Day 2 - 10/07/25

 Day 2 of my Vietnam trip began bright and early at 11am. Although I slept on the sofa, it felt amazing to have my first proper sleep in over 24 hours. I never realised how much better sleep is when you aren’t 30,000 feet in the air and next to a crying baby. Anyway, we went for breakfast at the nearest place we could find.

I was still pretty tired from the flights so I didn’t have breakfast, although Dan and Jagan had some Pho that was apparently brilliant. I went to the ATM to take out some money; I withdrew 4 million dong and it felt very good to become a millionaire at the age of 21. And my physics teacher told me I wouldn’t get anywhere with my work ethic! We took a cab to the B52 bomber museum soon afterwards.

As interesting as the museum was, it was 38 degrees and had no air conditioning inside. By coincidence we were in Hanoi at the same time as our good friend Polly, who was there with 6 of her friends. It was a nice surprise that this trip that was meant to be just me and Jagan had now snowballed into being with 9 other friends. We were supposed to meet Polly at the museum, but she was 45 minutes late so we spent most of the museum trip sat right next to the fan trying to dry the sweat off of our faces. The museum was clearly too big to accommodate the amount of artifacts they had, as there was literally a pen from 1972 as one of the exhibits. I’m pretty sure there were some pens at my school from the same era. 

After sweating through all of my clothes, including my shoes somehow, we left and headed to the Ho Chi Minh museum. Unfortunately Dan wore a tank top that made him look like a male Brazilian prostitute, so we weren’t allowed in as they had a strict dress code. We instead made the very difficult decision to go and have a beer.

Anthony Bourdain described Hanoi as a city of smells, both good and bad, and I couldn’t agree more. The streets all smell of fried meat, coriander, urine and sweat (although the sweat was mostly mine). But it was fantastic enjoying a cold beer in the heat whilst watching the Hanoi street bustle. It’s also very interesting to see the architectural mix between the Vietnamese buildings and the French colonial influence. Lots of the houses look like they built a French manor on top of a corner shop.

After the beers, Polly told me off as I hadn’t eaten yet since arriving in Vietnam so we went to a banh mi restaurant. The meal was brilliant, but I still felt I needed to venture further into Vietnamese cuisine as it turns out banh mi is basically just a sandwich.

Later we decided to go home for a nap, but unfortunately Jagan and I got distracted by the darts board in our flat so I didn’t sleep at all. Afterwards we went to Polly’s hostel to meet up with her and her friends. They had free beer, but it was so awful that nobody could finish it. It was also funny to see my first toilet that included instructions on how to use it.

 We then took a cab to ‘train street’; a street where every hour they have to clear everything off the train tracks so the train can come through.

It was amazing to see the train go past, but it was also hideously touristy so we went to meet my friend Noah, and his girlfriend Aimee who is Vietnamese to get a more authentic Hanoi experience. It was lovely to see them, and the service was significantly better when Aimee ordered in Vietnamese! 

After a long night of nice conversation and cheap beer, we arrived back to our hostel at about 4am. Jagan was exhausted, but I was full of energy as the jet lag made me feel as if it was only 10pm. I finally got to sleep a couple of hours later, ready to get my first sleep in a bed in days.