its wild traffic—particularly due to the high concentration of motorcycles that fill the maze of curvy streets and alleys in the Old Quarter—Hanoi is home to over 7.7 million people and is a common stop on the Southeast Asia backpacking route. Hostels and tourism booking offices abound, Hanoi boasts a raging party culture despite its government-imposed curfew. Coffee shops, clubs, bars, food stalls, and restaurants with small plastic tables and chairs scattered on the sidewalk line the crazy roads. There are few crosswalks in the main district so when you cross a motorbike-filled street you just have to walk slowly and confidently as the bikes continue to speed by around you. Battling the traffic as a pedestrian is somewhat of an overwhelming experience, but part of the distinct feel of Hanoi. We happened to visit the city during a large Japan-Vietnam cultural exchange festival, so the lakeside area near the Old Quarter was particularly bustling, filled with families and children enjoying the event’s culturally-specific flower displays, dance performances, and pop-up marketplace.

The food scene in Vietnam, and Hanoi in particular, is known to be incredible. Our Lonely Planet guidebook actually dedicates an entire section to describing the flavors and origins of Vietnamese cuisine. Because of the country’s history with French colonialism, Vietnam boasts some of the best bread and coffee in the world. Complemented with more regionally-specific, fragrant noodle and soup dishes, there were no shortage of delicious options in Hanoi. My two favorites were banh mi and egg coffee. Banh mi is a baguette sandwich split in half lengthwise and filled with meat or vegetables, cilantro, cucumber, pickled carrots, cabbage, and daikon as well as jalapeño and mayonnaise. I ate four of them in two days, adding various vegetarian fillings like cheese, egg, mushroom, and tofu. Favorite bahn mi shops were V-Sandwich Eatery (a vegetarian banh mi cost just 70 cents!) and Bahn Mi 25 (only a dollar per banh mi here!). Creamy and caffeine-packed “egg coffee” is widely consumed in Hanoi and served at most cafes; it is a smooth concoction of egg yolks, sugar, condensed milk, and robusta coffee. Matt and I especially enjoyed sipping egg coffee at Giang Café, a three-story, packed coffee house established in 1946 and filled with locals. The shop didn’t even bother serving food; a simple menu of egg coffee, classic coffee, and cocoa egg coffee (my favorite!) kept the kitchen busy churning out cup after cup. The place was definitely a Hanoi institution!

Egg Coffee at Giang Cafe.

Banh Mi at V Sandwich Eatery

Coconut coffee at the Note Coffee House.

Hanoi offers quality sight-seeing opportunities which helps to compensate for the city’s intense congestion. On Day 1, Matt and I followed the three-hour, self-guided “Old Quarter Walking Tour” mapped out in the Lonely Planet guidebook. We dodged motorbikes as we strolled through various produce markets and product-specific vendor neighborhoods selling things like jewelry, tools, flowers, tin boxes, mirrors, and more. We also stopped at a few key monuments and a classic-style Vietnamese home called the Heritage House, restored and filled with era-specific furniture to show how merchants in Hanoi lived in the late 19^th century. Another intriguing point of interest was the “Temple of the Jade Mountain” in the middle of Hoan Kiem Lake in the Old Quarter, which housed two giant stuffed turtles that are known to be part of an important ancient myth. Outside of the Old Quarter we enjoyed a visit to the Temple of Literature, home to a distinct-looking gate that is featured on Vietnamese currency and flags lining the streets of Hanoi. Built in 1070, the complex is comprised of green courtyards and wooden halls with shrines dedicated to Confucius and honoring scholars. Packs of Vietnamese students in graduation garb were posing for photographs and proceeding throughout the Temple of Literature; this seemed to be a longtime tradition for graduating scholars in the country. The graduation hats were similar to those in the US, but the women wore long white tunics and the men wore white pants and button-down shirts. Both genders wore navy blue cloaks with red lining over their white base layers. It was fun to watch them smiling and celebrating!

Walking through an average street in the Old Quarter. See all the motorbikes?!

Another picture of Matt walking through the Old Quarter.

Stuffed turtle at the Temple of the Jade Mountain.

Iconic gate at the Temple of Literature.

On Day 2, Matt and I lounged at our homestay until the afternoon as we waited for a heavy rainstorm to pass. We reflected on how lucky we had been until this point; there hadn’t been much rain at all throughout our travels! When the precipitation subsided to just a slight drizzle, we put on our rain jackets and walked to Hoa Lo Prison, otherwise known to Americans as the “Hanoi Hilton” because of the role it played in housing POWs during the Vietnam War. The prison was initially built by French colonists in 1886 as a place to detain and torture Vietnamese revolutionaries. Inmates suffered in inhumane conditions as the prison was overcrowded and poorly maintained. The museum within the prison detailed these poor living conditions and the history of the institution, and also touched on the prison’s usage during the US-Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. Hanoi Hilton was referenced frequently in the documentary we watched before the Vietnam trip, so it was very interesting but also fairly depressing to tour. Unsurprisingly, the Vietnamese government-sponsored exhibit speaks fondly of the way Americans were treated in the prison, with pictures on the wall of detainees celebrating Christmas, playing basketball, and gathering around for music and song. From what we know of the experiences of American veterans like John McCain who were imprisoned there, the actual situation was much more grim with extreme physical and psychological torture methods commonly employed by the guards. Regardless, the prison is an important aspect of Vietnam’s long history with conflict and was an interesting albeit sobering stop on our Hanoi tour.

We wrapped up our time in Hanoi with a stop at the small Huu Tiep Lake in northern Hanoi where wreckage from a downed American B-52 bomber still remain intact and partially submerged in the middle of a small, crowded neighborhood. The Vietnamese shot the plane out of the sky on December 27, 1972. Around the lake are a few cafes named for the plane: “B-52 Café,” etc. which is somewhat amusing. Matt and I also checked out the largest lake in Hanoi—West Lake—which has an 11-mile perimeter and is circled with a walking path and many fancy hotels. Despite the morning rain, we were able to log over 25,000 steps each on Day 2 in Hanoi and were happy to venture beyond the Old Quarter and into many residential neighborhoods where Vietnamese people work and live their normal lives beyond the influences of backpackers and tourism. Hanoi was a very cool start to our Vietnam trip! We did, however, look forward to being outside of a bustling city. Halong Bay, our next destination, would be the perfect place to unwind.

Remnants of the B-52 bomber in a neighborhood lake in Hanoi.