Hanging Around in Hanoi

Hanoi has had some serious funk rubbed on it.

After a long and reasonably pleasant over night train ride from Hue (which was delayed by 4.5 hours), we finally arrived in Hanoi on Saturday the 5th of February, very early in the morning. We chose to stay at Thu Giang guest house which is run by a friendly family and their five daughters and is set down a quiet little lane way in the Old Quarter - the aptly named ancient section of the city, with a mix of French colonial, Chinese, and old Vietnamese influenced architecture.

A typical street in Hanoi's old quarter.

A typical French colonial style house.

Tim, with one of the many temples scattered around the old quarter in the background.

Part of the ornate doors from the temple that sits on Hoan Kien lake.

The plaster dogs that guard the ornate doors from the temple that sits on Hoan Kien lake
... in plaster, as in life.

The Turtle tower that sits gloomily at the other end of the lake from the plaster dogs, that
guard the temple on Hoan Kiem, in the old quarter.

Hanoi's old quarter is where all the funk is rubbed. It is basically an intricate network of laneways stuffed full of little shops selling everything from carved gravestones, to mattresses, to tourist crap, to religious paraphenalia, to bia hoi (fresh beer... more on that later), to ladders, to cheap and tasty Vietnamese food.
Since the 13th century, each of the streets were named after what was sold on that particular street, and while the products have changed, their names have remained. So our guest house lane way, was just off "silk" road and nearby was "string instruments", "cotton" and "chicken" roads. We have a favourite coffee place that we always go to (serving great coffee with sweet milk and is furnished with 'midgets revenge' tables & chairs spilling out onto the pavement), which is at the intersection of "fans" and "wooden bowls". There is nothing better than sitting with the locals and watching the ridiculous driving spectacle that is moto vs taxi drivers in Vietnam, whilst trying to use the small amount of phrases that we have learnt.

This is the intersection at "fans" and "wooden bowls"

I would like to be able to tell you all that we visited some of the many interesting museums and galleries in Hanoi but we were just happy wandering around and soaking up the atmosphere. It's the kind of place you could live in, really, and we have met many an ex-pat who has set themselves up in a plush apartment by teaching English at exclusive schools, with plenty of cash to spare.
One definite benefit of living here would be that you could go for your daily coffee fix, and get your food shopping done at the same time... because if you wait long enough, a woman will walk by selling almost everything on your list. Truly, a lazy persons' dream come true.

Then of course, there is the food. It's varied and fantastic. We have a favourite noodle place that serves a huge steaming bowl of beef & rice noodles for $1US - add lots of chili sauce and hey presto! - a hearty lunch for bugger all. This morning, Tim and I ate at a different shop and tried this soup that we had seen throngs of Vietnamese pigging out on... it turns out it's actually a rice porridge with fried garlic, mint and... eel! Very tasty, but probably not the best thing to eat first thing in the morning!

Sweet and sour pork ribs with Tiger beers - so good!!

Instead of paying between 10,000 and 15,000 dong for a bottle of beer, Tim and I would often go to bia hoi stalls where you can get a pint for as little as 2,000 dong. In Hanoi, the quality of the bia hoi is much better than in Saigon, so it costs 4,000 dong per pint - which is around 30 cents Aussie! Bia hoi is sold everywhere here, but only until about 10.30pm, maybe midnight if there's still lots of people there.

These are two different bia hoi stalls are directly opposite each other... perfect.

A beer snacks (ie. dishes for boozing) menu at another one of the bia hoi stalls we stopped at
... chicken's chitterling cock's testicles, anyone?

On Monday the 20th of February we will be heading up to Nanning in China (another overland border crossing - I can't wait!!) and we are very excited about that, but at the same time, quite sad at leaving Vietnam.

On that note, if you happen to be heading into China from Hanoi, we highly recommend exchanging dong into yuan at the jewellery stores here, as they obviously don't pay as much attention to the exchange rate... as much as, say, banks would. Yesterday, Tim realised, while on the internet, that the yuan had increased in value over the previous hour. So we raced out and found the first unsuspecting jeweller that we could, and exchanged a considerable amount of dong into Chinese yuan at better than market rates!

Me in my new hat... nice, huh?