Day 22 - Mopeds Mopeds Everywhere

Hello Hanoi! We had a food tour booked at 11am so went on a quick explore after breakfast. We walked to the lake which should be an easy 5 minutes away but with our scaredy-cat ways of crossing the road it took about 10 hesitant minutes (this would soon change).

Hanoi is a lot colder than anywhere we went to in Thailand and Laos so it's back to converse and hoodies, but less suncream which is a happy consequence of the drop in temperature. The lake was pretty grey and misty. We crossed over the little red bridge to the temple with its giant tortoise statue before heading back to the hostel to await our tour guide. We were really lucky as it was just the two of us on the tour with our guide Jacelyn. This meant a more personalised experience and made it much easier to get seats in the busy Hanoi eateries. We ate/drank:

1. Bún chả - BBQ'd pork and veg in broth. You get a side of noodles, garlic, chilli and herbs to mix in. The place we went to sit was down an alley and run by a lady who was bored being retired so just serves drinks and let's people sit in there with street food (like us). We never would have found this, or most of the places in fairness.

2. Bánh xèo - a pancake filled with meat and vegetables. You wrap lettuce around it, add basil and dip it into a dipping sauce.

3. Bún bò - beef and noodle soup

4. Bánh cuốn - a wide rice noodle filled with pork and mushrooms. Like a slippery spring roll. We sat on tiny stools on the street on a busy corner whilst the women who worked there churned out the noodles - it was cool to watch but no idea how it's done.

5. Bánh mì - a baguette filled with pâté, ham, veg and herbs - my favourite dish of the trip.

6. Bún ngan nhàn - duck and noodle soup

7. A bonus stop for some little cakes to go with...

8. Cà phê trứng - egg coffee, or for me egg cocoa. Literally coffee/cocoa with an egg in it. It's served over a little tealight and surprisingly delicious.

Jacelyn was so lovely and chatted to us about her life as a tour guide and growing up in the Vietnamese countryside then moving to the city. I have no idea how they would have managed the tour with 8 (the max number) as it was hard enough to herd the two of us around. But at least now we know how to cross the road - just walk and the mopeds will drive around you as they all go really slowly.

After we said bye to Jacelyn we headed to the Women's Museum which has exhibits on women's lives in Vietnam from marriage to education to having children as well as their contribution to the wars and some important beliefs like Mother Goddess. It was really interesting, I took pics of a couple of the things I learnt - like in some cultures machetes are common wedding gifts and that some people give their babies ugly names so spirits won't steal them. It was a great museum to spend a few hours but we totally hit the wall and negotiated crossing all the roads with our new found road crossing skills to come back to freshen up.

We had dinner at a Pho place round the corner. It is a bizarre place in that they had 10 staff for a restaurant which seats around 30 people. None of them were particularly working hard or even working at all in some cases, except the chef in the open kitchen and even he gave up after a while and came to sit on his phone. We had to ask for drinks twice as they all got distracted by someone opening a bag of sweets. The Pho was nice though and as I'd (obviously) researched the place before we went I knew to ask for the secret off menu savoury donuts to dip in. One more beer before home and we're now anxiously awaiting the return of our laundry. We leave early doors tomorrow for a boat trip around Ha Long Bay for a few days so if the laundry doesn't come I might have to fashion pants out of unworn socks.

Not sure how available wifi will be so the next blog might be a couple of days away. And I love getting comments on the blog but I only see who they're from if you register otherwise it just says 'Someone commented... etc' so if you don't want to register (that's cool) please sign off on your comments so I know who to feel love towards :)Read more