Suddenly a Millionaire

So, on December 5, 2024, I checked into the Hotel du Palace in Hanoi. It took some mental acrobatics before I figured out the price of my windowless room. The Vietnamese have a currency with a lot of zeros. Thus, the young man who carried the suitcases to the room would not have been happy with the originally intended tip of 1000 Vietnamese Dong. 1000 Dong, which does exist as a banknote, converts to about three Euro cents.

The hotel room, equipped with everything a traveler needs, except for a window, was listed at 2.8 million Dong for three nights. That sounds like a lot. At an exchange rate of 0.000032, that brings the total to 89 Euros or just under 30 per night, breakfast included.

As a sort of initiation rite (or more prosaically: because I had no more time in Switzerland), I go to the barber on a side street. He meticulously tends to my graying hair and demands 150,000 Dong or 5.25 Swiss francs after he finishes his work.

Before I brave the nighttime streets of Hanoi, where a constant flow of scooters circulates, I treat myself to dinner at the “Family Restaurant Au Lac”: fried fish bites are wrapped together with herbs, pieces of pineapple, finely chopped vegetables, and onions in rice paper and eaten like a spring roll. After a few unsuccessful attempts, it goes quite well, and I record my first meal in Vietnam as a delightful experience.

First photos from snow-covered Zurich, Bern, and Lucerne arrive via WhatsApp and Facebook, along with messages about the collapse of public transportation in several Swiss cities. I feel like I left at just the right time.