In 2012, I vowed to never spend the 25th of December alone again after that one time I tried to unsuccessfully defrost an entire turkey in a bathtub. So, I headed towards a friend living in the Vietnamese province of Bac Ninh, just north of the capital, Hanoi, which has an average Air Quality Index of around 176. God I miss fresh air!
Bac Ninh feels like an industrial hub, with skyscraper-sized centers such as Lanchi Mart and with continuous construction and development on the go. I got asked a few times if I was in Bac Ninh to invest in factories. It can feel charming at times being the only obvious foreigner in a different land, but can feel equally isolating too.
I went to “Korean BBQ” on day 1 and sat at a table near a horde of Koreans chowing down all the good things that come with a Hot Pot experience. When someone eventually approached and explained that they only served Hot Pot, I said I would come back after I made a friend. A second restaurant labeled itself as a seafood buffet, but the menu items were all still alive in tanks, so I skipped that too.
My friend was about 40 minutes away by taxi. She explained that many Koreans live or operate in Bac Ninh province and was able to point out which were foreign. The one evening we were sipping on suds in what is known as Korean Street, which is populated with karaoke bars. More and more seductively-dressed Vietnamese women were being dropped off or otherwise making their way towards these.
Karaoke bars such as these involve renting a private booth, which as I understand are fully-equipped with food and drink and the Backstreet Boys. You enjoy yourself for as long as you please and pay for what you’ve lusted upon afterwards. Scanning an empty room with UV light must be quite a scene.
Christmas Eve was very pleasant at my friend’s homey apartment with six of us in total. Instead of bathtub turkey, we cooked a nice and healthy stew which sent us all to bed with full bellies at around midnight. New Years Eve was equally tame, with a view of a few fireworks from the balcony. The real Vietnamese New Year is the Lunar one called Tết, which is a 9-day-long celebration of the beginning of Spring and all the newness the season brings. This is around late-Jan / early-Feb.
For me personally, it was just so great having some company. I find Vietnam challenging as a solo traveler, especially when I tend to go off the more beaten tracks a bit where there are little traces of English and far fewer ‘Western comforts’. I managed to make a friend back in Hanoi though!
A Chilean and a Sri Lankan called me over at a bar one night. They do volunteer work via an organisation called World Packers (a more recent version of Workaways). I got quite inspired and signed up a few days later. I think I have enough intellectual judgement to infer that they weren’t salespeople. It’s just the sort of thing that comes up when you ask people what they are doing with their lives. So, volunteer work may very well be the next chapter for me. We’re still in touch.
Vietnam continues to throw mixed bags of Surprise at my face. Bike taxis in Vietnam are fun, although there can be ones that make your poephol shrink three sizes too small. Vietnamese food is the best and is not chilli-fired to have a similar effect on your balloon knot. Vietnam museums are amazing – with an unbelievable amount on display with actual video footage, audio clips, or photographs accompanying what you’re actually looking at in four dimensions.
A lowlight has definitely been feeling cheated with dishonest advertising, especially when it comes to accommodation. Fake reviews to bump up online ratings are a real thing. I spent a week in Hanoi staying at this ‘highly-rated’ apartment that was basically still under construction. You could see (and HEAR) it happening 12 hours a day (including Sunday) through large holes in the walls (outside the room). I’ve inhaled so much cement dust that I must be a few Stone heavier.
But then there might be a day when you meet a traveling Chilean and get inspired to do volunteer work, and spend an afternoon painting pandas together, or get a lot of friendly attention where tourists are few from Vietnamese kids who cling onto you with genuine and joyful interest; or you might get woken up at your hotel around 5am in a very quiet area with very pleasant but very loud Vietnamese music playing over a loudspeaker from some faraway field.
I like to believe that that was a large group of elderly Vietnamese doing early morning exercise drills. Or the military.
Next: Tam Coc Bich Dong & Ninh Binh
Previously: An Alien, Spaceman & Angry Pig on a Dancefloor
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