Visiting West Lake and a Geocaching Event Meetup That Wasn't

These hotel breakfasts are a nice way to start the day — and hopefully, we’re walking most of it off each day. It's certainly a lot more calories than muesli or corn flakes! We’ll find out the impact when we check the bathroom scales in a few days’ time.

This morning, we decided to combine a walk and a visit to the West Lake area with a Geocaching Event that a pair from the USA were hosting. It was another chaotic walk to get there. I’m not sure you could ever get desensitised to this environment! We saw some beautifully coloured houses next to a canal just before reaching the lake.

Once at the lake, we zeroed in on the event coordinates, which were at a bridge beside a small pagoda. We were about ten minutes late for the 10 a.m. start, but there didn’t appear to be anyone there. Bit weird — even for Geocachers!

There were two young guys sitting at a table inside the pagoda courtyard, so I approached them to see if they were the hosts. They didn’t speak any English, but with the help of Google Translate we figured out they were just locals enjoying the lake area. We had a good laugh and shook hands as they left. We waited until 10:30 a.m., which was the designated time slot for the event, and then continued our walk. The hosts later messaged to say they’d arrived late. Weirdos!? Or maybe they just underestimated Hanoi travel times.

We crossed the super busy road outside to see the larger Buddhist pagoda on the other side, which overlooks the main part of West Lake. It looked beautiful with its tall tower, but it had strict dress requirements that we didn’t meet — neither of us had packed a dress! 😂

We took a few photos of it from the outside, along with some shots of the lake, before walking along the edge toward a quieter street. “Quieter” is a relative term in this city, but there was at least a better chance of our Grab taxi being able to pick us up there. We’d decided to use Grab as a test run before going to the airport tomorrow (oops, spoiler alert!). The only other time we’d used it was in Bangkok back in February — it’s the Asian version of Uber.

The car arrived within ten minutes and took us back to the hotel — or rather, just around the corner from it. $4 NZD for a 5–6 km ride was very reasonable — cheaper than public buses in Europe!

After that, it was shower and chill-out time before heading out again for a late lunch. We found a café for another egg coffee (A) and a smoothie (S), plus we each had a pain au chocolat. The coffee was quite different from the first one I’d had, so perhaps they come in different variations. This one was more like a crème brûlée on top — very nice. Total cost: 175,000 VND, or about $11.60 NZD — not bad at all. The café had a great aerial photo of the Long Biên Bridge that we’d partially walked along yesterday, which really gives you an idea of how long it is.

The rest of the afternoon we simply relaxed at the hotel — one of us may have had a snooze. 😴

We went to our tried-and-tested restaurant next door for yet another lovely meal: beef wrapped in betel (not beetle!) leaf, stir-fried chicken, and pork spring rolls. A very nice dinner for our last night away — well, except for the night on a plane in economy class tomorrow! 😳