The Smell of Hanoi

Pictures and travel diaries are great, but what really takes you back to a place all of a sudden is the smell. That’s what always happens to me when I walk past that Asian food shop and little cookshop on Rosenheimer Platz in Munich. The hot, greasy odor always takes me back to Vietnam within seconds.

 I had been told before that Asian cities tend to be a little smelly but I had no idea that this was really possible. So when I got to Hanoi I was a little shocked by the smell of the humid air. It was a mixture of grease and dirt and food gone bad. I thought I was going to puke right away.

But after a while, as I got to know and love the city, it actually stopped smelling that bad and started to smell of different things. 

 For example of the great food you can get in Hanoi’s Old Quarter. There are numerous little cookshops with tiny plastic chairs on every corner and great restaurants. Our favorite hangout was the “Com Ga” (chicken rice) on Hang Ga (chicken road – all streets are called after the things that used to be sold there exclusively). Sitting on its balcony you can enjoy the great food and it’s also a nice place for people watching. And you don’t have to worry if they used tap water for their ice cubes (cause they don’t). Just as great was the “Quan an Ngon” restaurant which looks like a little market. You sit on benches in the middle and can order from the little booths surrounding you. We tried the famous Vietnamese noodle soup Pho, the Vietnamese Spring rolls which are fresh and not fried. We had a hot pot which is some kind of fondue, and and countless other exotic dishes with strange names and awesome spices. I’m a big fan of lemon grass and coriander now!

The Com Ga

Noodle Soup

Fresh Spring Rolls

 

The air also started to smell like exotic fruit and vegetables which the people are selling on markets or directly on the streets. For souvenirs, clothes or just a fresh coconut I can also recommend the night market on Hang Duong and Dong Xuan. And as Vietnam is pretty cheap you can load yourself up with presents for your friends and family. At least that’s what I did.

Night Market

The Hanoi smell is also kind of fishy, especially around the big Hoan Kiem Lake with the turtle pagoda in the middle, or at the Song Hong (the red river). 

Taking a walk over the Song Hong on Cau Long Bien bridge is a cool thing to do. It’s actually a bridge for trains, so as you walk over the river and the river banks a train just might pass you by and you can wave to it. But there is also a lane for other vehicles, so, naturally, there are mostly motorbikes going over it. Sometimes there are whole families sitting on one of these motorbikes plus their chickens or their toilets or whatever crazy stuff. It’s just amazing how they do that! 

 But you have to watch out. The traffic in Hanoi is awfully chaotic and unorganized. It’s like Darwin said: Survival of the fittest! And if you’re walking you’re the weakest of the weak. That shouldn’t stop you from strolling along the little lanes of Hanoi though and while you’re at it stop by a tailor shop and get some customized clothes. They take your measurements and one day later, sometimes even only hours later you can pick up your chosen dress with the fabric you wanted and it just fits perfectly. You can even watch them do their work cause they mainly do it on the street. 

The people in Hanoi’s Old Quarter just seem to do everything on the street. They cook and eat. They throw their leftovers in the gutter. They sleep on their motorbikes or in their rickshaws. They even get their hair cut outside. They just all seem so content and deeply relaxed and that just really impressed me. That’s why I survived the bad Hanoi smell. And, as it is connected to some great impressions and experiences, it actually doesn’t smell that stinky anymore. Who would have thought…