Effortless coolth in Singapore, life and flavour in Hanoi

Fried poultry, all body parts included.

21 Mar 2025

Fortunato and Veralda Mazzone are travelling again, this time to Vietnam via Singapore. Forti and Valda agreed to share their diary.

Day 1 of our 10-day break. A 24-hour day. As I lie on my bed in a nice cool room in old town Hanoi I have as always learnt some important things in our two-nation sojourn today.

Singapore Airlines is fantastic, with absolutely gorgeous gloss-black-haired gods and goddesses running the hospitality on the brand-new super-clean aircraft. I didn’t feel like a third-class citizen in economy class like you feel on the grubby Emirates aircraft in cattle class. If only I could fly them to Europe. The dapperly clad team on board, even with absolutely full planes, made service look effortless and generous. It was a revelation.

Indoor gardens at Singapore Airport. The Jewel fountain spans several storeys. (Image by VacacionesPagodasBlog from Pixabay)

Singapore is absolutely astonishing. We took the number 36 bus from Changi airport (which is itself a city) and sooooo much nicer than any airport I have ever been to, and circled the city. Singapore is simply beautiful. Vast swathes of indigenous greenery interspersed with spotless gobsmacking buildings and organised streets that look like the future. Not in a plastic Dubai way. In a classy and effortlessly cool way. The citizens are polite, beautiful and smiley. And immaculately dressed and erm… super cool.

It is also expensive in a Zurich kind of way but you certainly get what you pay for. The public transport is astonishing and surprisingly cheap. Every place you look is spotless. I mean like, the whole city looks like it gets dry-cleaned every day. Customs and immigration are super efficient and friendly in a no-bullshit kind of way. It must be lovely to live here.

Customs was like socialist Utopia

Hanoi sunset skyline. (Image by Bá Thắng Nguyễn from Pixabay)

After 20 hours we arrived in Vietnam. The airport in Hanoi is plain but filled with lovely people. Customs was like socialist utopia with severely dressed but smiley people.

Odd. The traffic is organised chaos. Everyone makes way for everyone else and it all just works. We are staying in the quaintest hotel in the middle of the old town. The currency is really funny. Add many zeros to everything. A cup of exceptional Vietnamese coffee is 35,000 Dong. Or about R2.

A truly delicious meal for two of brimming bowls of the freshest beef pho with two beers was 120,000 Dong. In a restaurant. Which is unfortunately not going to win any design awards. It was run by two wizened old harridans who smiled toothlessly as we left, still hanging over their enormous pot of fragrant beef broth.

Food was ordered with two fingers. It’s a good thing I wasn’t alone. The flavour was equal parts punchy heat, beefy goodness and filled with spice, herb and flavour with a sour tang from lime and scallions in vinegar. It was an oral and aural delight. The noodles were slurped up in heaped mounds with wooden chopsticks. The streets are an obstacle course of tiny tables and chairs, scooters, loud, happy people and traffic. Interspersed with erm… dirt. Cleanliness is not a strong point. But colour, life and flavour are.

It is like oriental Napoli

Hanoi street scene. (Image by Thomas G. from Pixabay)

No big multinationals here. Only thousands of small family-run businesses seeming to specialise in only one item. And lots and lots of happy, quite noisy and lovely people. I am already in love after only six hours here. It is like oriental Napoli. It is like the Large Hadron Collider between Vietnamese, Chinese, French and American culture in the nicest possible way. With food as the God Particle.

I feel like I have been put in a washing machine of happiness. My head is whirling. Everywhere you look has a unique and special thing to look at. Twirly French colonial little balconies, plants growing between cracks in the sidewalk, constant trips into the road to avoid overloaded pavements and brash neon interspersed with zen moments. A complete delight.

Breakfast on Noddy chairs and ‘egg coffee’

Noddy chairs. (Image by Thomas G. from Pixabay)

Day two. A story. We started our day early at sunrise with a stonking breakfast at our hotel followed by a gentle stroll through the mayhem of early-morning traffic in the old town. It was raining. We walked with umbrellas. We avoided pedestrians, early-morning breakfast eaters on Noddy chairs filling the pavement, and a gazillion speeding scooters interspersed with massive tour buses threading down the already narrow streets. Twice my umbrella was nearly knocked from my hands by buses passing millimetres from me.

The shops are minuscule. And let’s just say that hygiene is not a priority. The people chat loudly, often with people quite some distance away. Shops are filled with Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Rolex which I am sure do not ahem… comply.

Food shops have outdoor kitchens with the insides of the shops acting as storerooms, while customers squat on the pavement on small-legged items that are allegedly chairs. We reached the central “lake” and went up to a well-known coffee shop on the fifth floor with views over central Hanoi. You have to pay for what you want at the door.

Veralda Mazzone enjoys Egg Coffee in Hanoi.

We were extorted 120,000 Dong for two egg coffees (four times the usual R1). The coffee then needs to be ordered at the bar counter despite all the staff and we settled in to wait for the famous Zabaglione-like speciality. The town hustled below us and the pollution hanging over the city cast a haze, meaning anything further than a kilometre away was obscured. It was still lovely. We wandered (dodged?) our way back to the hotel and met our delightful tour guide for the day, Anna.

She stores an encyclopaedia of knowledge in her memory. She bustled us into a huge people carrier and the driver ventured out bravely. A cacophony of horns followed us to each stop. We visited parliament and the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh. We visited his body surrounded by immaculate guards, his embalment supervised by the Soviet Union, giving the illusion of him sleeping.

Many Vietnamese walked past in dignified silence as uncle Ho, as he is called, is much revered. A woman wailed outside. On the grounds are the brutalist architecture of parliament and the museum dedicated to him. We skipped both. We visited various pagodas and had a history lesson from our guide while inspecting the first university in Vietnam. Now it is a shrine. Filled with art treasures, statues and symbolism. Garnished with fruit. For a communist nation, faith is very dominant here.

The spot where Bourdain took Obama out for lunch

President Barack Obama participates in an interview with Anthony Bourdain during dinner at Bún cha Huong Lien restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam, May 23, 2016. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

We then went for lunch. We were taken to a narrow entrance of a very plain store and taken to the upper floor. We were seated exactly opposite the spot where Bourdain took Obama out for lunch. And where our favourite Phil ate in Hanoi. We could not sit at the exact table as it is in a glass cage with the exact cutlery and crockery preserved for posterity on the table. Much soup was brought with fishy spring rolls. They were super rich.

Despite the Michelin symbol on the wall and its illustrious clientele, last night’s pho was much better. I have become a Phoisti. A Pho snob even. In two days.

Forti at the spot where Obama and Bourdain had lunch in 2016.

I needed the loo. I waited in line for the aptly named WC. It said so on the door. In large peeling letters. Patently, the Michelin inspectors had not seen this one during their visit.

I was torn between walking out or squatting over the throne in the boskak position. Bravely I chose the squat. At 150kg and 57 with dicky knees it was a poor decision. But nature was stronger than sense. Fifteen seconds into defying gravity I felt a sharp tearing pain and a popping sound. My right knee gave way as my body reminded me that the last time I did this was more than 30 years ago in a uniform a similar colour to what I was trying to avoid below me. I collapsed onto the “seat” in slo-mo, seeing stars. My knee screaming inside, my bottom meeting the dreaded with a thud. Resigned to the situation, I finished the job and the rest of the paper roll, trying in earnest to avoid the plague. I hobbled to the table hoping that I had avoided several of the pathogens that common sense had told me were present.

We cut short the rest of the tour and I asked to return to the hotel. For a long shower and many painkillers. I now write this. I took a pic for evidence. Don’t worry. Only the front view from my prone position. I hope someone sends it to the Michelin guide. Tonight we are going on a walking tour. I will ensure I go to the loo again before we leave. And hope my knee lasts the walk. That is all. And probably too much. I still love this city.

A street for everything

(Image by Olga Ozik from Pixabay)

Valda Mazzone writes:

“What did you study?” I ask Anna, our tour guide, during lunch.

“Pattern-making and fashion design” comes the shy answer. It transpires that she loves the classic styles of the ’40s. So do I.

I mentioned that I would like to buy a piece of proper silk. (Yes, I know I can have something made here, but I am not completely useless as a seamstress, myself).

Late afternoon on our walk through Old Hanoi she explains that there is a street for everything. We walk down the bamboo street, one with hardware stores, the next stationery, followed by lock makers. There are paper vendors, traditional medicine (think lost lover and all ailments), literally one for each trade. Don’t even get me started on the food, a street for every ingredient.

Fried poultry, all body parts included. Hanoi streets are themed by food. This one was all about chickens and ducks.

Eventually, haberdashers galore — I have never seen so many buttons in my life. Shy ladies sitting at sewing machines or embroidering by hand while having a cup of green tea. I point at a “silk” sign. Anna subtly shakes her head and keeps on shaking it for a few blocks. We enter a small shop with no window display (no, she does not know the owner). Talking of the owner, she was not very friendly, like a bear with a sore tooth. Until her mother told us she couldn’t smile because she had toothache. The irony…

Anna points out, “this is Vietnamese silk, this is Chinese silk, this is silk from plastic”. Tooth Fairy’s face lit up after I picked my proper Vietnamese silk and asked for five metres. Forti took out the notes and even bargained a bit.

Well, she will certainly smile tomorrow, because now she has money for the dentist and I have my silk for a ’40s-style dress.

I feel as bright as a button. DM

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