The first thing that came to mind as Kathleen and I pulled into Hanoi was, “OMG, this reminds me so much of Ho Chi Minh City/ Saigon.” Busy and crowded and chaotic, and as we sought out our room in the Old Town/ French quarter, we kind of questioned our decision to come here in the first place. Accessing the building was a bit crazy, and thank God for hosts who put pictures in with explanations of exactly where to go because if we had to read it verbally, we would have spent so much more time in frustration… The alley zigged and zagged through different buildings and past open kitchens and bedrooms, with people actually preparing their meals outside IN our alley. Weird. And how they could squeeze THAT MUCH density into such a small space is a miracle. And dangerous.

We got to the room, it was quite small, as we expected, especially the bathroom with, of course, a shower that intrudes upon the toilet (which I hate, but endure), but that is status quo for a lot of smaller places. We checked out some coffee shops for Kat to work, found some good places to eat, and when we got back to our room, we acknowledged that MAYBE Hanoi was not as bad as those first impressions. We learned this lesson many times in the past, but it’s easy to fall back on bad habits.

Our first evening walking around was like bedlam, as is typical for every large Vietnamese town, but in the morning it was much more relaxed. Busy, but not crazy, and not as many shops open as I would have expected, and I have found out for ME, particularly, that once I settle into a neighborhood it becomes like putting on comfortable shoes, and I embrace it.

Since this is our fourth visit to Vietnam and I’ve seen quite a bit of it, there are some things that I don’t appreciate as much as others, and someI do.

Hanoi has lots of “beer craft shops” within any given block, but truly I am not a beer drinker and certainly not a connoisseur. And of course Vietnam overall is well known for their many varieties of coffee, ie, egg, salt, avocado, but the only one I truly, truly love is my coconut coffee, which is a Vietnam staple, and of course my traditional cappuccino.

And take hamburgers, which many places spiff up and create concoctions you can’t even bite into, but as for me, give me a simple Old Burger, pure and unfettered, with ketchup, onion, and relish. Don’t need the mushrooms, nor bacon, but cheese is always appreciated!

The point is you don’t need to embrace EVERY feature that every country offers—but we WILL embrace the massages in Bali!—and you don’t need to visit every attraction within the area. As Travelers and not Tourists, we live a basic, simple, day-to-day life in different locations. But that’s perfectly fine with us.

By the time we left Hanoi after five days we pretty much (?) had a handle on things, but concluded that there may not be enough to entice us back again. Kathleen had a particularly difficult time with the cars, bikes, and merchants crowding the small streets, plus the constant noise, and the dinginess and foul odors of some areas, which was worse than many places we lived.

(Photos courtesy of Kathleen Plumley}