If you’re not very organised and plan your trip around intuitive inconsistencies like ‘what feels right at the time’ or you go for practical ease like ‘where’s the nearest place to here’, eventually you’re going to end up somewhere you don’t particularly want to be. And the reason you’re not particularly going to want to…
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Hanoi’s My Dinh Bus Station is not for the faint-hearted. According to the lady who worked at the bus station – who was only snappy with us because she worked in a bus station – the bus we needed to take, the once-a-day local minibus that would take us way up north to Ba Be National…
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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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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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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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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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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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