Flower Petals & Motorcycles: Hanoi, Vietnam
I can’t begin to tell you how awful it feels to be somewhere you really want to be and can’t enjoy it. This post-viral fatigue has me fucked up. No innocent language for the children. Most my moments are spent stuck in my bed taking a nap right after taking a nap watching Yellowstone and Onepiece.
The few moments I manage to get outside are to search for food and try to enjoy the ambiance before I get dizzy and go back. To sit with a Bahn Mì or a cocount and just watch life go by is all I want. My main plan was to do that exact thing but with tons of delicious jet-fueled Vietnamese coffee too. I wanted to be really buzzed and write about the traffic drifting by only leaving when I needed a new corner and to stretch the legs.
I suppose that I’ll miss all that this go around. Always more to look forward to. At least the Giant Crape Myrtle are in bloom. The purple flowers cover streets in little petals like a parade just went by.
Whatever is different about this time than when I was here two months ago, I love. It’s mainly Vietnamese and very little tourist. It’s more romantic, more poetic. It’s like no one even notices im here. Just a little wallflower appreciating every little bit.
Moments after my arrival, I always feel these are good signs.
To my favorite báhn mì.
Normal.
Matching 💜
I read about this bloom somewhere way before I ever came here. It sounded cool. But seeing Hanoi before and after, this makes it 100% better. There’s a tenderness to the streets. Life feels a bit slower. It’s like a sprinkle of sugar topping on every corner. So lovely.
The main reason I came.
Éléments 😆
Like Jenga.
So lovely.
So many coconuts.
🔥🔥🔥
I drank two coffees and thought I was going to pass out. I just can’t handle it right now. I drank plenty on the HCM Trail though 🥲
Thé loveliest part about traveling in the same place is when you don’t need to look at you’re phone for directions. Once you know where to find things and where to go, you feel no longer a traveler but someone participating in the life around you. A place like Hanoi, there is so much to experience in every corner, you can notice so many things.
Staying right next to train street. I can just pop over right before it shows up.
Finally remembered to grab a souvenir!
Fried banana that looks like a…delicious!
Different kind of light pole.
This one is banginnnnnnnnnn’
I thought this pole with a sack on it was a dog sniffing a corner. I figured it out 4-5 times ago, but still think it when I see it.
Cant quite figure out what the top red blossom is.
Lots of coconuts.
Every communist memorial always seems to be the best skate spot. Idk why, but they’re almost always covered by skaters. The other one in this city was a HCM statue.
Well. That’s most of what I got to experience this time. I tried to rally many times but that’s all she wrote. Hopefully I’ll feel better before I get to my next destination 🙏🏼