Although I hadn’t been completely healthy in Laos I was definitely feeling so much better than I had in weeks. But a few minutes after take-off on our way to Vietnam I knew I was in for a tough flight. I suddenly was feeling more congested than I had since Mumbai; my eyes were aching, I had a throbbing headache and I could hear and feel the congestion moving and popping in my sinuses (as you can tell this is going to be the sexiest blog to date). Anyone who has experienced this while flying knows it can be scary. These are the sort of symptoms that can lead to a perforated eardrum, something that Ofer has experienced before and still has to worry about. I drank as much fluid as I could and yawned throughout the flight to keep myself clear.

Once on the ground in Hanoi Ofer and I grabbed our bags and headed to find a taxi. A young man in a nice looking suit came up to us and offered to take us to his taxi service. He quoted a price and we followed him to the car. He flagged down a car and put our bags in the trunk as Ofer and I climbed into the backseat. A few minutes into the ride Ofer and I realized that we had just gotten into an unmarked taxi. No meter, no plastic dividing window, no number to call in case of emergency: nada. It appeared that these boys were running a ‘private taxi service’ in their own car to make some cash. Or at least, this was the safest possible scenario we could come up with.

Once out of the terminal Ofer repeated the price to the young man who was now in the front passenger seat. Not at all to our surprise the man chose to raise the price once we were on our way. We had experienced this in India, the second you are in their vehicle the price that had been agreed upon was suddenly out the window. But this was a different situation; we were not in a marked taxi knowing that we can at least call to report unlawful behavior, we were in the back of a car with two teenagers who were skirting the law to makes some cash with no rules to abide to once they have us successfully in their vehicle.

Ofer and I decided to get out. We told the boys that we were going to find another cab and that we wanted them to pull over right away. The driver pulled over and the two boys bickered back and forth and tried to bargain with Ofer. We were both nervous and angry by this point but as we looked out of the car into the darkness of the night we thought that we would be in more danger if we got out of the car by the side of the busy highway and had to find a different way to get to our hotel. We all agreed on a price and were on our way, although both of us were still quite nervous.

This was exactly what we had told ourselves we would never do: get into an unmarked car, especially in a foreign country where we don’t speak the language. But unfortunately the chaos of the airport distracted us from being attentive. Hopefully this was going to just be a lesson for us to learn and nothing serious.

The ride to our hotel in the center of Hanoi took about an hour. It was only evening time but the streets were quite dark. The young man in the passenger seat had fallen asleep, which Ofer said was a good sign, because if they were taking us somewhere to maim us he would probably be pumped with adrenaline not taking a cat nap. Good point. Then we noticed that our driver was drifting into other lanes every minute or so. We had, of course, gotten used to terrible drivers on this trip, but this was different. Our driver was not just fighting to stay awake, every so often he was actually asleep.

Once Ofer and I realized what was going on Ofer spoke up right away and loudly asked the driver if he was ok to drive. The driver momentarily woke up and focused on the road but less than a minute later his head was bobbing down as he drifted in and out of consciousness. We sat in the backseat clearing our throats, coughing, speaking very loudly and clapping our hands to try to ensure that he would stay awake. Of course we were concerned about our safety but I have to admit that we were also very amused. Ofer would clap his hands the second he saw his head begin to nod and I would did my best to come up with a fascinating narrative to speak at the top of my lungs. I felt like we were in a bad improv comedy sketch. At one point the two boys started talking and finally the car was pulled over and they switched drivers. Whew.

Once we got into the main streets of Hanoi we were floored. We were stuck in the worst gridlock we had ever seen. Motorcycles, cars, bicycles and pedestrians were packed together on every street. Shops were still open, people were sitting on the sidewalks having dinner, families were loaded up on their motorcycles and Vietnamese flags waved outside of almost every building. Women walked through the streets with cone shaped straw hats balancing two baskets on either end of a pole. They each had a distinctive lyrical walk as the baskets bounced with each step. It was quite a site.

I was still feeling sick from the flight and we were both tense from the drive when we finally arrived at the hotel. Our hotel was in the middle of the Old City; a convergence of narrow and wider streets winding every which way and with every square inch occupied and busy. We got our keys and started up the stairs. We were on the fifth floor of a six story walk-up. The building got warmer and warmer as we climbed higher and each floor smelled like cigarettes. Our room was very small, not so clean looking and had a mattress on the floor for a bed. Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.

One of our nights Hanoi Ofer and I settled in bed to watch Pearl Harbor on TV. It has to be noted that I am terrible about watching movies involving mystery, horror, war, death and destruction. My heart pounds and I start worrying that I can’t breathe. Seriously. I have been this way since I was a kid. The only way I can watch that kind of a movie is with the lights on, ear plugs in my ears with my eyes mostly squinted shut. Needless to say, this was how I watched Pearl Harbor that night.

When the drama in the movie really started to pick up I began to smell something. I was convinced that it was smoke. I would mute the movie and sit straight up in bed and ask Ofer if he was smelling what I was smelling. He wasn’t. Ofer stayed calm and continued to lay in bed. I did this about 5 times before I completely freaked out and made us both get dressed and go out into the hall to see if there was smoke. Out in the hall I swore the air looked smokey and definitely smelled like burning wood. There was no way I was going to be caught in a fire on the 5th story of a dilapidated ‘hotel’. The second time I made us do this Ofer conceded to go downstairs and see what was going on, despite the fact that he neither smelled or saw the smoke that I was complaining about.

Ofer came up and told me that the streets were packed with people cooking and eating meals on the sidewalks and what I was smelling was the smoke from all of these home-made stoves. I felt better, but had a pretty uneasy feeling knowing that there were so many people burning things so close to our hotel. Whatcha gonna do.

I completely missed Hanoi. I tried to go out with Ofer but shortly after I had him take me back to the hotel because I was feeling so miserable. I was starting to wonder when this flu would ever end. Ofer stayed with me for awhile but I told him to go out and explore the city and I was sure I would be fine.

Ofer discovered that we were in Hanoi just a few days before their celebration marking the 1000th year since the city’s establishment. Ofer walked around the picturesque Hoan Kiem Lake and reported back that the city was clearly preparing for massive celebrations.

Ofer learned that street signs and lights meant close to nothing in the main area of Hanoi, in fact in a lot of intersections there was no organized system for moving people and vehicles through. On the occasion that Ofer and I both walked around the streets we waited on each corner for a good 5 minutes trying to decide how to cross without being run down. It was clear that it was very rare for a break in the flow of vehicles and that it was unheard of to slow down or stop for pedestrians. It felt like a condensed version of the streets of China.

We learned that if we wanted to ever get across a street, any street, we needed to just step off of the curb and walk in front of the oncoming traffic. We knew that we had a better chance if we walked in front of a car instead of bikes because that way we were relying only on one person to brake for us instead of a few. We had better odds that way. In the beginning it was intimidating but our technique got better and better and our mutual judgement of when was the best time to brave the traffic got in-sync. There is nothing like walking the streets of Hanoi for great team building skills.

For two days I was a hermit in our hotel room; I kept all lights turned off, hardly ate, never showered and slept more than a newborn baby. Every now and then I would wake up and watch a few minutes of whatever English program I could find before drifting back to sleep. Ofer would come home and bring food and massage my head to help relieve my discomfort. If I didn’t know before how committed to me Ofer was, this trip and sickness absolutely had.


We only had two nights in Hanoi and I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to see it just like I felt I wasn’t able to see India. We were both happy that we had two more destinations in Vietnam and hopefully enough time to for me to get healthy so we could go out together and really see the country. I was lucky that in our next Vietnamese destination we would get our wish.