I’ve hit a travel wall. I’m not having fun right now, and if I could teleport back to my bed in NYC, I would.
The thing about this trip is that when I’m in the midst of a good month, when I’m vibing with the city and have a decent apartment, I feel like I could do this forever. When I’m in a bad month, I just want to crawl under the covers and cry.
This is a bad month.
Myanmar was amazing (I still owe you part two of the report, it’s coming, I promise), but it was busy and draining. I didn’t have much time to work, and business has been busier than I expected—a great thing in the long term, but a difficult thing in the short term. I really needed to be able to settle smoothly into Hanoi and get some shit done.
Instead, it’s just been one annoyance after another.
They issued a single-entry visa instead of a multi-entry visa, so I had to redo the process after going to Hong Kong last week (and of course the “fast” track guy was 30 minutes late and made me wait longer because I didn’t have a printed copy of the approval letter they expressly told me I didn’t have to print, and then they wound up applying for the multi-entry visa that I didn’t need the second time around, resulting in an extra $25 fee yay!).
My apartment is crap. Some of the problems are fixable: I was given one towel covered in visible stains. The kitchen didn’t contain a coffee mug, and the single pan was covered in black crap, making my usual scrambled egg breakfast impossible to cook. All of that was remedied, but it wasted time and energy I didn’t have, and allegedly I’m paying a company so that I don’t have to deal with all that. If I were in an Airbnb, I could probably get refunded for that level of ridiculousness, but on We Roam, I’m stuck.
And some things can’t be fixed. The hot water heater for my shower takes nearly an hour to heat up. Then in order to have enough hot water to last for the full shower, I have to stop and start it throughout. And I have to start with the dial to the right so it doesn’t scald me, then slowly and carefully crank it to the left as the hot water runs out.
And naturally, this palace is down this confusing series of alleys. Think Venice, but not adorable; I have a good sense of direction and find it incomprehensible. And when a motorbike beeps, signaling it’s turning the corner, you have to press yourself against the wall to make room. Let’s not even talk about the rats I’ve seen scurrying around.
Traffic in general is delightful. You may have heard what an event it is to cross the street in Vietnam, but being in a car isn’t much better. In order to be close to the workspace, we’re far from the Old Quarter and all the tourist attractions. Getting to see any of the sights requires a 30-minute Uber or Grab ride. Last night, three Ubers in a row refused to take us home because they were hoping for airport fares. We finally got a Grab, and he literally hit (lightly, but I mean still) a traffic cop trying to pull us over. Then he…panicked, I guess…and wouldn’t stop at our destination, resulting in an unnecessary 15-minute walk home.
The cherry on top of the Hanoi sundae is the air quality. Pretty much everyone got very sick when we came here, and my throat is permanently swollen. The smog is so thick, you’d think it was fog—but it’s not! It’s enough to make you seriously consider one of those surgical masks; I walk around with my scarf over my face most of the time.
If this were my first month on the road, this might all be a grand adventure. But it’s my eighth, and it’s Christmastime, and I am fucking exhausted. Despite my tiredness, I’m having a hard time sleeping, and I have a 30-hours-and-counting headache. I’m struggling to get work done, and I just realized today that I idiotically booked a flight from the wrong city—a mistake that required a $66 phone call, on top of the change fee, to rectify.
I need a real break, but there isn’t one for a couple months. So I’ll just keep pushing through, I guess, hoping I stumble on a place that reinvigorates me. Travel is very rarely dull, but it isn’t always fun.
Thanks for letting me rant. It helps a little.
