Egg coffee at dawn, bún chả at noon, and the bridge lit up at midnight — a city you eat your way through.
I almost did not get off the train. It was past midnight, the platform was empty, and the only sign I could read was the one pointing back the way I had come. But a man selling tea waved me toward a doorway, and that doorway turned into three of the best days I have had on the road.
This is the part of travel no guidebook prepares you for — the small, accidental kindness of strangers who have no reason to help you and do anyway.
We started before sunrise. The light came up gold over the rooftops and the whole city smelled like charcoal and citrus.
“The doorway turned into three of the best days I have had on the road.”
Hanoi rewards the people who wake early. By six, the lakeside is full of tai chi, badminton played in dress shoes, and tiny plastic stools where you can drink egg coffee that tastes like custard and caffeine had a beautiful child.
I spent most of the day walking from one street food stall to the next. Bún chả at a place with a menu written only on the wall. Bánh cuốn rolled fresh while I watched. A grandmother sold me sugarcane juice and corrected my pronunciation without making me feel small.
By midnight I was on the Long Biên Bridge, the river below black and silver, motorbikes rattling past, and a woman beside me eating sunflower seeds and offering me a handful like we had known each other for years.
