These things occurred on Friday April 4, 2025 through Sunday April 6, 2025 in Hanoi, Vietnam
Before arriving in Hanoi, I had planned a vegan street food tour through Get Your Guide so that the boys and I could experience a bit more Vietnamese culture before leaving a few days later. Unfortunately, the local provider messaged me personally to ask that I cancel my reservation through GYG and pay them directly. This felt sketchy, so I declined and canceled the tour completely. It’s a good thing I paid for the flexible cancellation option, but I also think I should have gotten the extra $20 back for that since I felt forced to cancel by the provider. GYG disagreed. After an hour of trying to get my money back to no avail I was in a grumpy mood. Instead of starting school when we should have, I figured it was best to let everyone sleep in so that I could refill my patience bucket and avoid setting us up for failure. A gift I learned to give myself and the boys after eight months of traveling and homeschooling.
Schoolwork officially started at 12:00PM and everyone was done by 1:30PM. That was all the energy we had for it and pushing them further would have undone all the patience we’d built back up by sleeping in.
The boys and I took a Grab into downtown Hanoi to visit another vegan restaurant that was listed on a vegan website as being the only “real” vegan restaurant in Hanoi. At first, I thought we were in the wrong place. After a couple of minutes, one of the boys suggested we check to see if the restaurant was set back from the road. It was. The restaurant was a hole in the wall with enough room to seat seven people total and signs saying that eating animals and insects was cruel. The food was excellent. Shai, Amichai, and Eitan all tried the food. Only Amichai and I really ate so I was grateful the food was ridiculously cheap.
From there we walked to Haagen Daaz where I knew I could get the boys the calories they needed with good ice cream. While eating, Amichai explained he needed more high adrenaline activities in his life. Traveling is fine, but he wants to bungy jump, skydive, scuba dive, and do way more adventurous things with his time. I wondered where crossing the street in India and Ho Chi Minh fell on his list.
Back at our Airbnb, the boys had a twenty-minute screen break and then we all got ready for Shabbat at the local Chabad. It was hopping! Lots of singing and energy. Good vibes, decent food. After we returned home, all of us just hung out. The boys were hilarious, making up jokes, plays, and songs. This is what I love about Shabbat. It is 24 hours of no-electronics bliss where our children get to be creative and we all have the opportunity to enjoy just being together.
It was hot and humid in Hanoi so we made sure the boys showered before bed. I wasn’t so lucky. The showers started flooding and the hot water disappeared.
Shabbat morning, Chaim and Matanel left for shul by 9:30AM so that Chaim could help make minyan (a quorum of ten men needed to start prayers). The rest of us arrived just after 11:00AM only to learn that they had barely started davening. During lunch, we met two sisters from Brooklyn who offered to give us their kosher for Passover chocolate because they had extra. Of course we said yes!
Matanel and Shai made friends, or more honestly became obsessed with an Israeli backpacker named Benjy. His patience was like an angel’s. We are forever grateful for how much attention and patience he gave our boys. I hope Shai and Matanel remember his kindness, as well as others, and pay it forward when they are older.
Although it was a misty day, we hung out at a nearby playground and exercise area after lunch. The boys enjoyed the chance to work out and play. I did some pull ups and my left shoulder started killing again. In my head I added it to my list of medical conversations to have when we return to the states.
We took a short break back at the apartment before Chaim took the boys to another park down the street while I squeezed in a thirty-minute nap. We didn’t have much food in the Airbnb so we returned to Chabad for seudat shlishit/the third Shabbat meal and evening prayers. While there, a young newly married woman told me I must be a very patient mom. Sometimes. I happened to be very patient over shabbat. It is always easier to be patient when the boys are listening well. After Shabbat we packed up for our upcoming travel to Laos.
Because we’d packed up the night before and our flight wasn’t until the late afternoon, we enjoyed a lazy Sunday morning in Hanoi. For the boys, this meant play wrestling for hours and singing into a fan to hear how funny it makes their voices sound.
At 11:00AM we took two cabs to a locker storage shop in the French Quarter. (Two cabs were easier than waiting for a 7-seater van to be available. After dropping off our stuff, we roamed the streets.) Eventually we came upon several roads near Hoan Kiem Lake that are blocked off on Sunday mornings. These are known as "Hanoi's Pedestrian Walking Streets." Kids of all ages were out and about playing with bubbles, zooming around on small toy vehicles, including tanks, firetrucks, and police cars, and three-wheeled scooter bikes, and enjoying being out and about. The boys were immediately taken by the excitement and desperate to ride the vehicles. Shai and Matanel drove tanks while Amichai and Eitan chose the three-wheeled scooter bikes.
All was well until Eitan had to swerve to avoid hitting someone who stepped in his path. He fell right on his stitches that he’d only gotten a week ago and which were still very much healing. The laceration tore open and blood started flowing down his knee. There wasn’t much we could do in that moment so we slapped on the last Bandaid we possessed and sent him on his way. When we continued walking, I searched for more Bandaids, gauze, and tape to better dress his open wound. Eventually we made our way back toward Chabad where we’d hoped to eat a decent meal before flying to Laos. Sadly, it was closed because they were kashering the kitchen for Pesach/Passover.
We found another vegan place nearby that looked more legit than the hole in the wall I’d found before and where several other Israeli backpackers ended up because Chabad was closed. While there, Chaim superglued Eitan’s wound shut per my father’s instructions and dressed it with gauze and tape.
From the restaurant we drove to the airport. Our flight wasn’t until 7:00PM so Shai gave his Laos presentation and then we played his Blooket game to test our listening skills before boarding our plane. It was time to say goodbye to Vietnam.
