Woke up in time for hostel breakfast today, and saw the walking tour group for the day heading off; They made them do the Macarena as a warmup. That didn’t happen yesterday, and I’m not sure whether I feel that I’ve missed out.
Ended up sitting next to one of the folks from my dormitory, a Dutch woman who’d arrived yesterday, and who id accidentally startled by opening the bathroom door from the inside just as she opened it from the outside.
I took a couple of pictures of the alley leading to the hostel & the street outside it.
Walked down to Hoan Kiem Lake & strolled around it. There’s a cluster of bus tour places at one end, and a bunch of people selling souvenirs ( and those people who do caricature sketches ) around the area of a temple partway down, but the rest of it was just regular folks doing regular lakeside things, plus a lot of people talking photographs where they’re dressed up, using the lake as the backdrop.
Went back to the Banh Mi place from yesterday. Initially I sat outside, but it was loud & got crowded, so I went to their upstairs seating instead, and camped out on a narrow balcony.
Got this video of the traffic first though.
It looks a bit less insane from above.
One of the people on the balcony of the yellow building across the way came over to photograph & be photographed by her friends, so I’m in their travel memories now.
I kept getting distracted & turned around on the walk back to the hostel, which was getting annoying, so I eventually went with a Follow The Map And Do Nothing Else approach, which worked.
Got some of what I’d wanted to do sorted in the afternoon; My flights to & from the US in 2025 are booked, and this far out, for a pretty good price.
Unlike many of my other US trips, I’m not taking a super early flight this time. It’s a relatively civilised midday departure instead.
Booking it did take a little more time than expected, due (again) to painfully slow two-factor banking systems, though I’m starting to think that’s actually a consequence of swapping SIM cards around, and I need to have the swap done a few minutes before I start to give the network time to catch up.
Ended up in a fun conversation with three of the room residents after it turned out that we’re all in the IT business, or were. One of them, from Portugal, has bought so much knock-off brand name gear that he had to buy a knock-off brand name pack to transport it in. He’s convinced that it comes from the same factories, and maybe he’s right?
I’m certainly less & less convinced that all those places selling Patagonia & North Face & Arcteryx gear are legitimate outlets.
Ended the evening with the hostel happy half-hour, chatting with a couple of German travellers, one of whom had to leave mid-beer to go get his overnight bus.