Hit the north

Sunday, 04/11/2012 – 143 A.D.

By the time I had finished watching the second half of Apocalypse Now on the night train, I’d had to eject three cockroaches from our sleeping berth. Or maybe it was the same one that kept finding its way back in. Mercifully, it/they were only half the size of the adults, but they have a knack of crawling halfway up your leg before you realise they are there. When it came to lights out time, I gave up worrying about who I was sharing the sleeping quarters with. Double mercifully we had not been joined by any people in the top bunks, but down on the bottom it was pretty hot and to begin with it was too warm even to get into my sleep sheet. And, as I went to switch out the light, I saw some kind of beetle making its way up the other side of the curtain, a little crawling silhouette just a few inches from where my head would lie against the pillow. But like I said, I’d given up worrying which kind of insects crawled across my naked upper torso as I slept, so I give the little blighter free rite of passage.

Sleep came here and there, but only in brief bursts to begin with. At one point the door to the berth was opened and someone looked inside – couldn’t be sure if it was a railway employee checking who was inside, or a member of the public gone to the wrong berth. Or the right one, if you know what I mean. It suddenly occurred to me that probably anything goes on this train at night, such as light-fingered people sneaking into berths to lift what goods they can from the deeper sleepers. Therefore I placed a plastic bottle of water on top of the door handle, so every time the door was pulled back, the bottle would fall, make a noise, and wake us if we were in slumbers. Thing is, I didn’t really need the bottle there, as no matter how quietly that door was slid open, my eyes were suddenly open as well. In fact, after a while it became extremely annoying having to pick up the bottle each time and place it back on the handle. At one point we stopped at a station for about 15 minutes and there was all kinds of noise in the corridor. The door to our berth must have been opened at least four times, in almost every case by a railway employee. On the final occasion I actually shouted out, “Will you stop opening the f***ing door!”

After that it was alright `til morning. At about 09:00 we both spluttered awake as yet another railway employee slid open the door with a couple of locals behind him. Guess he was trying to get them to fill up the berth, but they took one look at us and walked away – can’t blame `em really. A couple of hours later and we were pulling into Hanoi, capital city of Vietnam. In my mind I’d imagined it wouldn’t be much different to Saigon, i.e. large urban sprawl of motorbikes, small plastic chairs on the street and dodgy-looking fruit sold on every corner. The dialect in the north is very different to that of the south, but that wasn’t something that would trouble us any more than usual!

We’re staying at the Hanoi Eclipse Hotel. As we’re here for five nights we figured we’d go for a deluxe room, though it’s not the best we’ve had by any standards, but you have to make exceptions when you’re in the bigger cities. It has a small balcony, and Tim is already concerned about the tweeting birds in the cages on the next balcony along. Surely he likes the sounds of birds tweeting first thing in the morning? “Yeah,” he replied, “but it’s at all other hours of the day and night that I’m worried about.”

It could be because we had slept on a night train, or could be long-term travellers’ fatigue catching up with us, but after a pretty unmemorable lunch at the café on the corner, we camped out for the latter part of the afternoon in the hotel, supposedly researching where to go in Hanoi, but really just sitting still for a bit. The hotel’s location is excellent – right in the centre of the Old Quarter area of the city - and most of the things to see are easily walkable from our base. But even without going anywhere, I have always been a fan of leaning over the edge of balconies and watching the world pass by beneath me. As night came down, I went out and stuck my neck over the edge to take in the sights and sounds and before I knew it 20 minutes had flashed by. Tim was pleased to know that the bird cages next door have been covered over to keep their occupants quiet.

Hoan Kiem Lake is a short walk and it’s the type of place where people go to stroll on a pleasant evening. It was a pleasant evening, not warm enough to build up a walking glow, but a few degrees lower and the word “chilly” may enter the vocabulary…the first time since Melbourne. Sorry to speak like that when I know the readers from the UK are currently reaching for the electric blankets of an evening!

By the time we’d walked around for a bit, our appetites arrived, and we found a small place with quite a range of dishes on offer. It’s good to try new things, but even with healthy appetites, there are some dishes that will never, ever be sampled...