Category: Vietnam

Celebrating Tet in Hanoi

At first, being in Hanoi during the Lunar New Year felt a bit like turning up to a party you weren’t invited to but later it felt like the party was being thrown only for you. Hand-written signs started to appear on the doors of cafes, bars, restaurants, museums and shops saying simply, ‘Closed for…
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Slow Travel in Hanoi

In Hanoi we took the concept of slow travel to the extreme and ended up staying for three weeks. Once the first week or so in a new city is over you’ve usually exhausted your guide book and followed up on all the recommendations you collected before you arrived; time to go. But it’s only…
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Cong Caphe

Sitting cross-legged on a cushion, pretending my hips joints aren’t screaming for mercy, I write out postcards – simple prints of old propaganda posters – ready to post off to people I miss from home. I’m in a café called Cong Caphe and I realise as soon as I walk in that this place is…
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Imperial Citadel of Thang Long in Hanoi

I loved Hanoi in all its noisy, congested glory and spent many hours wandering, deftly avoiding death by motorbike, on the streets of the Old Quarter, but after a while I felt like I could do with a bit of tranquility and a history lesson somewhere green. This led me to the Imperial Citadel of Thang…
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Seeing and Doing in Hanoi

I spent three whole weeks in Hanoi and filled my days with incredible ease. Here are a few of the things I saw and few of the things I did. Ho Hoan Kiem or ‘Lake of the Restored Sword’ and Ngoc Son Temple or ‘Temple of the Jade Mountain’ Hoan Kiem Lake is at the…
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Hanoi – First Impressions

There’s a man standing in Hanoi airport holding a sign with our names written on. It’s the first time I’ve ever been met at the airport by a driver and the ease with which I glide towards the waiting car, am relieved of the weight of my bag, slide into the seat and am whisked…
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Hanoi Cinemateque

There’s an alleyway full of parked motorbikes, all lined up like they’re for sale, and a crouching woman near the entrance selling something deep-fried and therefore unidentifiable; it’s like any other alleyway in Hanoi except that there’s a sign above the archway that says ‘Cine’. It’s chucking it down, heavy, fat rain that bounces off…
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Bangkok Déjà Vu

Coming to Bangkok for the second time is like déjà vu, unsettlingly familiar. I lost a whole day when we arrived. A whole day, half a rotation of the earth, gone. After three flights and almost 24 hours of travelling I collapsed into bed at 1.30am and when I slept, I slept for fourteen hours.…
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