A Walk Through France?

Not much got done today, thanks both to a late wakeup, general jet lag, the extreme temperature and humidity outside, and a struggle figuring out how to get the blog the way we wanted it. Our second outing into the diverse city of Hanoi was a bit more successful - the city ceased to be overwhelming and now we had a general sense of where we were on the streets. Google "Old District Hanoi," look at a street map, and you'll understand how we got easily lost (there are so many more side streets that aren't on those maps, too). We still can't bargain all that well, mainly due to the fact that we don't know how much something, like a kilo of dragonfruit, is worth. We'll work on that.



We weren't really out of the hotel for long, but we walked far for the short time we were out in the heat. Well, actually, the hotel is "in the heat" as well, since only our room has AC (and oh is it wonderful).Anyways, we ventured down out of the Old District and walked along the beautiful Hoan Kiem lake, where it seems the benches are always taken up by embracing couples like this loving one that asked for a picture. Before long we noticed a change in the way the streets were organized. The small, haphazardly organized streets of the northern lake and Old Districts gave way to larger, tree-lined boulevards set up in almost a grid pattern. Save the smothering heat, it felt like we were in some French city. That smothering heat, however, made walking much more a daunting task, so we hopped in a cycle (more fun than a cab and a TAD safer than getting on a motorbike, though anything traffic-related in Vietnam is in no way safe) and went straight back to the hotel and spent the rest of the daylight hours in the tight vicinity while we created the blog.






The food wasn't even that great, either. There's a spot a few doors to our right where something is constantly being cooked, and Sasha ventured over there twice during the day. There are two different women who cook two different meals. The morning/afternoon is given to a kind woman who cooks bun cha-I don't have the details now as Sasha's sleeping but I'll post them below with pictures once I do. He got the last bowl of the day of that stuff, and a new woman took over the spot. Her specialty was deep-fried quail, so we picked two up for a snack. Scrumptious. Sasha reports that she was very mean to him, but I guess that's reasonable as most of the westerners that we've seen tend to go to restaurants and not street vendors and she probably felt that he was stepping across some undeclared boundary. That idea makes sense, too, as these little street vendors and soup kitchens are very intimidating to a westerner, as there are never any other westerners around, there is little if any lighting, and the place is generally very dirty. Enough to keep ME away, at least initially. Dinner was quite a let down, and we decided with it to never take the hotel's recommendations ever again. We were sent to a "good Vietnamese restaurant" (hotel's words) which looked like a diner, served hamburgers as part of the menu, and had no Vietnamese inside it save the staff. We forgot to take pictures, and got out of there as soon as we could. I had something resembling pho, but that doesn't really matter as neither of us really ate what we ordered.
We picked up some meat skewers from a street vendor outside - who knows what kind of meat - then headed back to the hotel. Sasha was still incredibly hungry, so he went down to the corner where a street kitchen (larger than a street vendor, street kitchens specialize in one or two meals and do them VERY well) to get some more bowl of something...I'll leave the details up to him.

Well, that's our day for you. We went up to our room after that and watched some of The Office then went to sleep. Exciting.

Some clarification:

Bun cha
Sweet vinegar pork broth with pickled radish, charcoal roasted beef-chive patties and bacon, lettuce, shiso, sticky noodles, and fresh Thai bird chilli. Verrry good.

My Van Than
What Sasha ate at the street kitchen. Made of opaque yellow vermicelli, sweet pork broth, bean sprouts, fried pork wontons, peanuts, deep-fried shallots, bbq chicken, beef kidney, and shiso.

On the side there was clear scallion, shrimp and dried baby mushroom broth with mushrooms, baby scallions, pork wontons and fried bread for dipping.

~Oliver

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