Our flight to Vietnam was smooth and easy and we touched down at 2pm in Hanoi, the country's capital and second largest city after Ho Chi Minh.
Our first surprise was the weather - we knew it would be cooler than Thailand, especially Bangkok, but didn't expect temperatures in the 50s! We should have thought more about the fact that is it winter here, but we were thinking in relative terms. The second surprise came as we were driving into the old quarter: traffic - if you can even call it that - in Vietnam is INSANE. We'd been warned about the ubiquitous scooters but not about the disregard for traffic signals, stop signs and one-way streets. It's definitely an "every man for himself" mentality and we cannot believe we haven't seen a single collision or accident yet!
We were greeted warmly by the staff at our hotel and after receiving a detailed overview and city map we headed out to explore the old quarter.
View of the Hoàn Kiếm Lake.
Another view of the lake, including The Huc Bridge.
Nighttime in Hanoi - so many scooters! We've now been told there are nearly 9 million people in Hanoi and almost 5 million scooters!
Walking down these narrow alleys was pretty treacherous when cars and scooters come zooming past!
We covered a lot of ground quickly...because one tends to walk quickly when scooters and motorcycles treat the sidewalks (where they exist) as another lane to drive in! We eventually made our way to Gia Ngu for a traditional Vietnamese dinner, which was definitely worth the multiple scooter accidents en route. Similar to Thailand, US dollars go pretty far here so we enjoyed a delicious meal for very little. Before going to bed we went for a stroll in the night market (I love the idea of shopping at night with a cold beer but I think Alex would rather I just find a scarf and get it over with already!). The streets in Hanoi are crowded and the traffic is crazy but we have already warmed to Vietnam.
Night market in Hanoi.
This morning we woke up and had our first Vietnamese coffee, complete with coffee beans that have been "digested" (read about that here) by a weasel. Not bad but I think we prefer our old standard coffee! We then walked to confirm the booking details for our cruise to Ha Long Bay tomorrow and before we knew it we were starving. Enter Banh Mi 25, the best place to grab a traditional Vietnamese sandwich for $1. Banh mi, Where have you been all my life?
After lunch we checked out the Temple of Literature, the sight of Vietnam's first university - in 1070! This was the first temple we've seen that is dedicated to Confucius so we found it interesting and a bit different from all the Buddhist temples in Thailand.
Standing outside the gates to the Temple of Literature. We have seen these flags everywhere in Hanoi and apparently they are "Flags of Five Colors" and are mostly posted near places of worship.
That would be Confucius, not Buddha.
Another Flag of Five Colors in front of the temple.
After exploring the temple grounds we headed back to the city center to watch Hanoi's famous water puppet show at Thang Long. Before that, though, we stumbled upon another type of performance...
Seriously, how cute are these children practicing their song-and-dance-routine?
The water puppet show was unlike anything Alex and I had ever seen, but definitely worth doing. While we couldn't understand much of the show (all songs are in Vietnamese), we could appreciate all of the hard work and coordination that went into the performance. The puppets were fun to watch and the musical performers were excellent.
My favorite puppets were the ones who played with fire, naturally.
After the performance it was time to meet up with our guide for a walking street food tour of Hanoi through the appropriately named Hanoi Street Food Tours. We ended up being the only participants for the 5:00pm slot (maybe it was too early?) so we had a private tour with Link, a local student. Below are the eight items we tried and our accompanying commentary:
Bún bò Huế - delicious noodle soup with beef. This ended up being our favorite dish of the night and we can't wait to incorporate it into our regular eating rotation.
Nom Bo Kho - dried meet salad. I am actually impressed we got this one down. Consisting of pig ear, calf liver and some other dried meats I would like to forget, we didn't enjoy this one at all!
Bánh cuốn - Link called these "pancakes" but to us they were more like steamed dumplings. Dumplings, we would later find out, were more like doughnuts. These were pretty good - similar to steamed gyoza.
Bánh mì - already familiar (and in love with) this Vietnamese sandwich, we were excited to try this version, which was pressed like a panini.
Bo Bia - essentially a sweet spring roll filled with caramelized honey and coconut. I thought it was different and had a similar taste to carmelcorn but Alex thought it was way too sugary.
Dumplings - I can't recall the Vietnamese names for the various fried foods we tried, but all were some form of what I would call a donut - stuffed with either savory (minced pork) or sweet (bean curd) fillings, these were good but definitely a fried-food indulgence.
Che - our version was served with jelly, fresh fruit, ice and condensed milk. I loved this but could barely stomach a couple bites after all we had eaten so far. Again, too sweet for Alex.
Egg Coffee - Link took us to the famous Giang Café for "egg coffee" as our last stop (she actually had two other stops for us but we were so full we pleaded with her to take us to the coffee place and end the tour!). We liked this creamy espresso blend a lot - in moderation.
Alex learning how to make bánh cuốn - he was much better at this than I was.
After eating all of the food described above, Alex and I managed to stumble home and beach ourselves on our hotel bed, ready to embrace food-coma status. I wasn't kidding when I said we had a taste of Hanoi! Now we need to get some sleep because tomorrow we are getting up early to head to Ha Long Bay.