Our first morning in Hanoi dawned foggy and drizzly over Westlake. Our overwater pavillions, we now could see, were pavilions on stilts standing above the water. As we walked over the bridges to the main part of the hotel, we noticed several men fishing in small boats in the lake. We also noticed several men actually fishing UNDER our pavilions.
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| Overwater pavilions at the Hotel Intercontinental Westlake. |
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| Man fishing in the lake by our hotel. |
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| Panorama of the hotel grounds on the lake. |
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| Nice looking pool at the hotel, too bad it's too cold to use it! |
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| View of Hanoi from our hotel. |
I checked online what the currency conversion is from USD to VND (Vietnamese Dong, insert immature joke about paying with phalluses here :D ) This is what came up:
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| 1 Vietnamese dong = INFINITE US dollars! |
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| 1 Vietnamese dong = INFINITE US dollars! |
It really makes me feel rich that I can pay for things with 500,000 dong bills. :)
We had breakfast at our hotel, and it was a seriously amazing breakfast/brunch buffet. I got to try the quintessential Hanoi dish of pho, basically a beef or chicken noodle soup with cilantro, green onions, bean sprouts, etc. It was a lovely mix of warm soup with the fresh sprouts and herbs, plus optional hot peppers. I decided right then that I love Vietnmese food. :) ***
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| Pho for breakfast! |
After breakfast we took about a 1.5 mile walk to the Old Quarter. On the way we noticed Hanoi traffic is a good two thirds motorcycles and mopeds; they even have motorcycle taxis called "Xe Om." They carry EVERYTHING on these mopeds. We saw some loaded with so many boxes that they towered above the driver's head, and a few loaded with crates of chickens! But this was by far the most interesting thing we saw on a moped...
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| This guy is carrying a LIVE ORANGE TREE on his moped! |
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| Interesting trees dot the sidewalks in Hanoi. |
We tried to visit the Bach Ma temple in Old Quarter, as this is the oldest temple in Hanoi, but it was closed on Sundays. Instead, we wandered aimlessly around Old Quarter, filled with shops of all kinds, including cheap clothing, shoes, flowers arrangements both fake and real, candy, etc. We also walked through mini restaurant stalls, basking in the delicious aroma of Hanoi's famous street food.
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| Electrical wiring in Hanoi leaves much to be desired. Live bare wires hang down to the ground in some places. We actually almost stepped in a puddle of water that had a live wire hanging down into it! |
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| Me attempting to navigate by Lonely Planet. :) |
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| People sell all kinds of stuff on these large carts. |
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| Busy streets of Hanoi. |
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| Street food stalls in Old Quarter. |
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| Shops in Old Quarter. |
The sidewalks in the drizzle were a deadly combination of wetness and a bit of mud, which made them incredibly slippery. Even in my sensible tennis shoes I felt like I was walking on ice half the time. I made it through the day without falling, but once I would have definitely fallen, but I saved myself by grabbing on to one of the plethora of mopeds parked on the sidewalk.
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| Mopeds park wherever they want in Hanoi. |
We also got to experience the creative salesmanship of the Vietnamese people. While we were walking, a man with shoe fixing equipment stopped Jeff mid stride, pointing at his flip flop. When Jeff paused he instantly grabbed the flip flop off his foot and proceeded to resole it while Jeff stood on one leg. Then he tried to change Jeff $25 for the fix for his $2 Old Navy flip flops. Jeff bargained him down to $1.
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| Shoeless Jeff being convinced of the sorry state of his flip flops by the intrepid Vietnamese shoe expert. :) |
We also saw several women carrying two hanging baskets of fruits, herbs and vegetables balanced on poles on their shoulders like scales. One of these women approached Michele and put the baskets plus her conical hat on her, then tried to sell us the bananas from the baskets after we took a photo.
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| Women selling food out of two baskets. |
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| Michele is uneasy about this whole situation. :D |
We had lunch at Yin and Yang, a cute little restaurant in the Old Quarter that was recommended by Lonely Planet. I had pho again, as I really had liked it at breakfast. Lonely Planet also said "Don't leave town without having one of their mojitos," so I ordered one of those, even though I usually don't drink at lunch. It was one of the best I have had, and it hit me a little hard... :)
We also found a really lovely art shop in the Old Quarter, and between Michele and I we pretty much bought out the store. My studio can look forward to some new decor. :)
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| Shopping for art in the Old Quarter. |
After our wandering in Old Quarter, we headed to the Temple of Literature, built in 1070. It had small gardens, a dirty looking pond ironacally called the "Well of Heavenly Clarity" :), and a Temple to Confucious. The temple also honors the greatest Vietnamese scholars, and it was the location of Vietnam's first university. People were praying and leaving offerings to Confucious; the offerings included cash, cooked rice, bottles of water and cans of cheese snacks. Gavin and I concluded Confucious must be hungry. :)
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| Entrance to the Temple of Literature with shrubbery trimmed in the shape of a dragon. (see the eyeball?) |
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| Entrance to the Temple of Literature. |
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| Gardens inside the Temple of Literature. |
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| The Well of Heavenly Clarity looks less than heavenly to me... :) |
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| Confucious, complete with offerings of cheese snacks, bottle of water, and steamed rice. :) |
After visiting the temple, we walked to the French Quarter and stopped at a little coffee shop for Vietnamese Coffee. Vietnamese coffee is STRONG coffee sweetened with a lot of sweetened condensed milk, and coffee time is a big social activity in Vietnam, and the mini tables and chairs of the coffee shops spill out into the sidewalks and at certain hours are completely packed with Vietnamese people socializing. Despite the coffee, we were all starting to feel the jet lag, plus we had been walking for around eight hours, so we hailed a taxi back to our hotel for dinner.
We chose to have dinner at the hotel's Vietnamese restaurant, because we were too tired to go anywhere else. While sitting in the restaurant, a waiter brought a single red rose for each of us women. I guess it was "Women's Day" in Vietnam. I sniffed the rose in its plastic and was surprised to not smell the rose at all, but instead all I could smell was a fishy ocean smell.
Before dinner we were served a little appetizer of carrots in dressing, and Gavin used his fork to stab and eat the carrots, then placed it back on the table. After we ordered our dinner, the waitress came to the table and took our mostly unused silverware away and replaced it with chop sticks, taking the silverware back to the counter where all the fresh and clean silverware was stored! So somebody else got to use Gavin's dirty fork to eat their dinner! :)
For dinner I tried the traditional Hanoi street food Bun Cha, which is delicious barbequed pork with rice noodles, and a dressing/soup. The dressing, soup and noodles were served in separate bowls, and you mix them together as you eat. It was DELICIOUS! We had tasty banana creme brulee for dessert.
It was pretty early, but all of us were still jet lagged, so we went to bed very early. Tomorrow we will head to the coast for our cruise of Halong Bay.
***I loved Vietnamese food until I saw a WHOLE ROASTED DOG being sold off a rotisserie on the street. I decided I better be careful what meat I eat... :D
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