Hanoi

I got to Hanoi in 2016, when the backpackers ruled the Earth. I was a suburban child in search of exotic vibes and maximum weirdness, and in Hanoi I found those things.

It’s a place of casual anarchy. Where in any bar you can meet someone who might be a fugitive, and where it’s OK to drive your motorcycle up the sidewalk like Tom Cruise if you’re late for work. Or if you just want to.

You have to wear a ninja mask all the time but you still taste gasoline in the air. Wherever you are, there is a woman in floral-print pajamas nearby killing a chicken and not washing her hands. 

Vietnam is so hot that it feels like the concrete is about to bubble into magma and suck us all down into hell. So you spend a lot of time at the pool drinking fifty-cent beers with ice cubes, giggling with your friends as you warp into a state of dehydrated delirium. There are worse ways to live. 

The backpackers all came here “for a few weeks” but then decided to stay forever and formed a fake aristocracy. They play the game of life with cheat codes on. They teach English classes and get paid too much money in cash like drug dealers. They have de facto diplomatic immunity to commit minor crimes on the roads and in the clubs. These people—a group that includes myself—will go down as the luckiest idiots of all time. 

Everyone is a long way from home. Vietnam is very far away, and it feels far away. It takes a long time to get here, and I like that. I believe that if you want to go somewhere exotic and worthwhile, you need to suffer. Direct flights are too easy. You should have to be in transit for at least thirty hours and get lost trying to find your connection gate in Tajikistan or wherever. By the time you finally land at Noi Bai Airport you feel like you’re on the other side of the galaxy. 

Whenever I get back to Hanoi, I feel like many problems in life have been solved. And whenever I have to leave, those problems get unsolved.

Photo by Chris Hocker

One of the OG Tays, a great photographer and a great friend.