Another day in Hanoi, this time with a morning variation, no snooze! Leon relied on his tried-and-true technique of keeping his phone away from the bed, ensuring he had to get up to turn off the alarm. This led to us getting up at half-past nine and kickstarting the day.
So off we went on the moped for some coffee! We have indeed found our standard café by now, and the urge for experiments isn’t quite so strong in the morning. That’s why we ended up where we had been the last few mornings. This time, we didn’t make the mistake of ordering just one coconut sorbet; instead, we both ordered one and wondered once again what the café next door was all about. This time, there were fewer spaced-out looking people, although the opium den theory isn’t entirely off the table. It remains a mystery.
Unfortunately, after coffee, we had to say goodbye to our relatively new replacement moped and pick up our somewhat clunkier moped again. It stutters a bit, starts poorly… Well, it’s cheap and takes us (almost) everywhere. And now it’s our moped. Actually, we’ve also gotten used to its quirky character quite well.
Leon had gotten out of bed quite well in the morning, but was experiencing slight stomach pains and had a frog in his throat. Real appetite didn’t kick in during breakfast, even after coffee. Thus, he skipped breakfast, while Malte treated himself to one—or due to a translation error, even two—Bánh cuốn. A bit too much, but still delicious!
Afterwards, we went back home to recover from our hard work of drinking coffee and eating. Leon also had an extended phone call with Johanna. It lasted so long that Malte decided to step out alone again for another coffee. This time he finally found the café he had been looking for together with Leon a few days earlier. At the café, Malte was approached by the barista, who told him stories from his hometown and gave him a recommendation for a hygienic place for dinner. Meanwhile, Malte could observe a barber across the street, who was gradually giving his customers new hairstyles right on the street.
Eventually, he decided to go pick up Leon, drove home, and after Leon finished his call and created a backup of his phone, we drove in the direction of downtown to Apple No. 1 as planned, to have our iPhones repaired. Before that, however, Malte spontaneously wanted to buy some pants. That led to the result that Leon got carried away with shopping, bought three pairs of pants, received a sweater, and got two pairs of socks for free… and Malte got nothing. Apparently, there are indeed advantages to not being 184 cm tall—being a bit closer to the local body size has its perks.
After that, we really headed to the repair shop. Fortunately, we could spontaneously borrow a phone for the duration of the repair, so we were quite flexible. We dropped off our phones, went to the glasses store, and in about ten minutes had new lenses inserted. Somehow, Leon initially found the new lenses disorienting, but since the vision was quite good, he accepted the glasses as they were for now. Perhaps one just needs to get used to not having deep scratches in the middle of one’s field of vision after two years, he thought.
As we were on our way to dinner, we received a message on our borrowed phone that we could pick up our iPhones again. So, we rode back across town to Apple No. 1 to collect our iPhones and then went out for dinner from there. Leon felt the need to give his stomach a short break, so the barista’s recommendation earlier in the morning came in quite handy.
It was a relatively fancy restaurant by Vietnamese standards, with dishes priced at about five euros. Really quite high-class by local standards.
Here, Leon finally realized that something was wrong with his glasses. The right lens must have been inserted incorrectly because he could see excellently with his left eye, but almost nothing with his right eye in comparison. Annoying.
We ordered fried glass noodles with mushrooms and vegetables, fried eggplants with anise, sticky rice with chicken and “meat wool,” and water spinach with garlic as a side. Meat wool refers to dried, fibrous meat that serves as a spicy garnish in some dishes. It sounds terrible but is actually surprisingly delicious!
After dinner, we wanted to head home without major detours. Smaller detours led us only for a couple of fun drinks past Circle K and to our now familiar juice stand at the intersection right in front of our apartment.
At night, when there is a bit less traffic, it also moves along a little better.
Once we arrived back at the apartment, yet another now customary routine took place. We settled down on the sofa and played a few rounds of chess until Malte slowly dozed off on the sofa while Leon continued to play a bit longer before eventually heading to bed. Malte woke up because of this and, unfortunately, suddenly felt wide awake. He could not sleep for the life of him and passed the time with chess and chatting with people from Germany, for whom it was still early evening. He finally managed to fall asleep around three, albeit on the sofa. At least it was better than not being able to sleep at all.
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