Our last full day in Hanoi and we are on with what we like doing best, meandering. And meander you can in Hanoi! French Quarter first and then we stumbled upon Train Street.
Over a cup of egg coffee and iced, coconut coffee, we sat and waited for the 15:20 🚂
NB: ‘maybe’ ^
Sound familiar? We can start with the ‘TranPennine express’ and go from there?
We blanched at the thought of waiting one full hour for the train to pass by but the coffee shop owner urged us to stay, as we, apparently, had the best seats in the house. Ones that, in the height of the season people would claim hours before the Canon Ball Express chuffs on by.
And so we wait…
A series of false alarms, announced by the caged myna bird, later…
Worth the wait, and the egg coffee was excellent. Egg coffee is a Vietnamese nationally acclaimed specialty made of egg yolks, sugar, condensed milk, and robusta coffee. Apparently, the egg decreases the bitterness in coffee when it removes the impurities. Whatever, it’s an enjoyable experience and something different.
On the way back for a break from the busy streets we called back in the laundry at which we had dropped the best part of our travelling gear. All 4kg of laundry laundered and neatly folded for less than £4!
And the 20:20 ‘maybe’ 🚂
We finished the night at this really funky jazz bar, a few doors down from our hotel, wondering why we had passed it by every other night, especially given that this is our last in Hanoi.
Clearly inspired by the Belgian artist René Magritte.
I return again to the topic of trees. There appears to be an acceptance of and reverence for trees and the essentially of co-existence with them, here in Indo-China. Ancestral wisdom and insight is just as obviously redolent here as it is in other aspects of life. Yet another chunk of learning for us ‘Westeners’.
Return to homepage
A Dragon Apparent 
Leave a comment