VIETNAM – HANOI – NOVEMBER 2025

 

Ha Noi means a city within rivers. It was built on the banks of the Red River in the lowlands where old river routes created lakes throughout the city. This is where Sarah and I will rendezvous to begin our main holiday. I survived the enormous Changi airport in Singapore but another traveller has a near miss when a guy lost control of his luggage near the top of a huge escalator. As it thundered down at speed, it nearly decapitated someone at the base who just managed to jump out of the way in time. After a somewhat packed flight, I am picked up and driven into town over the impressive Nhat Tan suspension bridge over the Red River to arrive at the Intercontinental Hotel overlooking Westlake. Already the city has a lot more character than Singapore. This is Sarah’s old stomping ground so the next day we walk down the lake shoreline to visit the Hanoi Club which she helped launch in the 1990s.It has gone significantly down market and now doubles as a golf academy, with two levels of people belting balls into the lake while a hapless boatman brings them all back again. On arrival a young guy falls off his scooter and is trapped underneath. We lift it off him and dust him down. He has broken his arm. The lake shore is nice enough in theory with people employing a range of fishing techniques, but in reality it is smelly and run down. The lake view from the hotel is lovely though, often punctuated by a red rising sun or a warm misty haze. This is a pit stop, and next we are off to Laos.