Vietnamese people don't just like to eat; eating here is a lifestyle, a commitment, almost a kind of faith, the backbone of the entire culture.

Every evening on Nguyen Chi Thanh Street, it takes me 15 minutes to crawl just 400 meters as cars and buses spread across five lanes, forcing motorcycles to climb sidewalks or squeeze through gaps.

For five hours, I lived a nightmare. My “luxury” apartment in central Hanoi, the home I trusted to keep me safe, suddenly became a man-made lake, with water soaking books, bedding, wardrobes, even dripping through electrical sockets.