Hanoi – Hotel Métropole 

It had been raining hard and furious since early morning and showed no signs of ever letting up. It was a repeat performance of yesterday in fact all last week. It was that time of year, monsoon season. I seemed to have a knack for picking the wrong time to travel. I also don’t really care that much, one way or another. It’s only rain. Most of us at the hotel, including myself, felt compelled for some reason to ask brainy questions at the front desk like “does it always rain this hard?” or “do you know when it’s suppose to stop raining?” Our sophisticated meteorological questions have been honed, I suspect, from too much listening to well-coiffed, empty-headed men and women who mindlessly point at a weather map that looks a little bit like the map of the invasion of Normandy, and then prognosticate. The lovely, delicate young lady with almond eyes who sits at the front desk offered us only a shy smile with a nod in reply. 

My fingers have been hovering over the typewriter keys of my trusty well worn portable Remington for some time now hoping for an inspiration, a divine intervention perhaps, to push through this writer’s block of mine. Clearly too much gin had left an Asian imprint on my soggy brain. But what else is one supposed to do but drink, particularly on these slow, seemingly endless days during monsoon season. Everything seems damp. I mean literally. I was damp and my mind was most surely damp and quite likely slowly rotting away in the process. There I was with my other expat friends at the bar, a pair of Aussies with an extended accent, a Brit correspondent allegedly from the Guardian, a rather hefty German couple, and a crazy South African from Cape Town who looked as if he could chew off your head and actually enjoy it. We seemed to have naturally found our place at the bar, a watering hole of sorts for lost souls in surroundings that recalled a bygone colonial era. We were waiting out the weather and hoping like hell the alcohol kept flowing. For my part, I held out hope that in my stupor perhaps I would find creative salvation, an antidote of sorts, that would help me put pen to paper.  

Let me lay my cards on the table. You see, I had come to Hanoi this time armed with my portable typewriter and eagerly set up camp at the Hotel Métropole. I had this crazy idea of following in the footsteps of Graham Greene, the well known British writer who did stay at this very same hotel and in my same room with its view overlooking the beautiful Opera House. While staying at the hotel, Greene crafted the now famous book The Quiet American. There are those who state, categorically, that the same could be said for Graham Greene and his stay at the Continental Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, aka Saigon to you and I. It was there that he spent considerable time putting the finishing touches to his story. Quite honestly, I wasn’t that interested in this cultural pissing contest or for that matter what one blowhard might say to another over too many glasses of beer. I knew I would end up in Saigon so it didn’t matter to me one way or the other. I would decide for myself which version of the truth suited me best. 

For now, I would keep out of harms way. Yes, the winds would howl and the rains would mercilessly continue to come down in torrents. But I would be safe and sound in the comfort of the Hotel Métropole bar. As some expats were demonstrating their swimming prowess in the nearby pool, others were bellied-up to the bar slugging down cocktails as if prohibition was around the corner. Others eyed the local talent that would occasionally filter in then disappear. Yours truly was taking great pains in demonstrating his superb skills in swimming through mass quantities of gin. It required exceptional talent and I felt I was the man for the job. 

 The other day I nearly fell off my bar stool when I saw Catherine Deneuve, the world famous actress gliding through the lobby. She had once stayed in this very hotel during the filming of the movie Indochine. I desperately wanted to believed my vision from heaven and followed her about as carefully as I could not wanting to stumble into a wall thus giving up the chase. At last I caught up with her just as she entered the elevator. She turned to me. I was sadly mistaken. Yes, she was blond and yes stunningly beautiful with those eyes that swallowed you up. Except for one thing, she was German not French and from Dusseldorf. She smiled and politely listened as I tried to explain while keeping the elevator doors from closing. She didn’t seem to be the least interested in wanting to invite me up for a course in international relations. I grudgingly backed out of the elevator and made a sulking retreat to Le Club Bar to nurse my disappointment away with the help of one or several more “Graham Greene” Daiquiris. 


According to Mr. Duong, our ever smiling bartender and knight in shining armor, the Graham Greene liquid concoction consists of two-parts rum, one-part lime juice and bar sugar. The little darling comes with a frozen scoop of sherbet nestled in a hollowed-out half lemon. Very nice. Very cute. After a couple more samples of Mr. Greene’s Daiquiris, one tends to dispense with the sherbet-lemon thing. To complicate matters where authenticity is concerned, it surfaced that there was another contender lurking about with a claim to the officially designated “Graham Greene drink”. This particular contender, this black sheep, included a dash of Crème de Cassis (blackberry liqueur), a dash of Noilly Pratt (dry vermouth) and a “slug” of dry London gin. It was, by some accounts, his drink of choice. Those who have tried it have deemed it both “heinous” and “surprisingly good.” I tried it and found that after the second or third drink, one stops grimacing. All in all, I tip my hat to the first contender, the daiquiri, as it is eminently drinkable several times over. And with a smile too. 

A long overdue word about my accommodations. I would like you to think that I was roughing it in every sense of the word. Dying of thirst in the jungle, suffering from some strange ailment, living on rattlesnake or dog. That would be far too big of a lie, even for me. The hotel is, hands down, the very personification of class and taste and everything is designed to take you back gracefully to the days of French colonial grandeur. From the moment you arrive you can’t help but notice the classical white facade, the green shutters, the wrought iron detail, and the evidence of dark wood paneling everywhere and the hardwood floors. Even the lovely staff are outfitted in period costume. The walls are covered with period photographs. It’s very well done and it seemed to me the ideal place for to write. It worked for Greene and I hoped it would work for me. Pretty simple.

That evening, with the monsoon rains beating against the windows, the chandeliers turned down low, I gathered for a dinner by invitation only with my star studded evening companions which included Charlie Chaplin, Roger Moore, Oliver Stone, Graham Greene and, of course, Catherine Deneuve. It was a memorable dinner. Over excellent champagne and vintage French wines we devoured Spring rolls from the north of Vietnam, prawns with lemongrass from Hue, Saigon chicken, and many a beef dish – or at least I hope it was beef!