Yoga ~ Travel ~ Joy: Halong City, the town that tourists forgot

This morning we had breakfast in the top floor panorama restaraunt at our hotel. We were glad to see the fog had lifted, giving us an amazing view of the karsts in Halong Bay.

View of the karsts from the panorama restaurant.

Karsts and the tourist boat area.

This morning we also noticed this interesting warning sign in our closet:

#2 warns us not to put a bare electrical wire into a glass of water!!!

Gavin left for the conference, and I hung out in the hotel room for a bit, as Lonely Planet had literally nothing listed to do in Halong City other than three hotels and two restaurants. There is nothing walking distance to our hotel, either. Later, Norma (another partner of a conference speaker) headed to lunch at one of their recommended restaurants called Toan Huong. Walking about 2km to the restaurant, I noticed lots of hotels and restaurants that looked like they had seen better days, and seemed to have nobody patronizing them.

The Love Star Hotel; trash in front, laundry from every balcony, busted sign. Lots of hotels here are in similar condition.

At Toan Huong, we saw they had very fresh seafood, most of it still alive in vats in front of the restaurant! This was the only restaurant in the 2km we walked that actually had anybody eating in it, and all the people eating there were locals, so I took that as a good sign. :) I had delicious stir fried noodles with calamari, and it was some of the most perfectly cooked calamari I have ever tasted! And the whole meal was only $5. :)

Toan Huong, with vats of live seafood sitting in front!

After lunch I had planned to rent a moped and drive around Halong City, but right as we were about to leave the restaurant it started raining, so we caught a cab back to the hotel instead. At the hotel, I decided that labor must be rather cheap in Vietnam; a guy was cutting the grass in front of the hotel with a pair of household scissors. :)

After the rain stopped I walked up the hill behind the hotel where I had seen a sign for another massage place that opened at 1pm instead of 5pm. After climbing the steep hill and arriving at the clearly marked massage place, I couldn't tell where the door was. I walked up a flight of stairs and a Vietnamese woman gave me a death glare and shook her head at me, slowly and menacingly. I asked "Are you closed?" and she muttered "Massage no" while still glaring and shaking her head. I said okay and slowly backed down the stairs... :) I assumed the parlor was closed permanently, but Norma informed me later that she had found the correct door and had a very nice massage. Just my luck. :)

For dinner we went to a Trip Advisor recommended restaurant that was also recommended by some other conference attendees. It was a huge restaurant with 4 floors! After we lugged ourselves up 4 flights of stairs to our table, they immediately asked us to walk BACK down 5 flights to the basement, where we had to pick our fresh, mostly live seafood from tanks and vats.

I really wanted the calamari. :)

Lots of living creatures for our eating pleasure. :)

Jeff (a vegetarian) eyes the menu dubiously.

As soon as we picked our seafood, this woman started preparing it.

We received the first few dishes within about FIVE minutes! Seafood spring rolls were AMAZING!

As soon as we picked our seafood, this woman started preparing it.

Our waiter delivers the octopus that Brett, the more adventurous eater of us, insisted we order. The waiter is kindly cutting the octopus into smaller pieces since all we have are chopsticks...

The rest of the food was rather hard work. Shrimp were whole, including the legs, antennae and eyes, which freaks me out. Calamari were also whole, which I had never seen. We had to take out the beak and the little "backbone-ish" thing. No simple rings here! The octopus were also whole and had their beaks, and the fish stew with a strong dill broth had skin and bones to pick around. While working on this food, we had no forks, knives or even napkins! It was a messy meal. There was a table of Vietnamese men beside us that I think were laughing at we silly tourists. :)

We were served small pieces pure sugar cane for dessert. It sort of reminded me of celery, but you chew it to get the liquid out, then spit out the fibrous remains. It was a little too intensely sweet for my taste. Well, I guess it was literally eating pure sugar... :)

Octopus. I ate two legs unenthusiastically. :)

Shrimp and calamari.

This is all I ate of that octopus. I'm from the Midwest, and definitely not used to weird seafood. :D

After dinner I waved goodbye to the Vietnamese men we had amused, and we took a taxi back to our hotel. We were excited to try the karaoke that was available in our hotel, but when we arrived they informed us that the karaoke, sadly, was out of order. Instead we played Indian Poker in the lobby bar. After trying various Vietnamese beers that Gavin had ordered throughout the trip, I FINALLY found one I liked here, called Bia Ha Noi. The single beer made me a bit sleepy, so Gavin and I headed back to the room after a few games. Tomorrow we have yet another day in this town that tourists forgot...