We had to be up fairly early. The staff at our hotel were excellent; they knew we had a flight so our doorbell rang twice at 5:45am to wake us up. That was followed by a phone call and one more doorbell ring. We were up and ready, ate breakfast and headed out.
We were sleepy but nothing some iced teas and coffees didn't fix. We had an exceptionally smooth flight and landed, without having made any onward travel plans. We dealt with the typical airport confusion, booked a hotel and grabbed a taxi. I felt like the taxi driver was taking too many turns and ripping us off so we only paid in what we thought was fair. Easy.
The service at our 'Rising Dragon' hotel was very good. Our room was clean and comfortable. The front desk helped us book a trip to Ha Long Bay and recommended some good restaurants around Hanoi.
We had an uninspiring bowl of Pho while sitting on the street because it was close and we didn't take any of our receptionist's suggestions. Very shortly after this, I decided we should eat again. This was partly due to the fact that our soup was shit, and partly due to the fact that I was actually still hungry.
We went for bun cha which means pork BBQ. This was absolutely delicious. You get a bowl of BBQ pork belly and BBQ pork patties with something like bamboo, all soaking in a salty, fishy broth. You also get an enormous pile of rice noodles, minced chillies and garlic, and tons of fresh herbs and greens. We also got a huge pile of crab filled spring rolls. Basically, you take some of everything, mix it together in a bowl and chow down. This was an absolutely fantastic meal.
We checked out a local park known for having a mystical lake. According to legend, there was something about a turtle and a sword and a lake. Yaaaa, I dunno, I wasn't paying attention.
We stumbled upon a traditional water puppet theatre and decided to take in the show. Even though it was all in Vietnamese, we enjoyed watching the puppets dance around in the water, and we wre also impressed with the live Vietnamese music. Overall, it was an unexpected, mesmerizing experience.
We decided to check out some shops and head to the market. The market was closed so we opted for an A/C break at our hotel. We had a map, we knew where we were, but we still got lost. Several times. In fact, as soon as we thought we knew where we were, we'd be lost again. It was so bad that we actually walked right by our hotel unknowingly.
The old quarter of Hanoi has a wild feel. The streets are narrow and congested with millions of motorbikes, taxis, locals and tourists, all of whom equally share the road. There are no rules, no right of way, and no space. Restaurants, street vendors, and trades people have their tables set up in the streets and often times traffic simply moves around them. The maze of streets all look equally chaotic and equally similar.
We freshened up at our hotel and headed out for dinner and beers. I am always on the look out for bia hoi and we selected a local joint that had plenty of bia hoi freely flowing. We had some delicious noodles and spring rolls and had a very entertaining waiter. The beers went down easily.
We called it a night and packed our small bags for our exciting trip to Ha Long Bay tomorrow!
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