A taste of Hanoi

It was really noticeable that Hanoi city has been planned – as opposed to the hodge podge chaos of Ho Chi Minh City. The trip from the airport to the city involved a traffic free, 3 lane modern highway the entire way. You can’t help but get the feeling that there has been a significant amount of organised planning involved in the route from the airport – obviously borne out of a combination of being the country’s capital city as well as the significant devastation that occurred here in the war.

We were deposited in the old quarter, and our driver (who didn’t speak any English) just pointed down a small lane. We’d heard that the entrance was a bit hard to find – but this really took the cake. Turning right into another extremely dodgy looking lane, and we happened upon the hotel – like an oasis in the desert. The hotel itself is absolutely beautiful – with some of the most friendly staff we have encountered so far and a beautifully appointed room.

It wasn’t long before we were out exploring – glad that we’d chosen to stay as central as possible – as the experience of the old quarter just has to be seen to be believed! We have a walking tour when we come back here in a few days – so we wanted to stay away from some of the main sights that we know we will be seeing later. We took in a traditional old 2 storey house – fully restored to how it looked when it was built at the end of the 19^th century. The typical features of Vietnamese architecture – long skinny houses (or “tube-house”) with very narrow street frontage, are showcased as they would have been over a hundred years ago. There are essentially two main dwellings, connected by two courtyards with kitchen and bathroom buildings in the rear. It was really well done and definitely worth paying the equivalent of $0.60 cents for the entrance fee!

Trying to see sights without seeing sights is actually quite hard. We soon found ourselves by the lake which dominates the edge of the old quarter area – and didn’t pay too much attention as we know we will be coming back here with a guide. We elected to focus on the sights that we won’t be seeing on our foodie tour later today – or the walking tour when we are back here in a few days. We happened upon the Vietnam National Museum of History (actually there are two museums under this umbrella – we chose to avoid prehistoric Vietnam and focus on more recent events). It was a bit disappointing to be honest. Loads of low quality replica photos and replica documents dominated each room – with some original physical artefacts thrown in for good measure. Although presented chronologically, it was quite hard to read the subtitles for the pieces that were translated in English and we found ourselves skipping large parts of the exhibits.

We’ve been primarily interested in doing a food tour of some description since we first talked about coming to Vietnam. We booked an evening walking tour and certainly weren’t disappointed with our choice. Our guide Mary and companions Jo and Noels were great fun for the evening. We went places you just wouldn’t try by yourselves and had plenty of laughs in the process. Favourite dish for the evening (Karla’s choice) was the Banh Cuon Nong – a pork and mushroom mixture, wrapped up in rice paper rolls and topped with crispy onion and prawn powder. Seriously delicious!!! We also had other traditional fare, the infamous Banh My and rounded out with beer and egg coffee – a local favourite!

I forgot to mention that it has been damn hot here. Late in the evening it is still 30 degrees – and the mercury definitely got to somewhere in the mid 30’s today. We also managed to walk almost 12 kms around Hanoi today – not a bad effort really!