Hanoi

We’re back in Hanoi for our last couple of days in Vietnam. There was a last minute “change of plans” before we got here though. Our reservation got canceled because of water damage so we had to look for another place to stay. And finding a cheap place well located the eve of our stay was not an easy task. We were supposed to be in a fancy appartment and we end up in a small smelly bedroom without a window. Oh well… we love Hanoi. We were here in 2018 and we fell in love with this city. It’s an organized mess. Besides traffic, the streets are thematically “organized”. There’s a scrap metal street, a scooter repair street, a ladder street, christmas decorations, flowers, toys, even padlocks streets. You can pretty much find anything you want, if you find the right street that is. It’s also a vibrant city, both day and night. There’s a pub corner if you want to party at night of course, but there are also markets and activities for kids. We actually stop quite a while at one of those activities: a Korean brain puzzle. Côme manages surprisingly well (after being frustrated at first for not succeeding). In Hanoi, we return to the placed we liked in 2018. The French neighborhood where people are taking selfies in front of an always closed cathedral (exept on Sunday mornings). We try to take the same pictures as we did back then.

We go back to the neighborhood we had lived and meet the child we had seen everyday with his father in 2018. The father is not there but the kid is playing by himself in the alley. Côme plays a bit with him and we take a picture of them two to compare it to the old one. They both grew up quite much.

We go back to “our” backery and to the train tracks in the middle of a habitations. Nowadays, we can’t walk on the tracks anymore unless you’re being escorted by a merchant or you move further away from this section (on a less touristy one, 50 meters from here). Hanoi has changed quite a bit since 2018. The biggest change of all is that there aren’t any electric cables everywhere in the streets anymore. In 2018 we were flabbergasted to see all those cables intertwined everywhere. We had asked ourselves how could it even work? The cables were like in Nepal, but 10 times worse. Today there are electric boxes that are painted by art students. It’s really nice but it feels like Hanoi has lost a bit of its charms. There are still unique “curiosities” here: sellers with their overloaded bikes, a man giving an oil massage to his rooster, everybody on a scooter (families, babies, dogs and even fluffed animals and mattresses), barbecues with a gigantic blower where we’ll eat great Banh Mi. By the way, we have learnt that the word Banh Mi is an actual French word (pain de mie). As is “opla” (oeuf au plat: fried egg) and “ga” (gare: train station). Dino explores the city with us. We are walking a lot. On the departing day, we venture ourselves in a porcelain store with Côme who’s jumping around and our big backpacks. We’re living dangerously! Doo is worried for the first time in the entire trip and tells Julia: “Really? You wanna go there now? With our backpacks?”.
The adventure cost: 0€ but almost two heart attacks.

And finally, we go to the airport, 3:30 hours ahead. We’re thinking about our visa problem and we want to make sure we’re there early enough to take care of it. We’re the first in line for check-in but when it opens (3 hours before the flight), things get complicated. We have to apply online for some sort of permission to enter South Korea (oh yeah! that’s where we go next). We thought we didn’t need anything to get there. It’s just a formality but it takes time, so we’re panicking. With the airport wifi, we try to fill in the formulaire but we face many hickups. The pictures we have to send are too heavy so the site doesn’t take them. We have to pay online but it doesn’t work… After 45 minutes of frustration, we finally complete the request for the three of us but now we have to wait. The check-in agent tells us that it usually takes an hour… we’re panicking. We’re gonna miss our plane… Plus, we still have the vietnamese visa issue on our mind… Doo refreshes the request web page every thirty seconds for the next 30 minutes. Request pending… request pending… request pending… And finally, request granted. We run to check-in. The agent checks our passports and notices we have overstayed our visa. We tell him that’s why we have to quickly go to immigration… He checks us in nonetheless (he must have taken pity on us) but tells us we need to go to the immigration office. We head straight to the customs. And there… that’s where our problems really start…

The custom officer tells us we have overstayed our visa. Doo tries to explain but he doesn’t even want to listen. He tells us to step back and calls another officer to escort us somewhere else. This one doesn’t want to talk to us either and just tells us to wait. Ouch… Then another officer comes to take us to the immigration office. He tells us we shouldn’t be in Vietnam anymore. Doo tries to explain and ask for information about the penalty but he doesn’t answer… Re-ouch… Once at the immigration office, the officer gives our passports to yet another officer (at that rate, we’re gonna meet them all). This one takes charge of our case. He seems nicer than the other and when he sees our passports he comes to ask Doo: “why did your family overstayed their stay in Vietnam?”. And tell us we now have to pay a hefty fine (about 150€). Doo explains we have miscalculated our stay when we planned it. He shows the officer a calendar and counts the days. When you count using a 24 hours method, we’re good (from the 22nd to the 23rd it is one day for example, just like when we rent a scooter). But we have to count each day (from the 22nd to the 23rd it counts as 2 days then). Doo explains that we have already come to Vietnam, that we really like this country and that we would like to come back. The officer tells us to wait. He photocopies our passports and make a phone call. Our flight boards in less than an hour… After 10 endless minutes, he comes back and tells us that indeed we were in Vietnam before (he has checked). He then explains that next time we come to Vietnam, we really gotta be careful not to overstay, but for this time, he will let it slide, without a fine. Wow! We’re lucky! We thank him a lot and we run back to the customs. We have to queue up once more and when the (new) officer sees our extension stamp, he looks at us funny. We explain we made a mistake and he stamps our passports. Yes! We go through control and when we get to the waiting room, we can still “rest” 10 minutes before boarding. This time, we’re all good. We’re going to Korea! As we board on the plane Doo receives an e-mail: our visas for Korea have been granted… Thanks for the info!!!

In Hanoi, Côme:
Did not understand: why we couldn’t check-in.
Learnt: that he already met the kid he played with in the alley.
Liked: to make the brain puzzles.

Julia:
Did not understand: how the vietnamese people managed to earth every electric cable in such short time.
Learnt: that spicey deserts existed.
Liked: the city’s dynamism.

Doo:
Did not understand: what was the use of closing a section of the train tracks while another one was open 50 meters away.
Learnt: that during Covid, the vietnamese had redone all their electricity.
Liked: to go back to our old neighborhood.