Back to reality. After a magical two days of cruising Bai Tu Long Bay on the Dragon Legend, we found ourselves back in Hanoi by late afternoon, checking into the La Selva Hotel. The transition from floating paradise to urban reality was jarring – one minute we’re kayaking between limestone karsts, the next we’re dodging motorbikes in the Old Quarter. But that’s life, and that’s the reality of Vietnam: it never lets you get too comfortable.
That evening, we had plans to meet up with a couple friends – Brian and Caprice – from the cruise for dinner. It’s funny how a shared 24-hour boat experience can create instant bonds. Our destination was Banh Cuon Gia Truyen. Banh cuon are delicate steamed rice noodle rolls filled with minced pork and wood-ear mushrooms (Michele was obviously thrilled about the mushrooms, as you can imagine), served with fried shallots and a tangy fish sauce dipping sauce. Watching them being made fresh was almost as entertaining as eating them. The cooks ladled batter onto convex metal surfaces where it quickly solidified into thin sheets before being stuffed and rolled with practiced precision. These people had clearly been doing this for decades.
Later, we grabbed beers at Bia Hoi Corner – one of those quintessentially Vietnamese experiences where plastic stools and busy intersections somehow create the perfect dining atmosphere. We wound down with tea and hookah at a nearby hookah bar, letting the day’s maritime adventures settle into memory.
Our final day brought a proper introduction to Hanoi’s rhythm. After lunch at Pho 10 and some wandering around the Old Quarter (including a stop for chai and pumpkin pie at a cute little cafe), we had time to actually absorb the city rather than just pass through it.
Hanoi’s streets hummed with a different energy than the southern cities we’d visited. The cooler weather was a welcome change – clouds and mist replacing the oppressive heat we’d grown accustomed to further south. Maybe it was the more compact urban layout, but there was something distinctly metropolitan about the pace here that felt refreshingly different. And the architecture, well it told stories of layered history: French colonial buildings nudging against traditional Vietnamese shophouses, Soviet-era concrete competing with gleaming new hotels. It’s a city that wears its complexity on its sleeve.
That evening, we embarked on an organized street food tour. This is where we encountered cà phê trứng – egg coffee. This peculiar concoction involves whisking raw egg yolk into a frothy foam and floating it on top of strong Vietnamese coffee. I know what you’re thinking – eggs in coffee sounds like either brilliant innovation or terrible mistake. For us, it was definitely closer to the latter, but hey, when in Hanoi…
The rest of the food tour more than made up for the egg coffee disappointment. We sampled crispy bánh cuốn, steaming bowls of bún chả, and various street snacks that fully lived up to their reputation. Our guide clearly knew his stuff when it came to the city’s best food spots.
Our final night in Vietnam called for a proper send-off, and we found it back at Bia Hoi Corner – basically just plastic stools arranged around a busy intersection. The mist had turned to light drizzle, and street lights reflected off wet pavement as endless streams of scooters buzzed past. Quintessentially Vietnamese – chaotic, vibrant, and somehow perfectly peaceful all at once.
We ordered two 333 beers (ba-ba-ba, as the locals say) and settled in to watch Hanoi’s evening rush hour unfold around us. There’s something profound about sitting on a tiny plastic stool, drinking cold beer, watching a city go about its business while you’re about to leave it for who knows how long. That bittersweet travel feeling – the simultaneous sadness of departure and excitement for what comes next.
As we sat there, dodging the occasional motorcycle that came too close to our corner table, I couldn’t help but think about how perfect this ending felt. Not perfect in a postcard way, but perfect in that real, slightly messy, completely authentic way that the best travel experiences tend to be.
The next day we’d be back in Thailand, heading to Bangkok before our final return to Chiang Mai. But that night, we were exactly where we needed to be: slightly damp, contentedly tired, and grateful for every single kilometer that had brought us to this wet corner of Hanoi.
Sometimes the best way to say goodbye to a place is with a beer in your hand and rain on your face, watching the world go by at scooter speed.
Note: this is a guest post written by Shiv 10 years later – some details might be off, missing, or slightly enhanced. I tried 😉
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