When my connecting flight from Guangzhou airport landed in Hanoi, after surviving the starry night above the clouds that flashed from lightning storms within, I got one hand on the curtain of Vietnam and flung it open.
Before me stood an airport that looked like any other. I waited for my visa to be cleared in the arrivals lobby among a gaggle of foreigners and finally my face flashed up on a hanging flat-screen TV. A robotic voice pronounced my name surprsingly well and I went up to the desk, paid my $30 and left to find a taxi.
The night air was warm, my cold-British-weather attire was useless.
"Oy!" said a small, smiling Vietnamese man next to a taxi.
"300,000?" I said, showing him the address I needed.
"350," he said. A quids difference is fine by me. I got in and so did a smartly dressed Vietnamese couple. the woman wore a beautiful pink ao dai and the man a fresh suit. They kept saying 'thank you' to me as though I was paying for their ride.
The woman sang in the back and the driver joined in. It sounded like a Vietnamese lullaby. A little down the motorway they got out at a large, fancy looking hotel and said another million thank yous. The woman bowed with a huge smile before closing the door without paying, leaving me alone with the driver and my confirmed suspicions.
We got onto the highway, which looked a lot more organised than I'd been told, until a taxi swerved into the lane of an adjacent taxi, making it veer off to the next lane as well.
The closer we got to the city, the more motorbikes swarmed through the traffic. A family of four all squidged onto one bike overtook us, with the youngest standing up front between the driver's arms gliding nonchalantly along and the teenage girl on the back checking Facebook on her phone.
Beneath the neon arcs of the bridge over the lake into Hanoi, I asked the driver if he could put on the radio. Emotional Vietnamese ballads fought for his attention through white noise switches and eventually he resorted to his CD.
He switched through every track and then slipped another CD into the drive, letting his taxi drift over the lines of the highway, which I watched cautiously.
A strange introduction of echoing guitar opened and I was ready for some real Vietnamese tunes that he deemed listenable. Just as I was taking in this brand new cultural landscape and getting ready to experience the driver's own personal music taste, the song kicked in.
"By the rivers of Babylon!" burst through the speakers. Boney M, is there anything more Vietnamese? It was the soundtrack to my arrival into the city, my home for the next few weeks.
At various points on the bridge, couples stood embraced, or groups of friends laughed around their bikes. Some took pictures of the lights around the lake and others just relaxed. It seemed to be the go-to spot for young people that night.
Suddenly the taxi was closed into a back alley where a man squatted on a wall smoking a cigarette, overlooking the traffic. Vegetables, boxes and of course bikes spilled out of the ramshackle houses that were cobbled together each side of the road.
Every now and then a group of people were sat on blue and yellow plastic foot-stands drinking and chattering loudly outside a marquee, lit by a bunting of bulbs.
Abandoned construction sites and more likely active ones filled up my brand new scrapbook of memories alongside chaotic roundabouts and glimpses of a lake between the trees, food stalls and pharmacies.
Finally I arrived, somewhere within the weaving back-alleys of Hanoi to where my English friends were waiting for me. I shook the drivers hand, paid mine and the fancy, friendly, albeit hitchhiking couple's fair and shut the door.
After some long-awaited hello's we walked to their house, but not before a scream filled the air behind us with a loud crash. A Western couple had stacked it while taking a risky corner in the back-roads. We made sure they were OK then headed into the darkness behind the main road to home.
We drank some Bia Ha Noi, slayed a deadly spider and said an early goodnight. I was sitting in on an English teaching lesson the next day early in the morn, so the pub quizzes, Flower Market midnight snacks and electro-swing DJ sessions would have to wait...
