Hanoi’s Old Quarter

Even though the U.S. and Vietnam have only had formal relations for about a decade, and relatively few Americans make the long journey over, I hadn't given much thought to Vietnam. Somewhere on our ninety minute evening flight from Bangkok, I looked out at the sparsely lit countryside and began to feel overwhelmed: when I was born, the only Americans seeing this view were Air Force bombardiers. It was sobering, and I realized I did not know what kind of welcome to expect.

We passed through customs without incident and checked in to our hotel room just before midnight, having seen little of the city before falling asleep. By the next morning, we were ready to explore, we only had one full day in Hanoi, a brief layover between our 11-day trek in Bhutan and a two day trip through Vietnam's Halong Bay.

We set out from our hotel towards the city's Old Quarter, with only a rough idea of where we were going. Potential guides abounded, cyclo drivers and motorcycle drivers promising a great deal on a tour of the city, but we were committed to walking. Walking along the edge of Hoan Kiem Lake, its surface gleaming at us through the morning fog as if for luck, we entered the Old Quarter.

We were unprepared for the sensory overload, initially faced with tens of thousands of shoes, spilling onto the sidewalk from the dozens of shoe shops lining the narrow roads. The sidewalk vendors and stalls selling steaming bowls of spicy pho, a noodle soup, forced us to tread carefully in the chaotic street, filled with honking motorcycles and rickshaw drivers. We saw families of five stuffed onto motorcycles made for two, and cycles weighed down with baskets of vegetables so high you couldn't tell where the rider was. We continued on into the silk markets, where silk ties could be had for $5 and silk shirts for $12, and navigated through a profusion of silk cords, lacquer boxes, and wooden carvings. I didn't realize how much my brain was simultaneously processing until, with a hand gesture from Sue, we stepped into a cafe, and suddenly the outside world became an echo, heard far away through stone walls. My eyes adjusted to the interior, and I felt the cool air on my skin.

We found a pair of chairs on the balcony, a royal perch over the roiling life of the street. Hundreds of children passed below, laughing and calling out to their friends as school let out. A few spotted us on the balcony above and called out "Hello! Hello!" and waved wildly, grinning ear to ear. As Sue and I waved back, we realized that our trepidation had been completely lost amidst the noise, color and life of Hanoi's Old Quarter.

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