Wander More Work Less

Another day and another hot, crazy walk on the streets of Hanoi. This morning we headed to an old city gate called Quan Chưởng. It was originally built in 1749 and rebuilt in 1817. It’s one of 21 remaining gates that once allowed access to the Thăng Long Citadel — the place we passed yesterday on the way to the mausoleum. Next, we went to a shopping market we had read about called Dong Xuan Market — three floors filled with all sorts of small stores, from electronics to fabrics and dried foods. A real mixture of things. Prices seemed pretty good. I bought a 128GB micro SD card for $20 and a pair of cheap sunglasses for $3. We’ll see if either of them are any good. Oh, and we got another fridge magnet for 80 cents. It was time to try and find a geocache — a physical one stuck under the handrail of a famous bridge. Or at least we think it’s famous. There were a lot of people standing on it taking selfies. Yep it turns out it's a well known landmark...

A slightly later start to our morning walk today, as we needed to sort a few things out. I say “later start,” but really it wasn’t — we started walking at 8:15 a.m. Not that late! Maybe it just felt late because I’d been awake since 3:30 a.m., unable to get back to sleep. Frustrating. My body takes ages to adapt to the time zone difference. I cheated the first night with a sleeping pill, and I’ll probably need to cheat again tonight. Sorry, a bit of rambling there. 😂 Anyway, we walked to one of the most well-known and famous places in Hanoi — Train Street. Many people have seen or heard about it even if they don’t know exactly where it is. It’s here! We picked our way through the crazy, hectic streets to visit it. It’s very cool — the train runs right down past all the cafés and shops alongside the tracks. The tracks were there first, I believe, and everything else slowly built up around them. We arrived with only 20 minutes to wait for the next morning train, which was go...

We enjoyed a nice hotel breakfast — a real treat to have someone make scrambled eggs for me, and they were cooked perfectly. There was also bacon, toast, and a few slightly unusual items such as fried squid and pork on a stick of lemongrass. I tried one but not the other. Passionfruit flavoured juice and a couple of cups of good coffee rounded things out nicely. We then ventured out to explore a bit further than we had last night. Navigating the streets wasn’t too bad — you just need to stay focused. We first went to the nearby Hoan Kiem Lake. It was lovely in the shade of the big trees, and lots of people were out exercising, doing tai chi, or dancing in groups. We circled to the opposite side and then entered the French Quarter. This area has much wider, boulevard-style streets and a number of beautiful French-influenced buildings. We missed seeing the Hanoi Opera House, so we may need to pop back to check that out another day. We did stop at the Ly Thai To Garden, which ...

It’s now 5:40 a.m. Bangkok time. We’ve lost track of what time our bodies think it is. I had about 2–3 hours of sleep, and Sarah had none. She’s hanging in there, but we’ve got a two-hour flight to Hanoi, Vietnam ahead of us. The flight leaves on time at 7:45 a.m., and the time goes by pretty quickly. Near the end, Sarah lets me know she’s had enough flying for the day — we need to get her to a hotel for a sleep ASAP. We carried our larger backpacks onto the plane along with our front packs, so there’s no luggage to collect. After a quick stop at customs — where our printed visas are barely looked at — we’re officially in Vietnam. The visa to enter cost $25 USD and required a scan of our passports plus a recent photo. The online system compares the two and checks how similar they are. Mine came back as 90% likeness, and Sarah’s was only 65%. She must be looking younger with all this travel! You also have to provide an exit date and exit port on the visa application — which we didn’t ha...

It’s our last morning in Istanbul — and therefore our last morning in Europe for this trip! 😉 A relaxed breakfast and a final bag pack before saying goodbye to Abuzer just before 11 a.m. Unfortunately, Nur was away looking after her aunt. We had a relatively short walk up the steep street to the Hippodrome, then across past the Blue Mosque to the shuttle bus pickup location. It took about an hour and a quarter by bus to reach the airport — the same one we arrived at from Izmir. There’s also a large airport on the Asian side of the city. After a security check and a slightly slow check-in for our Thai Airways flight to Bangkok, we went through passport control and another security screening. We found a place to sit and eat our lunch, having picked up a few last-minute items from our local café/bakery — a börek and a couple of simits. We didn’t have to wait too long before it was time to board. For a moment, I thought we were in premium economy with all the legroom the seats had! I’ll t...

This morning we walked up to and then down through the streets near the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar. We can now navigate this area without referring to the map, which is quite cool. We went to the Eminönü ferry terminal and, using our Istanbul Card, boarded a ferry heading to Kadıköy on the Asian side of the city. The ferry takes about 20 minutes and is a nice way to see the city from a different perspective. We didn’t have anything in particular we needed to do or see on the other side — it was more just to say we’d been there. The one-way ride cost us 50 lira each, about $2 NZD. We wandered around the streets on the other side just to have a look. There were a couple of statues and some lively local streets. I couldn’t walk past a raspberry jam-filled donut, and we also got a simit bread straight from the oven for me, and a pastry for Sarah. It was close enough to lunchtime to call it lunch. 😉 Wander completed, we headed to a metro station t...

A quick chat with my dad via WhatsApp this morning — it was nice to hear his voice rather than just read and send messages. It’s another sunny morning today, with no sign of yesterday’s rain. We set off for a place called Balat, a suburb much further beyond the Grand Bazaar that we visited a few days ago. The reason for visiting Balat was to see the colourful houses. On the way, we crossed a large square right beside a mosque and the Istanbul University grounds. Sarah noticed that the prices in the döner kebab restaurants suddenly got cheaper. We’re not sure if that was because we’d entered a student zone or simply moved far enough away from the tourist areas — perhaps a bit of both. Unfortunately, it was too early to take advantage of the better prices. The next landmark marked on our map was a Roman aqueduct — a large one! The arches were big enough that some now form part of a main arterial road, with cars driving through them. It’s called the Aqueduct of Valens and was ...