Hanoing No More

February 6, 2025

16 years ago Francesca and I spent a few weeks in Vietnam including a stop in Hanoi.  In my blog at that time, not so cleverly titled "Please Stop Hanoing Me", I talked about the annoyance of the incessant honking of scooter horns and of the annoying persistance of the street vendors who would follow you for blocks trying to sell you their wares.  I also wrote about how the communist system seemed to be failing the people (click here to read that post) by taking land from the farmers and repurposing it and not having enough money for free insurance or education for the masses.  

Fast forward to February 2025, where I spent a delightful long weekend in Hanoi with my 13 year old son Ryan, and I see that so much has changed.  While there are still a lot of honking scooters and there are some persistent street vendors, it doesn't seem to be as hanoing and, while there are definitely some gritty, dirty places in Hanoi, there was a noticalbe upgrade to the city including several planned upscale communities like Vinhomes' Ocean Park area where my 29 year old nephew Kevin lives.  Kevin teaches in a public middle school and told me that primary education is largely free as is basic healthcare, a change from the early oughts.  

But first we had to get to Hanoi from Hoi An.  We decided to take the 18 hour "Runification" overnight train just for the adventure of it.  Flying would have been faster, cheaper (slightly) and more comfortable, but Ryan loves trains and was up for the adventure.  I would be lying though if I didn't acknowlege that part of his preference for the train was due to our policy of unlimited screen time while traveling which meant 18 hours for Ryan versus 1 hour on a plane.  As this was supposed to be a father-son bonding trip, I did set some screen limitations and built in some father-son board game time. All in all it was as expected, some incredible views of the countryside and some nice together time but bad food and an uncomfortable sleep.  Fortunately it was only one way as we had booked a flight back. 

Kevin was an amazing host and in a few days we packed in a lot.   We had a healthy mix of touristy things like the "Train Street", the Water Puppet Theater, The Imperial Citadel, The B-52 Artillery Museum, the night market, Rickshaw (aka "cyclo") ride, etc as well as some local (or at least expat local) things that Kevin was able to show us like a Bia Hoi (fresh beer restaurant), a "Bun Cha" (grilled pork over vermicelli noodles) restaurant, an expat board game speakeasy called QuestHub and lighting off fireworks on the banks of a manmade lake in a random park.

It was great to see Kevin (it had been a few years) and see Hanoi from his perspective.