Winter 2016 - Day Five

Thursday, December 22, 2016

Exploring Hanoi

As I’ve mentioned yesterday, I feel kind of at home/at peace in the ambiant chaos of Hanoi. I kinda wonder what Life in Saigon must be like now. It feels like the generation of millennials who grew up in Vietnam today, with the internet, is reminiscent of the French 1980’s, a period of growth, of choices, and potential. It was great walking in the streets today, eating in local cafes by the St Joseph cathedral.

I look outside and seeing people makes me contempt. The girls are pretty in their own ways. The young couples are pretty too and happy by the looks of it. I remember this couple that must have been my age, 25, in a local modern/hipster-looking café, the kind I love to hang out at. In traditional Vietnamese fashion, they were sitting on low-level seats. The guy was on his phone and his girlfriend was resting her head on his shoulder. Possibly after work or university. It was simple, it felt easy, unassumingly honest and relaxed.

As for tonight, we’re on a night train to Sapa, in the mountains and close to the Chinese border. Ironically, the train and our cabin is confier than the one in the night train I took between Paris and Nice, when I missed my train back in august. At the time of writing I’m lying down on my bed, at 11:30pm, unable to sleep. I’m listening to my “relaxing” playlist and jotting down these notes before I forget my thoughts. We’ll arrive around 5:30am tomorrow.