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Vietnam the third: Day 4, Hanoi, Ninh Binh
Summer in Vietnam. It’s hot. Very hot. If yesterday just about knocked me over and all I did was queue, today proved that I am quite possibly congenitally unable to learn from the past. We’d booked a day trip out to the south, Ninh Binh, the first capital of Vietnam. I at least got a bit wiser, taking every opportunity to stash a few drinks in my bag, and making sure I imbibed frequently, as the weather forecast was for slightly warm. 36 degrees and humid kinda warm. Not at all comfortable for any known living creature I’d care to associate with kinda warm (even the roadside cows were unhappily…
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Vietnam the third: Day 3, Hanoi
Summer in Hanoi. We’ve had a few conversations with locals, like hotel staff, tour guides, and they’ve all had one thing to say, “It’s a shame you’re hear in Summer when it’s so hot, the best time really is October”. And in fairness that is probably true, but our day jobs don’t always provide the luxury of travelling at the best times, so here we are in the heat and humidity. Today was a walking tour of Hanoi, with the aim of ticking off a few of those boxes for things we haven’t seen in previous visits, as well as something we love to do. So it was Ho Chi…
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Vietnam the third: Day 2, Hanoi
Coffee. Vietnam grows and exports a lot of this, though it’s over 90% robusta, the unfashionable cousin to arabica. It’s also starting to drink more of it and develop a bit of a coffee culture, with all manner of chains and little cafes springing up around Hanoi. I don’t recall seeing so many on previous trips, my impression from the first trip in 2014 was that tea was still the king. Coffee, where available, involved a tall glass of ice and a mix of evaporated and condensed milk. Now coffee comes in many varieties. Want a glass full of coconut icecream and coffee? They have that. Want your coffee topped…
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Vietnam the third: Day 1, Transit Day
Who doesn’t like a 3am start? Me for one, but when the mobile starts beeping and calling out that wonderful catch phrase, “Smile, you’re travelling!” then it’s just a case of sucking up the entitlement and hauling my white arse out of bed. An added bonus was pissing the cat off by having the audacity to get up before she’d had a chance to get in my face about her breakfast. So it was last minute run around, make sure animals were sorted, recheck the notes for the house sitter, and drive to the airport. Being generally prepared and seasoned travellers, we aimed for 2 hours pre-flight and weren’t too…
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Vietnam the third, Day -1
And we’re back, just about ready for the next trip. This time it’s back to Vietnam, and a few days on the way back in that Disneyland with the death penalty, Singapore. Our first trip in a post-COVID world. The packing is almost done, just the few basic bits like electronics and toiletries to pack. Nothing fancy is needed on this trip, as it involved Hoi An so there will be many more clothes joining us there. It’s an early morning flight, so I doubt I’ll sleep much tonight, but L has done her magic on the bookings so it’s business class all the way to Hanoi. It goes without…
