My friend from home finally arrived! It took nearly 2 and a half hours from when his plane landed to when he arrived on the doorstep, which was a little worrying as my phone wouldn’t let me ring him. He eventually rang, and he was in the wrong place, haha, but we managed to get him in a taxi to the house eventually! We headed straight for steak in the local café as everyone, including him, was starving, but when the food arrived he suddenly felt sick and couldn’t eat due to jet lag! It reminded me of when I first arrived here… four months ago!
He asked while we were eating, “Stupid question, but that kid can’t ride can he?!” and pointed to a five year old boy, sitting on the back of a parked xe om (motorbike), holding the handle bars, with a helmet on his head. Haha, even in Vietnam they don’t ride bikes from the age of five.
We went back to the house and everyone slept before we headed for a night out. Unfortunately for my friend we all eat Western food at the weekend (Vietnamese food can get very repetitive very quickly) and so his second meal in Vietnam, after steak and chips, was a burger and chips! We sat drinking beer hoi in the street until the police came and everyone ran away, and my friend was a little confused by this. You are not allowed to sit with chairs on the road or drink in the street after 12am… but everyone does… until the police come!
Although the roads are bad here, we’ve never had any trouble in taxis, however on my friend’s first night, the taxi driver slammed his brakes on- twice-to the point where we all nearly went through the window! To be fair, it wasn’t his fault because both times xe om drivers cut across him with absolutely no warning. Standard Vietnam.
We then went to Hare of the Dog, our regular bar, and took lots of photos of us crazy dancing, and then went to Hanoi Rock City for a change. I met a guy in there who is staying for two years and so got really over excited, took his number and then yelled very loudly to Connor, “I have a new friend!!!!” According to Connor this was making an embarrassment of myself and not the way to make friends…
On Sunday we went to the other branch of the Indian Restaurant, where they do the lunch time menu at the weekends, and literally stuffed our faces with two types of curry, papadums, rice, salad, dips and naan bread. It was amazing and we were all so full. We took as long as possible over lunch as it was pouring with rain. My friend was highly unimpressed with the weather and said that I had lied to him in order to make him leave the UK! I swear, the rain has not been this bad before! It’s the rainy season however, so you can expect two to four hours of heavy rain per day. Although we are about to go into Monsoon season, which I hadn’t realised…
My friend Rory* introduced us to a new Mexican bar which was deserted, and up a small little staircase, that lead to a room full of sofas and tables and a balcony that looked out onto the city. Up another floor, there was large bed-like sofa’s, with boudoir French curtains hanging down from the ceiling, making it look a little like a sex chamber! We all chilled out for the next three hours, drinking mocktails, beers and cocktails and smoking shisha- which was amazing!
After, we headed to “picnic electronik” which was in a stunning garden, with water flowing through and little bushes and stepping stones everywhere with stone arches and small tables and chairs laid out, and a DJ playing chilled out music in the background. It was beautiful. We chilled there until it closed at 9pm, and I had a great time. At one point we got up and danced, and there was a little gangster Vietnamese boy who was about 6 and attempting to break dance. He kept doing “leap frog” with his friend. I took it upon myself to dance with him and we had a dance off, which was basically just me mimicking him, looking like an idiot! The guys looked over at one point and Connor said “Hahaha look at that weirdo on the dance floor… wait a minute… isn’t that Georgie?!” I was having a great time! The boy then disappeared and came back swigging from a beer bottle, which the Westerners all went crazy about while the Vietnamese people who he was with fell about laughing… I still haven’t worked out if there was beer in it or not but my Vietnamese friend is convinced there was.
Another amazing weekend in Hanoi.
