Not my favorite destination upon arrival, Hanoi turned out to be a comfortable place to live for a couple of weeks after I became accustomed to the loud noises, smog and chaotic volume of unyielding traffic. I was in a three bedroom apartment across from the Daewoo Center, a skyscraper/department store/grocery store. The heart of Hanoi and the center which draws most of the tourism is about 20 minutes away from where I was. I joined a gym twenty minutes walk away and spent most of my time in Hanoi focused on cooking, eating and lifting. I got a new personal best on my back squat in Thailand the previous month and wanted to keep my momentum going. Highlights of Hanoi included the water puppet show (every time I say “water puppets” I smile — the concept itself is entertaining in and of itself), custom-ordering dress shirts and pants from a local tailor (they took 10 different measurements on my upper-body alone), doing Hatha yoga in a class of Vietnamese women, taught by an Indian instructor, in English and this incredibly strange interpretive dance performance that I attended. I’ve gotta say – for all the romanticism ascribed to Vietnam by post-war America […]
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