Vietnam - Hanoi, Day 4

This morning we wake up early to visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum since it closes at 11:00am, and there’s apparently always a long line. On the way there, we stop by the Old Hanoi restaurant  to sign up for this afternoon’s  cooking course – something we have to do before we leave Vietnam!

We get to the Mausoleum in plenty of time, and a few minutes later, we spot Maggie, who we met on our Halong Bay cruise.  She decides to join us, and about 15 minutes later we enter the Mausoleum, a large, imposing building, which houses Uncle Ho’s embalmed body. There’s no photography allowed, and the guards make sure no-one talks too loud, laughs,  or has their hands in their pockets… The air conditioning is on cold, as we walk two by two into the bowels of the building and around the glass case which contains Ho Chi Minh’s body – it’s a an odd experience, perhaps more suited to Michael Jackson than Ho Chi Minh, who actually wished to be cremated…

After the Mausoleum, we visit Uncle’s Ho’s  first house, then the beautiful House on Stilts he lived and worked in from 1958 to 1969, walk by the Presidential  Palace as well as the One Pillar Pagoda which is also on the grounds.

The Ho Chi Minh Museum is now closed for lunch, so we decide to visit the Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum instead. It has a great collection and it’s interesting to see the evolution of Vietnamese art with the introduction of oil painting and the opportunity to more recently move away from realistic art to explore the abstract.

We realize that the Temple of Literature, a rare example of traditional Vietnamese architecture, is right across the street, but don’t have time to visit, since we need to start heading over to our cooking lesson, so we plan to come back tomorrow.

At Old Hanoi we're greeted with some jasmine tea before Chef Anh takes us down to the market, which turns out to be in the basement of the huge luxury mall behind our hotel, incongruous somehow… Ahn points out various vegetables, herbs, spices and cuts of meat.  We now know what Morning Glory, Bitter Melon, Winter Melon, Kohlrabi and Galangal look like!  Before we head back, she buys some coriander, basil and cinnamon. We start our cooking lesson with fresh spring rolls with shrimps and pork, and its dipping sauce, then grilled chicken and lime leaf skewers, and it’s dipping sauce, then it’s onto pork hotpot with cinnamon and coconut milk, and finally sweet potato and ginger pudding, apparently excellent for digestion! We have a great time cooking and an even better time eating…  This is probably the best meal we’ve had in Vietnam J

Vietnam - Halong Bay, Day 3 to Hanoi, Day 3

We wake up to more fog and a bit of drizzle this morning – Halong Bay, or Bai Tu Long Bay, where we are right now, is probably even more magical, or perhaps surreal, in the thick fog, as the limestone islands seem to just endlessly appear then disappear. 

Thank goodness for GPS – we’re not sure how the captain would know how to navigate through this sea of karsts otherwise!  We start sailing back to Halong City after breakfast, and have our last meal onboard just before we get back to port  – we’re all quite sad to leave, it’s been a marvelously relaxing few days, and we’re just getting to know each other…

There are some great views are bright green rice paddies all the way back to Hanoi, which we reach around 5pm.

A few hours later, we head to our new favorite restaurant, Quan An Ngon, for an early dinner. We’re seated next to an American couple, and the husband’s two buddies from university, who are apparently fly experts – the conversation is so fascinating that Mike and I are too busy eavesdropping to talk to each, and finally join their conversation! The couple both work for the US State Department and are actually moving to Zambia soon, where we’ll be in a few months, and we find out all sorts of incredibly interesting  things from the fly experts, such as that Zebras and other African animals have evolved stripes to throw off the Tse Tse fly! Now that’s another one of those random facts that I will not forget J

Vietnam - Halong Bay, Day 2

I wake up early this morning to check whether there may be a chance of sunrise, but no,  it’s foggy, so we might as well sleep some more!

Breakfast is at 8:15am – we start with a bowl of Pho and then have the usual fried egg on toast – it’s our first Pho for breakfast, and actually, I think I could probably have this every day! Mike is definitely enjoying a few extra slices of jam on toast though J

At about 9:30am, we anchor up by one of the seven a floating villages in Halong Bay. It has a population of 160, so is relatively small, and has existed since Halong Bay was designated a World Heritage site in 1994. The government then took on a greater role in controlling fishing practices and pollution which meant that the fisherman who used to live on their boats, were now grouped into floating villages.

We are picked up by a flotilla of small rowing boats manned by the village girls – it’s nice and peaceful rowing to the village. We are greeted in the communal house with a cup of tea, then visit the chief’s house and the school. Teachers stay in the villages all week, then return home for the week-end. The fishermen here catch fish and keep them in the hull of the boat which is pierced with holes and therefore designed to store fish live. They also do some fish farming, where they catch smaller fish, grouper, snapper, sea bass, and farm them in pools by their homes.  Traders then usually come by to buy the catch to sell in Halong City.

We have another 10 course lunch followed by a wonderful nap, then venture out to a small beach for a wander in the late afternoon.

Tonight we are having dinner in a cave. At 7pm we jump on the small boat to be ferried to the beach we were at earlier, and climb up some illuminated steps to a wonderful illuminated cave with little tea lights leading all the way to a wonderfully dressed dining table.  All the prawns, chicken, squid, fish have been barbecued tonight and is quite delicious. The presentation is also wonderful as each dish is accompanied by a vegetable sculpture: an eagle, a hill tribe house and finally a beautiful junk.  Classical music plays in the background until the end of the meal when the crew sings us a song, and Tony, our guide, strums a few more tunes on his guitar. What a gorgeous evening!

Before bidding goodnight to our fellow passengers, we have a little coffee with Kahlua back on the boat – the coffee has been consistently good so we ask to see the packaging, and discover that it’s the infamous weasel poo coffee! Apparently its wonderful rich, soft flavor comes from the fact that the digestion process produces a coffee with much less bitterness...

Vietnam - Halong Bay, Day 1

We’re up early this morning to be ready for our transfer to Halong Bay around 8am. It’s a 3.5 hour van ride but it goes by quite fast as we chat to the others sharing our ride. We take a loo break at the halfway point and visit a store which makes porcelain and lacquered pots on location. There are also pearls and lots of semi precious stones on sale, but this seems to be the case everywhere we go! 

Pot Factory

Lizards in Whiskey...for virility?

We had been warned that Halong Harbor is quite hideous and extremely busy, but the Indochina-Junk embarkation area is actually quiet and pretty enough. Our guide, Tony, introduces himself and we transfer to the boat shortly after. We are 16 guests onboard which seems like a nice number of people.

Halong City Harbor

Dragon's Pearl I

Our room :)

One of the 4 dining tables

The Sun Deck... Just in case the sun does decide to make an appearance!

As we sail away amidst hundreds of limestone outcroppings, we feel quite Zen J

An 8 course lunch is served shortly after we set off on Indochina Junk's Dragon's Pearl I, and it is all quite delicious: lotus seed and red bean soup, salad, clams with pineapple, prawns, fried oysters, with herbs, fish with ginger and chili, all wrapped up with some fresh fruit.

Red Bean and Lotus Seed Soup

Clams with Pineapple

Deep-fried Prawns with Garlic and Butter

Deep Fried Vong Vieng Minced Oysters with Herbs

Seasonal Fresh Fruit

We have a bit of a nap after lunch then go out for an hour’s kayaking amongst the forest of  enormous limestone karsts – there are actually quite a few beautiful little white sand beaches but it’s certainly not bathing suit weather!

Dinner’s another 10 course meal – thank goodness we’re only spending a couple of days on the boat or they’d be rolling us off! Then we try out a little squid fishing, or more precisely watch 3 of our boating companions give it a go – without much success…  Our guide did catch five whilst we were having dinner though! The water is full of phosphorescents so it’s fun to watch the fish swim about leaving a trail of blue light in their wake.

The squid caught by Tony

We head off to bed, but are very excited for Nicole when, a little while later, we hear her squeal with delight when her patience pays finally off and she catches a squid!!

Vietnam - Hanoi, Day 2

We sleep in this morning and then venture out towards the Ngoc Son (Jade Moutain) Temple on Hoan Kiem Lake. We walk by loads of galleries and nice stores on the way there.  Every street as a specialty which informs its name – so there’s “altar” street, “silk” street  etc.  It’s just like street food, everybody is specialized.

We’re getting quite good at crossing the street, at a steady pace, leaving the army of mopeds to weave around us - it takes a while to do this confidently!

At meal times, more than anywhere else in Vietnam, it seems that Hanoi’s pavements are all parked up with motorbikes and mopeds, and little portable kitchens bring together huddles of people eating Pho, drinking tea, snacking on pumpkin seeds, or having dinner. This means that we generally have to walk on the street whilst trying to keeps out of the way of the endlessly tooting traffic – this definitely makes us a lot more aware of our environment! 

We have an early dinner at Highway 4 – incredibly, the place was packed by 6:30pm! We have some delicious pork meatballs in rice pancakes, battered prawns and vegetable tempura and walk home happy.

Vietnam - Hanoi, Day 1

After a bumpy 12 hour ride on the Sinh Tourist sleeper bus from Hue (300,000 VDG each or approx. $15), we reach Hanoi around 8:00am. We jump into a cab for the 1 km ride to The Landmark Hotel. I’d checked the route on my i-phone and thought the driver was taking us on a bit of a roundabout way… but then it is Monday morning and there’s quite a bit of traffic, so I give him the benefit of the doubt  until we notice that the meter is sky high… We don’t say anything until we get to the hotel where he tries to charge us 250,000 VDG for what should have been a 20,000 VDG journey at the most L  I give him a piece of my mind, and tell him to please join us at the hotel while I call the police… and he keeps haggling! I give him 50,000 VDG for the mileage and expletives stream out of his mouth as he departs…

The hotel staff are lovely - they serve us coffee, and then breakfast, as our room is being prepared. We get ourselves settled in and head out to lunch at 69 Restaurant which is set in a historic house in the Old Quarter – I try the fish mousse grilled on lemon grass sticks (to be eaten in rice paper rolls with various toppings, cucumbers, carrots, peanuts, rice noodles, an dipped in a sweet vinegary sauce) – it sounds a little odd but turns out to be quite delicious! Mike plays it safe with a Club Sandwich – he’s not quite as adventurous after he got sick…

The city is crazy busy and since neither of us has slept all that well, we decide we’ll delay sightseeing until tomorrow and to go for an aromatherapy massage at SF Spa  instead (prices have gone up since Lonely Planet were there – 499,000 VDG, so approx. $25, rather than the $12 we expected). Mmmm… lovely.

We then head over to Indochina Junk to pay the balance of our Halong Bay booking on the Dragon’s Pearl  3 day/2 night trip (and ensure that it isn’t a dodgy copy cat operation…). It's quite a splurge ($255 pp) so we have to save on hotels for a while to make up for it!

On our way home we make a little unexpected detour by walking the wrong way and see a whole bunch of roasted... pigs? No, they turn out to be dogs… it makes us feel so queasy, we make sure to take a different route home...

We decide to go to Quan An Ngon, a restaurant which has a large number of food stalls, that each specialize in a certain dish (a posh version of street food). The concept seems to attract many Vietnamese diners alongside tourists, and the food is super fresh, delicious and cheap! We ate at a similar place in Saigon… ah, just checked… same restaurant, different city.  I have amazing Vietnamese pancake rolls, and Mike tries duck and bamboo noodle soup and spare ribs with lemongrass and chili - he’s finally feeling better J  We chat to our waitress, who’s a real darling. She’s from the countryside a few hours away, and is studying English in Hanoi. Unfortunately, like many Vietnamese, she hasn’t yet travelled very far in her own country.  We also chat to a Dutch man on our neighboring table. He’s off for a five day motorbike trip in the highlands tomorrow, which sounds very exciting!

Vietnam - Hue, Day 3 & overnight bus to Hanoi

We walk along the Perfume River toward the Citadel to check out a small foundry which produced some of the holy cannons for the Nguyen Royal Family, as well as the small Ho Quyen arena (Tiger Arena) nearby, where tigers and elephants battled for the emperor’s pleasure – unfortunately, since the elephant was a symbol of royal power, the tigers were often declawed and drugged to ensure the elephant’s win. 

The walk ends up to be a little longer than planned, around 3 miles, so we visit the foundry but we have to turn back before reaching the arena. The only tourists we see in this area cycled here, but we hadn’t wanted to join the insane throng of traffic… Nobody speaks English in the neighborhood, but thankfully we find a tiny mobile phone store who calls us a taxi so we can get back to town for a quick lunch before catching our overnight bus to Hanoi.