On the last day of our first trip to Hanoi (we plan to return again as there is so much we have not yet managed to see) we ate very sweet stuffed croissants and drank egg coffee in a local bakery for breakfast. Mine had a filling of chocolate and Tim had pistachio. The treats here are probably not doing my cholesterol levels any good. Maybe I’ll try and stick to the pho (noodle soup) from now on. Then we lost a few hours wandering the old town again. We found the massive market complex that sells just about everything imaginable – including job lots of the jewellery that is being sold around town in the souvenir shops. Good for presents, but our backpacks are already stuffed on this trip as we brought smaller 40 litre ones with attached 15 litre daypacks as we may need to take a few flights and it’s easier to book them with hand luggage only.

After a short rest we caught a cyclo to ‘train street’. This has become famous among tourists/ backpackers/ instagrammers in recent years. The train passes through very narrow city centre streets with houses close to it on either side. Entrepreneurial Vietnamese who own said properties have opened cafes all down the street. A trip to Hanoi is not complete without visiting ‘train street’ to drink beer or coffee and watch the trains go by.

The cyclo driver was a pro and offered to take a picture of both of us when we reached our destination. This secured a good tip for him. I have to hand it to the Vietnamese, they are extremely good at getting money out of tourists in a charmingly entrepreneurial way. We were in plenty of time and easily found a nice trackside cafe where we sat and ordered coffee and banh mi (this is translated as bread and….whatever you want in it – basically a French loaf stuffed with omlette, or pork or beef or a mixture of the lot with a bit of salad, maybe pork floss, some seasonings….generally delicious).

As the time for the arrival of the train approached the tension ramped up. Officials arrived and blew whistles as they walked up and down the track, admonishing tourists to make sure they were well back against the sides of the cafes. The cafe owners came out to push the tables and chairs further away from the track. Finally we heard the toot of the train in the distance. The officials were still shooing tourists around. It must be a nightmare job. Apparently the government got cold feet and closed the street for a while but it was quickly back open again, presumably with new safety measures in place (maybe more officials with whistles?). When the train thundered into view it was very big. And very close. A possibly inebriated tourist just along from us reached out to touch it and was smartly rebuked by one of the officials. It seemed to go on for ever – carriage after carriage rumbled past. Then it was over and the whole street erupted in applause. It was definitely an experience I won’t forget.

We walked back to our hotel via St Joseph’s Cathedral and the Hoan Kiem lake. The doors of the cathedral were open today and officials dressed in purple sat outside. Prayers for the pope were being said by the faithful during the course of the day before his funeral was due to take place. Tim and I nipped in, using the opportunity to have a look inside the building, which was as magnificent on the inside as on the outside as well as to say a couple of prayers for the pope, of course! It was a serene, thoughtful atmosphere inside compared to the chaos outside. I can understand why they keep it for prayer. It is only possible to visit to attend a mass, you can’t just go in to look around. Though it is lovely to be able to visit, a lot of the cathedrals around the world, including in the UK, that are now open to tourists are more like tourist attractions than places of worship. Westminster Cathedral seems to get the balance right, however.

Then we headed back to our hotel to shower off our sticky bodies (the temperature is consistently over thirty degrees here) before eating something and packing up for our trip to Trang An…