This post is dedicated to Vietnam’s capital – Hanoi. This city, which is the second-largest in the country, draws and repels the traveller in equal measures. While some sections of the region remain vastly untapped, the old quarters often make one question life’s worth – and why one was put on earth at all.
The squatters in the old quarter of Hanoi, sometimes, have the most interesting stories to tell, and these can hardly go amiss while sipping a ca phe sua (condensed milk-based coffee) or nibbling on a banh mi. The Hoan Kiem lake, which provides a welcome respite to the madness the city’s roads sometimes become when clogged by two-wheeler traffic, also offers the only solitude one can find here.
The famous turtle tower that sits on an islet inside Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem lake.
Early flowers of spring on the periphery of Hoan Kiem lake.
A corner shop selling candelabra, among other knicknacks on Hoan Kiem.
A damsel being taken around Hoan Kiem – is she sleepwalking her life away?
A young guard stands, full of righteousness, while Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum looms behind.
A replica of Uncle ‘Ho’ sitting in his study at the museum close to his mausoleum.
Vietnamese architecture, as seen here in the Temple of Literature in central Hanoi, has borrowed heavily from the Chinese.
A young Vietnamese couple, doing the rounds of the Temple of Literature before tying the knot, make some time for a photoshoot as well.
Fruits of all shapes and hues find themselves available in the old quarter of Hanoi.
The well-stacked bookshop in the old quarter of Hanoi where I finally managed to get my hands on Greene’s ‘The Quiet American’; it would have been more fitting had I been able to do so in Saigon.
A well-stacked music store this time – one where I returned the richer after garnering copies of Alice in Chains’ ‘Dirt’, Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ and Kings of Leon’s ‘Only By The Night’, among others.
Who says you need somewhere special – or quiet – to sit down and read? Especially so in the old quarter.
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