More Exploring in Hanoi

After the tour ended at around 11.30am, there was still plenty of time in the day. Odd, because it felt like late afternoon.

It’s so hot - I know I keep saying that about every place, but it really is.
Therefore, after walking through town for 2.5 hours, everyone was rather exhausted.
However, there was much more to explore!

For example, the Always Cafe. That’s a little Harry Potter themed cafe I was keen to check out.

I was joined by Alessandro from Italy. He was the fourth person in the tour.

The cafe was cute, but the design was a rather cheap imitation of what could look realistic with more effort/money.

I turned the menu to page 394 and ordered some Polyjuice Potion. (FYI, page 394 is a HP reference - the menu was not that extensive. If you got that, congratulations, I think you’re the only one. I’m pretty much amusing myself at this point. 😁)

The Polyjuice Potion in question was a strawberry-based, fruity drink that was yummy but not worth the price. Naturally. 😁

We also both ordered an egg tart. Which took ages. I jokingly said, ha, they must be making them fresh!

A few minutes later, the waitress came over and apologized for the long wait and said they’re making them fresh. 😁

While certainly nice, it was not worth the long wait!

Still rather hungry, Alessandro and I went to a Michelin restaurant in the general area.

Now, there’s quite a few Michelin restaurants in Southeast Asia. A lot of them are not what you’d think. In fact, the one we went to looked just like another tiny, crammed kitchen bordering on the unhygienic, featuring tiny red plastic chairs and a whiff of exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke with waitresses sitting next to you, watching reels on their phones when not busy.

So please don’t think of it as glamorous.

The food, however, was good.

We both ordered Pho Soup with crab spring rolls. They brought out huge plates of pho noodles, green herbs/lettuce, a bowl of chopped garlic and chilli, and smaller plates with the crab spring rolls. I was full fast.

The pho soup was noteworthy. Perfectly flavoured! Notes of aniseed and clove so subtly present in that savoury soup that you’d never consider using those spices for anything sweet.

I added three tiny bits of chilli to my self-assembly soup and left one of them, since it was decently spicy already. How Alessandro confidently added several spoonfuls of chilli and only towards the end said, yeah, it’s getting a bit too spicy - no clue. 😁

We kept exploring, walked to a temple - nothing special for me like usually - but we did witness something quite illegal.

There are a few vendors there selling live fish in plastic bottles.

One of those lady vendors was crouching over a plastic box, glancing around surreptitiously, hurriedly telling people off who wanted to take photos of what she wanted to sell: Live Baby Turtles, trying to swim in that tiny plastic box, not succeeding and trying and failing to crawl out.

She also had a buyer who bought five or six of them.

The poor things! They were gonna end up as food…

That made me angry for sure. We stood there for a while, pondering options.

Buying and selling turtles in Vietnam is highly illegal because:

1. Most turtle species are endangered - Vietnam has lost 90% of its turtle population in 30 years
2. Protected under Vietnamese law - Law on Forestry Protection and Development (2008)
3. Protected under international treaties - CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species)
4. Cultural significance - Turtles are sacred in Vietnamese culture (one of the 4 sacred animals)
5. Ecological importance - Turtles control fish populations and maintain water quality
The buyer probably wanted them for food (turtle meat is considered an aphrodisiac), traditional medicine, or pets - all illegal.

You can’t keep them as pets either (though I was very tempted to have five new travel companions…)

I also considered just grabbing the box and setting them free.

We ended up walking away. But I kept thinking about the cute little turtles, still unsure what would have been the right course of action.

There was a little more exploring, but slowly, the day was coming to an end.

And I was in dire need of a shower.

There was one more order of business, however. Alessandro and I said goodbye, and I was gonna give the egg coffee a go.

After a day of dehydration, I was looking forward to an iced drink. I thought if it was so popular, even compared to tiramisu (Italian Alessandro found that highly debatable), I felt like I had to give it a shot. Plus, I thought I was so tired too early in the evening - a coffee would be fine.

I went to a tiny cafe close to my hostel. I regretted that immediately. That place reeked of thick cigarette smoke. At least I ordered my iced egg coffee to go.

I finally got it and - it was hot.

I was ready to down a cold drink, I was so thirsty!

I took it pretty well, though. I spooned off the foam, took a sip of the way too hot and bitter coffee, and threw it into the nearest bin with gusto!

And that was my day. Hot, dehydration, headache, too much money lost in tips, constant noise from the street, too many people bustling about, lots of them trying to get your attention, not accepting multiple nos - and then the disappointing drink. My hypersensitivity was on overdrive.

Time for bed. 😁Read more