Well. It’s 12:40pm here, now. I got to my AirBnB at about 6am. The arrangements were – as I suspected they might be – somewhat approximate. The house itself is tucked down an alley behind the address it advertises. The keys were supposed to be in a lock box on the front wall, but the lock box was empty… the host’s husband (who may also be a host…) hotfooted it home on his moped (hot mopeded??) to let me in. I was shown into a small kitchen with no AC, given a key and invited to rest. Exit husband.

I needed to change. It’s humid beyond belief. Since nothing was stirring in the house, I rummaged in my rucksack and found a pair of shorts and a t shirt, and switched clothes right there in the kitchen. All good.

Then I decided I didn’t want to sit in an airless kitchen and set out to see why the guidebook recommends Hoan Kiem lake in the early morning.

The lake itself isn’t desperately big and is incongruously set right in the middle of the city like an only-slightly-oversized traffic island. At 7am this morning, I was fearfully pleased with myself for navigating the traffic to get there. The roads are swarming with mopeds, seemingly moving at random like particles in a Brownian experiment. There are cars too, obviously. But not nearly so many of them. There are also pedestrian crossings and, much like at home, the rule seems to be that you cross when the man goes green. But, my friends – and this is a real kicker – THE TRAFFIC DOESN’T STOP! You just step onto the crossing and hold your nerve as mopeds swirl around you. Keep moving, keep moving…

The lake is certainly a good morning run destination. It has boulevards which were full of people doing Tai Chi or other forms of stretchy exercise. And two rather random dance classes. One with pairs learning what might have been a rhumba while a decidedly camp instructor barked instructions at them, and the other a group of women silently following a leader whom I couldn’t identify in a repetitive square dance.

Every few hundred yards, there’s an electricity substation like the one above, with boxes and meters clinging haphazardly to it, and wires sticking out all over the place. They’re quite beautifully decorated, but look lethal nonetheless.

The tip of the lake is crowned by a temple which looks very beautiful. I didn’t go in, as by then I’d made different plans. But it’s definitely on my list…

When I realised I’d left my water bottle at the house and lacked even the basic Vietnamese to buy water, I decided to remedy the situation. So I booked a Vietnamese lesson. We (the tutor, Nga, an American and I) met in a cafe in the old quarter and for the next couple of hours we learned the alphabet, how to count, and some basic phrases. It was my first go at an inflected language. It was fun!

By the time we finished, I was hungry – and equipped to do something about it! So Nga and I went to eat Bun Cha at a street restaurant. It was delicious! And I ordered it!!

I stumbled around the old quarter a little, on my way back to the house, but frankly I was so tired that I’m beginning to hallucinate. But I found a cathedral and the Archbishop’s house, both of which feature in the novel I’m reading right now (“The Sympathiser” by Viet Thanh Nguyen. So that was rewarding.

And now I’m in my room. So I’m going to very quickly unpack and then fall into bed for a few hours. This is probably precisely the wrong thing to do, but tant pis. I’m so tired…!