I slept for about ten hours last night and stilll needed a nap this afternoon. But I’m nearly synced.

I think Hanoi lives off chaos. It’s a city for turning chaos into air pollution. How people get from A to B is just a factor of staying exactly on the line between chaos and calamity. At the same time there’s a literal balancing act going on with the 80 litres of wine or 120cm maxi-bonsai tree or four cubic metres of socks being carried on the back of each moped.

I saw it go wrong. Nothing serious, maybe a busted indicator and a grazed hand. Fortunately the bus behind the guy who came off stopped. But since it generally feels faster to walk places, it’s clear nobody is going that fast in the first place.

Tết 2025

Maybe I mentioned it already. The lunar new year happens 29th January, and everybody is preparing. Most noticeably, young Vietnamese are taking a lot of photos in traditional dress. It’s fun to watch and they take it very seriously.

Elsewhere loads of places are decorated (red, obviously) and the streets of the old town are doing rapid business.

I was talking to the guy running a bar near my hotel and he said that since the pandemic, Tết has become a bit more insular or closed off. Where before people would spend the days visiting absolutely everyone they know, now they just do relatives.

One anecdote does not make the truth, and I’ll be in a much smaller city when it happens, so let’s see.

Photo dump