Hungry in Hanoi

2008-05-05T12:18:00.001-07:00

Lots of picts just like the Hong Kong trip. This time taken with a slightly better camera (I bought a Canon 400D recently. Lenses used were the 50f1.8 and 20-35f3.5-4.5, no flashes were fired or harmed during the course of the trip). I recommend you go grab a cup of coffee and let the page load.

Day 1 - Culture Shock

2008-05-02T11:18:00.000-07:00

We were whisked from the airport to the hotel by the hotel car (I made arrangements to be picked up. There are known scams in Hanoi involving black-market taxis and 'fake' hotels). Public transport is pretty much non-existant and I didn't want to risk taking an unknown taxi. We stayed in Elegance 3 (there is an Elegance 1 and 2, but they were fully booked). Elegance 3 was just slightly outside the more touristy (and busier) parts of the old quarter (see here for history of the old quarter).

The first thing we noticed when we checked into the room was the fancy shower. That thing is like something out of the Jetsons. There's a button for sauna, another for jacuzzi, another for UV light (to kill germs), another for a exhaust fan, another for phone, radio, tv-audio and even alarm clock. It was amazing.

Strangely, the futuristic shower was tempered with a sink and toilet that looked like it was blinged out of the faux 18th century. Extremely strange interior design.

The room was much better. There wasn't any of the ostentatious fittings and there was even a PC terminal with free internet access. Given the strange architecture of Vietnamese buildings (due to some weird property tax, buildings were taxed according to the width on the streetfront. So the innovative Vietnamese built their buildings narrow, but deep), our room was actually quite spacious, just that it was long and narrow.

Bikes as far as the eye can see. The weather was lovely this time of year. It was liking walking in an air-conditioning. Wonderfully cool. The only problem is the air. The air was horribly polluted (Vietnam is only just starting to test vehicle emissions) and the constant cacophony of vehicle horns is grating on the ears. Noise and Air pollution.

The lady is carrying baguettes in that gunny sack.

The narrow architecture of buildings in Hanoi... Hung Long indeed.

Hanoi has its own version of the 'monkey tree'.

Taking "Green House" too literally.

This was the main 'center' of the old quarter, where the streets meet with the Hoan Kiem Lake.

Hoan Kiem Lake. I'm not going into the Autheresque fairy tale of golden swords and giant turtles. Wiki here.

Next to the lake is a lovely parked filled with strangely phallic and mildly sexual sculptures (esp if you have a dirty mind).

That's the guy who blew up a tank with his bosomy girlfriend (who may or may not have chopped off french/american genitalia with that sword) and his best-pal-boy-wonder Robin.

I purposely blurred out this photo because this was the 'pedestrian' crossing where a little old lady helped us cross. Vehicles do NOT stop at zebra-crossings (or Red lights for that matter). The only way you can cross a road is to 'just do it'. Walk steadily across the street and the bikes and cars will swerve around you like the red sea. If you stop, you die. Just keep walking smoothly.

This was the traffic that kept coming. We really did need the little old lady to help us across.

Cops. Nuff said.

Chick was walking to and fro across the busy street selling balloons. Too good a shot to miss.

Our first taste of Vietnamese food. Streetstyle. You sit on a little stool that's barely taller than your ankles. A guy comes around to take your order (basically how many portions), and the head-chef prepares the meal. This was a cool cucumber salad with plum sauce, fish sauce, mint and a strange mixture of dried meat (I could not tell if it were pork, beef, dog or rat... and I didn't want to ask). It was superb. The cucumbers were sliced wafer thin and the sauces and mint made a lovely mixture. We wanted to go back and get more, but sadly, we missed our window.

Vietnamese water puppet show. I was told that this was good (It really wasn't) so we went to take the look. It was different from Sesame Street (but there was a big bird in the act).

Post-show dinner was pho. We literally stopped at the first coffeeshop outside the theatre and did the ol' "V" sign for 2 portions. The pho was very good. Much better than anything I've had here.

Streetside Style. Lady was dishing out her own secret pho recipe. Didn't try it though. Just wanted the shot.

Streetside Style Seafood. We saw this amazing 'booth' selling live seafood. Too full from dinner, I really wanted to come back and try it, and we did (see day 4).

Streetside Style Shopping. This is how the ladies of Hanoi shop. From the backs of their motorbikes.

Fashion Dung. Don't ask. I didn't go in. Have no idea what they sell.

Streetside Style Baguettes. A legacy of the French. Fresh baguettes with a twist. They stuff it with coriander, fish sauce, pate and fried shallots.

Streetside Style Chicken Noodles. Another streetside food stall. This time selling chicken noodles.

Streetside Style Fruits. Pick up some freshly skinned waterchestnuts or pineapples. Picked in the morning, skinned in the afternoon, and eaten by evening.

Streetside Style Parking. Nah, I kid. This was an art gallery turned parking lot.

Streetside Style Gourmet. I love the 50f1.8 lens I got for my camera. Its uber fast, uber sharp, and cheap as hell. All shots above taken with available light and no flash.

Day 2 - The Tourist Route

2008-05-01T11:42:00.000-07:00

Breakfast in the hotel. She went for the pho, but I wanted to be adventurous and picked the 'gravy with bread' (yes, that's what was on the menu). It turned out to be some kind of beef goulash with a fresh baguette. It was very, very good.

The place was swarming with school children when we got there. (I'm sure they learnt how a simple farmer can defeat the great imperialist american army)

Most of the American aircraft shot down over the duration of the war was shot down by Chicks.

Ah memories... I carried that kind of rifle and wore that kind of helmet for most of my NS days.

Another statue of Wonderman, his busty girlfriend/wife and eager-sidekick Robin.

Meals-on-Wheels. The guy who rode this bike through the jungles of Vietnam would put any poseur-MTB-riding wannabe-boy-racer to shame. I'd bet the guy wore slippers inside of clipless shoes too.

Ze French have left ze bilzing.

The one thing that I had always wanted to do when visiting Hanoi was to go see the War Museum. This was a chance for me to see the war from the other side. I've read so many books and watched so many movies from the American side of the war but the story of the other side was never told. It was always gooks and VC and charlie being the bad guy. I wanted to see how it was from the other side. My next goal is to visit Dien Bien Phu, Da Nang and the DMZ. Next trip.

Lenin

The Interpol office in Vietnam. Coincidentally, across the street from the SIN embassy.

KFC. If you can't win the war, send in the fastfood chains.

The Fine Arts Museum. Visiting that place was a mistake. Literally. We had wanted to go to the Temple of Literature, but accidentally ended up in here instead. (BTW, there is no tourist information counters at the airport, nor are there city maps. You have to buy the maps from street vendors, or get them from your hotel, if you're lucky)

There's so much chinese influence in Hanoi. Even the names of the streets sound very similar to cantonese.

Lunch was at a small little deli in Hapro (The vietnamese equivalent of NTUC). I loved the baguette filled with homemade mayo and beef. (I usually don't take bread at home, but I've kinda fallen in love with the Vietnamese baguette.)

I have no idea what the lady is carrying, but the guy was selling feather dusters. That was awesome. (BTW, they really do wear the pith helmet in Hanoi, and the ladies wear the cone-shaped hat called "non la". It's not a tourist thing)

Trying to be artistic.

Dog meat is supposedly popular in Vietnam. Our guide for the Halong Bay trip even said 'I love dogs. Especially to eat.' Forced laughter all around from the white folks.

The freshness of the fruits and produce was simply amazing. The stuff is literally picked on the same morning.

Fried Baby?? 25000dong is less than $2USD.

The best coffee I had in Hanoi. At this little cafe called Chuc Link along Hang Bac. I gulped down the first shot, and signalled for another.

The rice-paper spring roll. I dunno what they use to wrap the veges, but it was really thin but strong. Nothing like the springrolls there. That was the real stuff. Really delicious too. The insides tasted like the cucumber salad we had on the first night.

Bia Ha Noi. Supposedly brewed with the original recipe laid down by the czechs. It definitely tasted like the original czech budwiser. I loved it. Nothing like the american piss that tries to call itself bud.

Salt, Lime and Chilli. It seems to be the condiment of choice everywhere we went. Basically squeeze the lime into the salt and mix. The spiciness of the chilli takes away the saltiness.

Fried Rice, Hanoi Style. I don't know why it's yellow (it's not the camera's white balance), but it was pretty tasty. No, it was not pineapple fried rice (ala thai style).

Fried squid with onions. I'm starting to suspect they add tumeric to get that colour.

My fried beef noodles with assorted veges. Turned out the veges was coriander. BLEAH... but the fried noodles was nice. Crispy.

Do Dung.. Do Dung indeed.

Day 3 - Halong Bay

2008-04-30T12:02:00.000-07:00

You can't visit Hanoi without going to Halong Bay, and after hearing and reading so much about it, I just had to go. No way was I going to give it a miss. We managed to book an overnight tour with the hotel, and they kindly allowed us to amend our stay from 4 nights to 3 nights (since 1 night was on the boat). A car picked us up from the hotel in the morning and it was a looooong drive to harbour (about 3+ hours. I pegged it as driving from SIN to KL).

Rice shortage? I think not...

We made a pitstop at this typically tourist-scamming rest-stop selling pottery, knick-knacks, souvenirs and other miscellaneous crap.

The harbour was a mess with a gaggle of boats squeezing in and out. Most of the boats were day-trippers. I'm glad we decided on the overnight trip (Thanks Rugburn) which was much more worthwhile. We got to see much more of the bay (I say 'see' with much generosity as the visibility was pretty bad) and we even had to experience a kayaking trip.

We were very fortunate when the guide gave us our room key. Basically, we had the best room on the boat with the best view. All the other rooms only had 1 window facing out, whilst we had a side window and a rear window.

That's probably a sister ship to ours. Same configuration. Our boat was aptly named 'Santa Maria'. I guess they ran out of 'Dung' names.

Yup, visibility was pretty poor. I'd say it was about 100m or less. You couldn't even see the green of the island fauna till you were closer than 50m.

Old, Older, Oldest. The massive junk on the left was probably one of the 3-4 day trippers. It was huge, but luxurious. The middle one was the same as the one we were on, and the one on the right looked like a riverboat right out of the Mississippi.

Visibility got better as the day progressed, allowing me to take better photos, but it still felt gloomy. The weather was lovely though. Wonderfully cool and dry. The sun was shinning bright, but it seemed like the entire sky was blotted out by fog.

We finally stopped at a fishing village to start on our kayaking expedition. Kayaking was fun. I hadn't done it for more than a decade, but it came back quite easily.

They start'em young. The kid was probably younger than 6, but he was handling the boat with aplomb.

Meals on the boat was a strange experience. The food was decidedly asian, but the service and table settings seemed strangely western. The food was pretty good, but the portions seemed too small to be filling. Probably the worst part of meals was seeing all the food on the next table (4 VERY blonde VERY bimbo collegians) go to waste. The dumb blondes did not touch their food and it was thrown away. Quote of the day "I want to eat KFC - dumb blonde number 3"

Day 4 - Back to the City

2008-04-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

Visibility wasn't much better the next day. I have to say I was very disappointed considering all that I've read and heard about Halong bay. I had expected so much more. The weather was lovely nonetheless and it was nice to get away from the din and pollution of Hanoi.

After breakfast, the boat brought us to Hang Sung Sot or (Surprise Grotto / Amazing Cave). It was basically some caves and chambers containing large numerous stalactites and stalagmites. Wiki here

View from the top (at the beginning)

The 'penis' shaped rock. Our guide described it as a 'finger' pointing to heaven (there's a matching hole on the roof), but we all know what it looks like.

Kinda looks like the mines of Moria.

Another view from the top. This one at the end.

View from the other end.

This fisherwoman was catching fresh prawns and crabs. They looked wonderfully delicious. Simply steamed with some rice wine and salt... YUM...

Artistic photo attempt.

Streetside Style Satay. Questionable meat (she said it was pork, it didn't really taste like pork to me), but delicious.

Night Market

Dinner number 1 was at Cha Ca Cafe. I had read about the grilled fish in the guide books and really wanted to try it. It was really good (I actually said it was the best meal I had in Hanoi so far... little did I know what was to come next). The fish was so-so, but the concoction of noodles (they looked like laksa noodles), some kind of vietnamese chinchalok and peanuts made taste amazing.

After seeing this stall on the first day, I knew I had to go back to eat the fresh seafood. Except for the prawns, everything else was alive. Preparation was simple. Miz Chef dished a bowlful of your selection into a grilling wire-type-apparatus and placed said selected shells on a hot charcoal grill. Two sauces were provided to the gourmets. One was a slightly sweet plum sauce mixed with fish sauce and mint leaves, and the other was salt, freshly squeezed lime and chillis. Both were delicious. All one needed to do was plucked the meat from the snail/shell/clam, dip into the sauce and place into the mouth. Heavenly flavours. Dinner number 2.

Yup, those are 'You Tiao' (fried flour sticks). Exactly like the ones found locally. Except there are about 30% the size of the ones here.

Exploring the streets of the old quarter on our last night, we were extremely lucky to come across this night market. I'm not sure if this is a weekly event (if it is, then it's only on sundays) or monthly or if it's a special occasion, but our timing couldn't be better. The night market isn't mentioned in any of the guide books and that we stumbled upon it was a blessing. The market sold a wonderous array of goods and it was quite like the 'ladies street' in HK. Btw, the bread booth sold this incredible pork bun with quail eggs.

If the tablecloth looks familiar, yes, we went back to Chuc Link cafe. I really wanted more shots of that amazing coffee and she wanted to try the fried rice. BTW, that was dinner number 3

Day 5 - Last Chance for Food

2008-04-28T12:16:00.000-07:00

This was the best pho I had on the trip (and possibly in my life). I had taken the morning off to explore the backalleys behind the hotel, and chanced upon this quaint little coffeeshop filled with old folks eating pho. It called out to me and I was not disappointed. The address is 69, Hang Non.

The nice lady manning the shop could not speak English (and of course I don't speak Viet), so she took out a 20,000dong note and pointed to it to tell me the price. That's a little more than $1USD, close to $2SGD I would guess. Totally worth it.

That's the floor of the lift landing. Talk about ostentatious...