Polluted

January 31, 2024

It's amazing how our perspective on everything changes after many hours of sleep. We ate the last of the Oreo cookies and Kit Kats while we were in bed. Of course, that wasn't a breakfast worth mentioning, so we looked for a nice café online and headed there. On the way to the old town we dropped off our things to be washed. From the outside the café was very inconspicuous, Ronja was really skeptical when we went up a very narrow staircase in a residential building. But the initial skepticism disappeared immediately after joining. We chose the vegan porridge with banana, peanut butter, and chia seeds. There was also the best coffee with almond milk. A breakfast dream at 1:30 p.m.

Afterwards we walked through the old town to the famous Train Street. Despite the full streets, we endured it much better today and had already adjusted to the new circumstances. On Train Street, a very narrow alley, there are many cafes to the right and left of the train tracks. We were taken to one and each ordered a drink. We were lucky! While we were sitting there a train came through. It was so impressive how quickly all the tables and chairs were pushed to the side to make room for the train. Everyone pulled out their cameras and cell phones to capture the rare sight. We had also bought some sweet fried snacks from a woman walking by. They tasted worse than expected, so we offered them to a couple sitting next to us. We had a short conversation with the English, who we were able to understand really well this time. Turns out she's also a physical therapist - well, we seem to attract each other. It was definitely very cool and we are happy that we met so many nice people, even if just for a 5 minute chat.

It's so bad how bad the air is here. Maybe our heads are foggy and that's why we see everything a little more relaxed today. But we feel our nose and burning eyes. There is a strange smell of fire in many places in the evening because garbage is being burned on the street. It's also new for us to see restaurant employees washing their dishes on the sidewalk. So far we haven't been able to bring ourselves to eat in a shop like this.

We took a break at the accommodation and planned the next few days. In the evening we went out again and visited a vegetarian restaurant again. The food impressed us once again! Fried pasta with vegetables and a portion of penne with peanut-mushroom sauce, with which we shared rice cakes (patties). What a feast! We really like the spices so far and the service and relaxed atmosphere also resulted in a 5* rating on Google. We strolled through the streets and both bought a new T-shirt. The day was actually somehow nicer than yesterday and we are glad that we gave Hanoi another chance, even if we absolutely wouldn't classify the city as one of our favorite cities. We wouldn't want to miss out on experiencing this traffic chaos. Nevertheless, we are very surprised that so few accidents seem to happen, it just works somehow. Impressive!

“We still have to write the blog now, our groupies are waiting”

The alarm clock will ring in about 8 hours because tomorrow we are driving to Sapa, a town in the northwest of Vietnam. We are very excited because the pictures on the internet are truly magical!

Sleep well

Ronja & Nina