Hanoi

A whole new country. A whole new continent, literally on the other side of the world. A whole new set of adventures.

We shared a cab to our Hostel with Astrid and Helena, two gals Cam had met in the Doha airport doing yoga. It turned out we all had the exact same destination, making travelling a lot easier.

The first impressions were chaotic. The sky was a mixture of smog and mist. The roads were filled with cargo trucks, cars, and many many mopeds. Each driver with a rain cover on hat covered themselves and the bike. Most with helmets, most passengers without. A few pedal cyclists were in the mix as well, doing their best to keep up.

We crossed the Red River, and into another world. In the old quarter, the streets were small and crowded. Our taxi took up the whole lane. Shops and restaurants spilled over onto the sidewalks, leaving parked biked in between them. This left little room for moving bikes and pedestrians, who were trying to weave their way around the taxi. Soon we would be those people, cursing out the fools who thought a car in the old quarter was a good idea.

The hostel was fine. We got set up relatively easy, and decided to go for a walking tour. We shouldn’t have been, but were intimidated by the pungent smell of raw meat from the vendors just outside the hostel. This was a touristy area, which only encouraged more locals to move into the Old Quarter for that sweet white man money. As we departed for the walking tour, we could finally see the streets for what they were first hand.

There were many independent food vendors, each with their specialty. They all have farms outside of the city, and go back home when they sell out to get more stock. Some sell meat, and every part of it. Dead defeathered chickens with their skin and heads on. Every part of the pig. It is tradition in Vietnam where if you are sick or hurt, you eat the part of the animal for where you are feeling ill. So all organs are on the table, as well as the hooves and everything in between. There are Styrofoam tubs of freshwater fish and crustacean, hanging out overcrowded and alive waiting for someone to make them their dinner. Less exciting produce vendors.

Between all the food vendors are the restaurants. Kitchens are halfway out the door, with their assembly line for Pho, Bun Cho or Bahn Mi ready to go. Little plastic chairs and stools (of which I am not close to fitting in) are available on the street for you to sit down. Each place only serves one or two things, so as soon as you sit, they will bring you your food.

The walking tour was led by Ruby, a tiny little firecracker with a penchant for naughty jokes. The first major destination was Hoan Kiem lake, a historically sacred lake that has been swallowed by the city. On islands are two small pagoda’s, one accessible by foot, and the other not. In the fog of the day, it was hard to see the other side of this lake, which we ended up walking around. This lake is very sacred, and people will give the offering of fish into the lake for good fortune. The lake is quite polluted however, and the fish don’t often survive long. We saw a couple dead ones floating on the surface. Apparently it used to be a bit bigger too, but the French filled it in and build buildings on top of it.

The next section was the French corner, which modernly consisted of upscale boutique’s, Michelin or wannabe restaurants, and five star hotels. Like the Old Quarter, this area has turned into the place to stay for tourists, just these ones had a little more money. The architecture here was significantly different than that of the Old Quarter, having been build by French colonists. We saw some landmarks like the Opera House, and the Ly Thai To monument.

The tour ended at a touristic coffeeshop where we tried egg coffee for the fist time. The egg is from a whipped yolk, which is used as a milk foam substitute. Dairy is not a focal point of any Vietnamese cuisine. In fact, even though cows had been in Vietnam as a farm animal, they were never milked. The French introduced dairy, and the concept is culinarily rejected by most of Vietnam. The egg coffee was lovely though. The egg foam had all sorts of goodies mixed in with it.

We had a vermicelli bowl for lunch, and then got around to the rest of our day. The food was already brilliant. Simple ingredients and flavors. We went back to the hostel to rest, but not nap. We were trying to outlive jet lag, and then go asleep by 9 or so.

That didn’t happen. We fell asleep good for a couple hours. We had a quick dinner at the hostel, then Cam tried to sleep, and I went to the rooftop bar where I lost the most intense beer pong game of my life. Up 6-1 in cups, and the opponents made 6 redemption shots to come back. Kudo’s to them. I went to bed, but like Cam, couldn’t fall asleep at all.

The plan for the next day was to try a whole bunch of food. The weather was still a grey drizzle, though the air smelt less smoggy. Still couldn’t see too far, as fog had taken over. It’s supposed to be the dry season.

The first stop was that of another coffee café. The blocks in Hanoi are very deep, so this café wasn’t street front. Instead it was down a small narrow alley, where it opened up into the store. The stools were still a foot off the ground, and the table barely higher. I still was nowhere close to fitting into them, and took up the space of the table behind us. I had a decent egg coffee, and cam went for a cinnamon one. We met up with some other friends form our walking tour there, and swapped ideas for North Vietnam travel.

The nest planned stop was for Bun Cha across the neighbourhood. But before that, we got distracted with some brilliant paintings. It turns out Hanoi is a bit of an art centre. We passed a few art shops, but this one for whatever reason drew our attention. We talked to the owner, and purchased two paintings for back home. This shop had a collective of 10 artists that painted and sold their pieces through it. I guess each shop has their own exclusive artists.

The Bun Cha was decent after. We were again at a little table on the street for a meal. Bun Cha is a standard dish in Hanoi, but it hasn’t been exported quite like other Vietnamese meals. It consists of cooked pork belly which in then placed in a fish sauce, with various herbs and a fermented vermicelli on the side. The meat was really good, but the rest was okay. The herbs had a lot of flavour.

From there we crossed town again to a small Bahn Mi cart next to the cathedral. Heading into Hanoi, Cam did a lot of research on the specific food places she wanted to try. There are so many restaurants and food stalls around that you could blink and miss, and she wanted to get the best ones. A lot of the best ones are just little carts on the side of the road, or a pair of ladies with a wok and ingredients, plastic chairs and tables on the sidewalks. There doesn’t seme to be any rhyme or reason to location to my western brain.

Every other tourist has the same idea in mind as us. Someone gave them a recommendation, so they have it in Google maps and are off to find it. The less self aware ones will stop in the middle of the street to check their location and direction, and then nearly be run over by a scooter. Some get somewhere and think they are looking for an actual shop, when its just some old man deep frying banana’s on a street corner.

Back the other way in town to the train street! This famous little alley has the national railway run through it once an hour or so. It has turned into a little tourist beacon, and like moths to a porchlight we followed in. A shopkeeper met us on the street to take us to their café, where we indulged in a salt coffee and another egg coffee, and observed everyone taking their Instagram pics. Then out of nowhere, a sharp whistle pierced the air, and every shopkeeper sprang into action.

Whistles blaring, and shooing off the tracks ensued. Everyone had to be sitting or standing as close to a wall as possible. It took about five minutes of people arranging, and then whether everyone was ready or not, the train barreled through, a mere 5 feet from us. A little close for comfort. After the intrusion, everyone returned to normal like nothing happened. We finished our coffee, and then went back to the hostel.

For the second night in a row, we were unable to sleep. The hostel has the party go to 11, which we ended up joining cause we couldn’t get some shut eye. But then the lockers and door beep every time they open, and we had jet lag. It was just bad.

Day 3. Not a lot of sleep but whatever. We had an exciting morning ahead of us. A cooking class! Five things were to be made, Pho, Bun Cha, papaya salad, spring rolls and egg coffee. The whole experience will be a story in itself. One major, MAJOR, fact was learned though. At home, our coffee uses Arabica beans. In Vietnam, they use Robusta. Which it turns out, has 2-4 times more caffeine than Arabica. In our quest to try al the fun coffee’s we ended up overloading on caffeine and couldn’t sleep. No more for us then.

We started the afternoon at the Vietnam military museum. Here, they detailed their quest for independence from colonial France and Japan, and their subsequent victories in the two Indochina wars (The first known as the French war in Vietnam (1946-1954), and the second as the American Sabotage war (1955-1975), or in North America, the Vietnam war after the USA entered the war in 1965.). The museum was quite eye-opening, as there was a lot of history that we just did not know about. Vietnam is one of four remaining one party Communist countries in the world (China, Laos, Cuba).

The second half of the afternoon was spent at a huge complex of pre French vietnames history. Here we learned about the original dynasties from over 1000 years ago. The coolest fact was that high ranking government positions were more often than not merit based, and there was a large infrastructure of testing in place across Vietnam.

When we talk about ancient Vietnam, we are talking about the Red River discharge area, which is Hanoi and surroundings, or North Vietnam. Historically the south was ruled by the Champa, though they slowly were overtaken by the Vietnamese. Every once in a while China would show up and rule for a bit, and then there was a revolution and they would be kicked out. Then the French showed up and mucked everything up as colonial Europe did.

An interesting note from these two museums is the historically different cultures and ruling classes of North and South Vietnam. This is probably why there was such a difference in influence and policy during the Cold War. I might be way out to lunch here, but it was a connection we made while checking out both museums.

We were nearly falling asleep on ourselves by the end of the second history tour, so we made our way back to the hostel, and attempted to have a bit of a nap. We still had an evening event ahead. The water puppets.

An old artistic tradition on Vietnam is that of water puppets. Eight (in our case) puppeteers controlled all sorts of human, dragon and animal puppets as they danced above a bath, telling stories and legends of local origin. A band plays along side the show. There is some vocal acting as well. The puppeteering was fantastic, and the skits cheeky and charming. It was a lovely 50 minute show to watch.

For the third night in a row, we were unsuccessful at getting any sort of proper rest.

One more delirious day in Hanoi. It was still grey and raining. Like the last three. The smell of raw meat and fish filled up our little street. Merchants were filleting their fish, leaving the goods directly on the pavement, which was being consistently cleaned by the rain. The wet chaos was starting to get old.

We started the day with the best thing ever. Pho for breakfast. We got a sneaky recommendation from a local for a little restaurant. The kitchen was half inside, half outside. The chef sat on her stool, and worked as an individual assembly line, making each bowl of soup as the order came in. Very efficient system, with minimal cooking. The pho was very good.

Off to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum next. The history tour continued, for us, though we had the roadblock of the museum being closed on Fridays. We instead witnessed his tomb, the one Pillar Pagoda, and the surrounding grounds.

With sleep on the horizon again, we headed for shelter from the rain to another café, for another egg coffee. This one was recommended to us by a dude from the Pho joint in the morning, well off of the tourist trail. Easily the best one we had. Whatever they did to the foam was great. We did some planning while trying to outwait the rain, but the rain outwaited us. Back out into the world we went for a walk around Ho Tay lake (the little bit).

The walk was nice. There was a pagoda in the middle that we checked out. It was pretty. Crowded with tourists though. All sorts of guides in different languages explaining the history away. On the ground were various plastic bowls of fish, small carp, swimming around. We believe these are offerings. There was also a shop where a tourist could by an offering for the pagoda. It seemed like a pretty major tourist trap, where they just recycled the purchased offerings. I hope I am wrong though.

Our we still had some food we wanted to try. The first were some steam buns. They were great. Then Bahn Mi out of a little ladies cart. It was fantastic. The pork was seasoned really well. A local was really excited we were trying this cart, and told us that we were at the best Bahn Mi spot in the Old Quarter. Good for us! Then we went and got stir fired pho from a very unassuming spot on the street and met another solo traveler. The noodles were good but a little too greasy for Cam. We then tried the fried banana, which was delightful as well. And that was it. Exhausted, and on no sleep, we headed back to the hostel to wait for our transfer.

We are off on a night bus to the mountains. You can’t keep us away from them! We will see you there.