Finding a place to call home in Hanoi

I ’ve been away from Ireland for 11 years. For 10 of them I was studying and working in the UK, but for the past six months I’ve been in Hanoi, teaching English with my partner, a photographer.

We arrived in Vietnam from Singapore, which had been slick and smooth. In Hanoi we found a jumble of a place, bursting at the seams. The tightly packed streets of the Old Quarter are lined with food stalls, beer joints, shiny shops, and souvenir holes-in-the-wall. Motorbikes swarm up and down, carrying well-groomed young people who speed to their destinations alongside pedlar women on ancient bikes laden with goods to sell.

We stayed in the Old Quarter at first, close to the backpacker bars and a stone’s throw from Hoan Kiem Lake. A 100-year-old turtle that lives in the lake is so beloved that in 2011 he was removed for medical treatment before being reinstalled in his home.

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Photograph: Avi Ratnayake

We quickly found our way to the staples of Hanoi street food: pho bo, bun bo, banh cuon and – our favourite – bun cha, or rice noodles served with fresh herbs, and a bowl of tender pork patties in a sweet-and-sour broth with slices of carrot and green papaya. Street food is best enjoyed with a glass of bia hoi, fresh beer brewed and distributed each day.

We soon turned our minds to finding a place to live; we’d signed up for an English-teaching course, and our plan was to find jobs after getting certified. After being shown several characterless white apartments that were way out of our budget we found the place that we were ready to call home.

Our flat is at the top of a classic Vietnamese city house, down a narrow alleyway in Hoan Kiem district, not far from the tangled Old Quarter streets. The house is dimly but tastefully lit, with dark-lacquered wood furniture and a large fish tank that made us think we were in a Chinese restaurant at first, but it was just the family’s kitchen.

The flat is three floors up, only two rooms and a kitchen, with old mahogany furniture, a tiny pink bathroom and a balcony facing the alley. The building opposite is nearly close enough to touch.

Even farther up the marble steps is a room that used to house a sunken swimming pool. Now it is full of books, vinyl, record players and oddities belonging to the music-loving Anh, one of our landlords. Up another level is the roof, with a glass floor below and plants, trees and flowers all around.

We felt instantly at home here. We like having the family downstairs: we appreciate privacy, but having Anh and his wife, Diep, around makes us feel more connected to the place.

Hidden vats

After a few months we found that the house was hiding a secret: underneath the indoor goldfish pond Anh has a cellar where he flavours huge ceramic vats of rice wine with ingredients such as northern Vietnamese apples and banana seeds from Phu Quoc Island.

Our neighbours are a mixed bag: locals, the odd foreigner, a gang of kids who play games on the street, the staff and customers of the karaoke joint across the way, a pho lady who serves hot noodle soup from 6am to 2pm, a cat on a leash, several quiffed birds in cages.

Every day as we pass down the lane we hear a chorus of "xin chao" (hello). Late at night we sometimes catch a mildly sozzled group of people eating hotpot at the corner stall who invariably offer us food.

I love the idea of being part of a community in this little corner of such a crazy city. I love the roof garden and the little balcony where we can sit and watch the action on the street below.

We’ve found a good balance between the adventure of travelling and a sense of home, a place to stop and grow some roots. It feels good.

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