Buckets of Rain

Ever wondered what running in various cities and towns throughout Vietnam is like? Well look no further.


Hanoi
https://www.strava.com/activities/13171823446
https://www.strava.com/activities/13220395593

Hanoi is known as the capital in the north. Similar to Winterfell in Westeros, another famous northern capital, Hanoi differs largely from the other big cities within Vietnam (or Westeros). It is chaotic. It is massive yet there is no space. Over the course of two stops in Hanoi, I managed to run twice and in two separate locations.

It is a struggle to find anywhere to run in Hanoi. There is a dearth of any green spaces and those that exist are very small. There is also no oxygen to breathe and the air is completely polluted with smog. The particles in the air are so noticeable that you can feel them on the back of your throat.

There is a large lake in the city but, having spent time there a couple days previously, I knew it to be too busy as to not be worth trying to run there. I searched the map and found a 600m loop around a small green space, which just so happened to double as a statue of Vladimir Lenin that I was hoping to see anyway. Not that I am a Lenin fan or anything, but I have spent time in other communist (or former communist countries) and am always fascinated by the murals and iconography that those regimes leave behind. This statue only dates to 1980 and was gifted to Vietnam to mark Lenin’s 110th birthday. 1980 is only 5 years after the Vietnam war ended and 4 years following reunification of North and South meaning the erection of a socialist revolutionary is classic iconoclastic behaviour designed to anger the Americans. As impressive as the statue is, the park it is in is shite. The 600m loop is beset with trees, uneven ground, random potholes, bollards and fences to stop motorbikes encroaching on the plaza and rats. Adjusting on the fly, I essentially ran for 25 minutes on a 400m loop where I had to keep jumping up 4 stairs and then back down 4 stairs. The absurdity of the run was matched only by the absurdity of the statue. I finished with 4 x 15 sec strides and went back to the hotel.

We briefly left Hanoi for Ha Long Bay and when returned, I went for one more run. I had found another park, or what I thought to be a park, located at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Another piece of Hanoi that I wanted to see (am I a communist?) but again it disappointed as a spectacle. Granted, I did not run inside the mausoleum and disrupt the resting place of the famed revolutionary leader. I found myself locked outside and running around in ever smaller circles trying to evade the security guards who wanted me to pay for the privilege of running there. Not a man to hand over money easily, I refrained from paying and took a chance on the busy footpaths. The route around the mausoleum was about 2K so it ended up being a good loop and largely uninterrupted, at least by Hanoi’s standards. The smog was even worse this day (it was rush hour and there was an insane amount of traffic) and this was the day that my cough in Vietnam started and it still hasn’t fully abated at time of writing. This run was much more enjoyable than the previous one in Hanoi but, in conclusion, Hanoi is definitely not a runners city.

Ha Long Bay
https://www.strava.com/activities/13186401557

Ha Long Bay is… a bay. We spent Christmas on a boat at Ha Long Bay and, lucky for me, the boat had a treadmill that was located in the bar. I eyed up the treadmill a couple of times but wanted to wait until such time as people were not sitting down having drinks and I wouldn’t be disturbing their ambiance. One hour before dinner was being served, and the passengers were getting ready, I seized my opportunity and ran for 25 mins with 10 mins steady. Half way through, my boy Nguyen Dũng joined me for a quick workout. Dũng was the main host on the boat and he was as stoked as I was that somebody else was using the “gym”. I had planned to run longer but passengers started filtering out from their cabins to get drinks before dinner so I decided to call it a day there and have a rake of pints. It was Christmas Day after all.

Ninh Binh
https://www.strava.com/activities/13229197559

As a destination, Ninh Binh left me conflicted. On the one hand, it was the first place that I had been that had an extended chunk of space where I could run interrupted. On the other, that space was through flooded rice fields that have heavy infestations of rats. The rice fields have small tracks and trails all around them that allow the farmers access and tend to the land by using their motorbikes. The terrain is quite uneven but the compact dirt made for a lovely running service. The sheer volume of rats, however, meant that you had to be really on your guard to not end up in an unwanted scrap. There were also countless amounts of very squashed and very dead rodents on the trail; a consequence of the numbers of rats and the farmers on their bikes.

Outside of the rats and rice fields, the air quality in Ninh Binh was extremely poor. It felt even worse than Hanoi, although I am not sure that it was, and this was probably due to the perception of being in a rural area. We stayed in Tam Coc and that was a very busy area with some cool bars and dog meat. Would recommend the bars but not so sure about the dogs.

Hue
https://www.strava.com/activities/13251169216

We arrived in Hue after a night train from Ninh Binh and the weather was pants. A band of rain had come in and looked like it would be down for the whole day so I put off a run until the following day, praying for better weather. I woke up the next morning to the sound of rain almost breaking the windows of our room but, not to be deterred, I went running anyway. I had a few podcasts queued from the previous days that I was excited to listen to but I abandoned that idea for fear of my earphones breaking. Besides the weather, Hue was a beautiful spot for running. There are good paths alongside the river that allow for continuous running and it is nowhere near as manic and busy as the previous places we stayed. You can also run around the Imperial City and that allows you to get some quality sight seeing in as part of your run. When I returned to my accommodation, I realised that this was definitely the most wet I have ever got when out running. It was quite novel.

Hoi An
https://www.strava.com/activities/13262358549
https://www.strava.com/activities/13286115794

Hoi An is the highlight of many peoples trips to Vietnam and it was definitely up there for me. The town is great and the weather was absolutely perfect. But most importantly, there was some great running there. I ran twice over the 4 days and took different routes each time. The first run was through similar rice fields as Ninh Binh but the rat content was much lower. It’s crazy that when you only see approximately 8 rats during a 47 minute run that you’re happy with such a low number. I also went a bit rogue and left the rice fields and ventured into some smaller villages away from the main town. This was a bit of a departure from the more touristy part of Hoi An and I was getting some mad looks as I trotted along the side of the road. The bikes were less forgiving with offering me up space and twice I was pushed into a ditch. By the time I got back to the hotel, the sun had set and I was very happy to be off the roads. For the second run, I basically stayed in the rice fields as I was so enamoured by the low rat numbers. I only ran for 30 minutes and started at 7:30am but by the time I finished, it was 30 degrees. “Yikes, that was hot” I perceptively said to my girlfriend and her cousin.

Da Lat
https://www.strava.com/activities/13306353737
https://www.strava.com/activities/13314910652

We flew to Da Lat. I mention this because had we of driven there, I surely would have noticed the town is situated at the top of a mountain 1,500 metres above sea level. There isn’t a valley or a piece of flat land to be seen – it is extremely and un-enjoyably hilly. On the second day, I found a lake that was flat but unfortunately was beset with insane cross winds and I got blown from pillar to post. The descent to get to the lake was so steep that it destroyed my quads and the run back up the hill to get home finished off any other muscles that were in my leg. Da Lat is great and I would highly recommend visiting the town and the national parks but I would caution against running unless you’re accustomed to altitude. It fucking sucks.

Nha Trang
https://www.strava.com/activities/13329961172
https://www.strava.com/activities/13339544917

Nha Trang is a seaside town that is beset with lots of wind, plenty of sex tourism and very little else. We had planned to stay in Nha Trang for a few more days than we did but we were ultimately driven out by the weather. Nha Trang was a combination of uncomfortable heat and a crazy onshore wind that blew sand into your face at a rate of knots. On top of that, there isn’t one thing authentic about the whole town. You could pitch up here and be unsure of what country you’re in as it is basically the same as every other tourist town throughout the world. In terms of running, there wasn’t much here either, except for a route up and down the coast. Due to the aforementioned wind, this was less than ideal. Also less than ideal was the path where I ran as it dropped down 2 steps every few hundred metres and then you had to jump up 2 steps again. This wasn’t onerous the first, second or third time but soon after that it started to grate on me. All I wanted was to run uninterrupted and apparently that really is too much to ask. But it was pretty, I’ll give it that.

Ho Chi Minh
https://www.strava.com/activities/13357739717
https://www.strava.com/activities/13367124858
https://www.strava.com/activities/13383801134

Last stop on the trip was Ho Chi Minh city. One of the places I was most excited about visiting and completely unsuitable for running. It’s hard to put into words how awful a place this is to exercise. I did a good trawl on Strava for any decent segments but there were none. The one time I did run outside, in the blistering heat at 7am, took me to the river. I had to run a kilometre to get there and that took about 8 minutes as I tried to cross the road a number of times. When I eventually made it to the river, what I thought would bring solace just brought more pain. The path beside the river turned to muck, then to tiles, then it went out onto the road, then it turned into a metal fence before turning back to a marble path and then to a stone wall. This all happened within 2k of me joining this path and that isn’t to mention the numerous roads I had to cross that almost resulted in my untimely demise. I ran twice more in Ho Chi Minh but retreated to a hotel treadmill, a decision I am happy I made. Outside of running, Ho Chi Minh lived up to it’s billing. It is the economic capital of the capitalist south, named after a former communist leader of the North. It has a complicated history with itself and its people and you encounter that every day. Depending on if a local calls the city Saigon or Ho Chi Minh city, you immediately know what their political allegiances are. The markets are quite good here and the War Remnants Museum is a must see. The weather is consistently hot and sunny. Although Ho Chi Minh city is more expensive than other parts of Vietnam it is still incredibly cheap and there is plenty of value to be had. My main criticism of the city is the almost complete lack of green spaces or places to just hang out. The only grass I seen in the city was populated with rats and I had had enough of them at that stage. I don’t recall seeing many rats in the Phoenix Park but I’ll keep an eye out.