Hanoi, Hanoi, VietnamWe woke up Monday morning to a +20 day - overcast and light smog with a very light periodic drizzle. Room 706 at the Hanoi Boutique Hotel & Spa. Nice room with a balcony overlooking the street.
We had no problem falling asleep last night! No jet lag today. Hanoi is 13 hours ahead of Sask time.
Breakfast is included with our room so off we went to check it out. As with other Asian countries it was a selection of western & Asian foods. Not sure what a few of the dishes we tried were, but all was delicious.
We spoke with one of the hotel employees at breakfast. He told us a little about what to see & check out. He was aware of Canada and asked if everyone there spoke 2 languages :-) Greg told him about where we lived and boggled his mind with our current temperatures and the photo of amount of snow in front of our house.
There is only one of the old city gates left, in the old Quarter, not far from our hotel.
We wandered around the hotel's surrounding neighbourhood here in the Old Quarter. It's one of the main areas in Hanoi. Shops, shops & more shops selling all sorts of products. 98% of the shops were very small, probably about the size of an average full bathroom at home with goods spilling out in front. We did go to one cover market today, that was jam packet with all sorts of merchandise.
Many of the buildings here are VERY narrow, but many go deep.
We stopped for a Vietnamese special in one of the many sidewalk cafes, egg coffee. The country is quite renowned for it. It's made with egg yolks, sugar, condensed milk & coffee. It was foamy & very good. About $3 CDN each.
After a quick stop back at the hotel we continued our neighbourhood exploration and opted for lunch at McDonald's. We do this everywhere we go, just to see if it's the same - which it is. A big difference was the price. We had a Big Mac combo & a double cheeseburger combo and it came to about $10 CDN.
We walked around Hoan Kiem lake. There we saw the statue of Ly Thai (imperial prince from the Chinese Tang dynasty),
the Hanoi post office and the very high end Trang Tien Plaza mall. Stores included Tiffany's, Cartier, Dolce & Gabbana, Chanel and Gucci, we knew we would not be buying anything there!
We went to the Ngoc Son Temple, Hanoi's most visited temple, which sits on a wee island on Hoan Kiem lake connected by classical Vietnamese style red bridge.
On the other side of the lake another popular attraction here is St. Joseph Cathedral. Lots of tourists about here. In the streets we have heard European accents and ones from down under. LOL no one has noted the Rider backpack yet!
Afternoon beer break at the New Gentry beer house. Greg had a Belgium beer brewed in Hanoi and I had a refreshing cold black tea with orange juice and honey (with a huge ice ball). Very refreshing!
On the way 'home: we stopped at the Circle K convenience store. Greg picked up 2 beer for about $1.60 CDN for this evening.
Walking around was definitely an adventure in itself. Pavement is uneven in most places with people and scooters in every direction. When we cross the street basically we just start to walk (not run & don't stop) and the scooters & vehicles weave around us. They don't stop. Just watching vehicles & scooters getting through an uncontrolled intersection going every which way is quite interesting!
We ventured out for supper tonight. Lots of small sidewalk restaurants everywhere many with small plastic tables & low stools. We stopped at a small one of the sidestreets, which was just these small tables and chairs, placed on the sidewalk, where the food is prepared and dishes all washed. The whole family was there (cute little ones!) We both had Bun Ca - a noodle soup with beef, tofu, tomatoes & self serve greens. For both of us, supper was less than $6 CDN so he's happy!
Walked just over 18km today.
Time for some sleep - a venture outside the city tomorrow!
Allan Latoski
2023-02-08
Looks amazing, I’ll need some explanation on the egg coffees though