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After shelling out more than we wanted to pay on a 40 minute flight from Laos to Hanoi (I couldn't survive a 20 hour bus ride with Tom after last time), we were greeted by insane hustle and bustle, thousands of mopeds and people washing dishes in the street. We went out in search of some dinner, having only eaten Pringles and Oreos before we arrived, but ended up having a muffin and a coffee!? Safe to say we both went to bed hungry that night.
The next morning, Tom had booked us on a 'food on foot' tour of Hanoi street food where we met the most bubbly, welcoming person so far on our trip - our guide Chung. I swallowed hard and tried to hide my worry as we stopped at the first place where a rather large man with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth wearing a dirty white vest and shell suit welcomed us while barbecuing what I hoped was pork. However, once I ignored everything around me and tried 'Bun Cha' (barbecued pork and noodles), it really was amazing. We went onto eat crickets, frog, rice wine, sugar cane juice, coffee topped with egg cream, snake head fish, banana flower salad, bo nam bo, fermented sausage (disgusting!), rice flour pancakes with pork, custard apples and fruit topped with condensed and coconut milk... and this was just a lunchtime tour! Tom was in his element, and tried everything and asked loads of questions. I think for him it was one of the highlights of our entire trip.
We visited lots of museums and monuments in Hanoi (Women's museum, Hoa Lo Prison - most propaganda filled museum EVER!), including the Temple of Literature - the first university in Hanoi. On the day we visited we saw hundreds of students graduating, bringing back all the memories of when we graduated! In the afternoon, we sat by Hoan Kiem Lake debating what to do for the rest of the day when we were approached by 2 very shy Vietnamese girls. In their broken English, they explained that they were students and needed to record themselves having a conversation in English. Tom and I were more than happy to help, and after I had finished with 1 girl, 4 other boys and girls approached me and asked the same. They were all brilliant, so funny and all had very good English skills. I had a hundred photos taken with them whilst Tom was patiently (and kindly) helping the less confident girl with her video. When my group had gone, Tom was still with his student so I waited for him whilst taking pictures of the lake. All of a sudden I felt a big slap on my arm, and looked to see an old lady talking to me in Vietnamese with a huge smile on her face....so I smiled and nodded, unsure of what she had said to me when her husband told me that she had said that she thought I was beautiful?! I do like Vietnam! Ha.
After a few days in Hanoi, we decided to book a 3 day trip to Halong Bay, where we were greeted by our guide Tung. He picked us up and took us to Halong City.....which seems to have no need to exist apart from to put tourists on boats. There are hundreds of them, all looking a bit grubby from the outside, all over the harbour ......this coupled with the usual Asian destruction made it a bit of an unpleasant place to start our trip. Once you leave the harbour and get into the actual bay it is amazing (Tom thinks that it's been spoilt, and there is a fair bit of rubbish in the water, but I think its great). There are over 2000 islands and we made our way through them to Hang Sung Sot (Surprising Cave) which turned out to be the biggest cave either of us had ever seen. We also enjoyed kayaking into an empty bay where monkeys came down from the cliffs and put on a bit of a show for us before we went bike riding through Cat Ba National Park. We both agreed it was well worth the money for the trip and had a great time. We even made some new friends, something that we haven't been very good at really, a lovely couple from Australia and a few from the Netherlands.
We leave tonight for Hue (pronounced Hu-ay) on the sleeper train, which we booked through the hostel so hopefully this time we actually get on the sleeper train! Will let you know how we get on in the next blog so stayed tuned.
Love to all xx
- comments
Karen Sounds like you are really enjoying the different tastes and sights in Vietnam - frog? CRICKETS???? Were they covered in chocolate sprinkles like the advert? Love you both mum xxxx
Neil Why O Why are you eating these terrible things lol! I'd starve... Great blog guys, sounds amazing! x
deb glithero great blog.....l'm truely impressed with your local culinary skills! would l eat snake heads, hmmmm not sure . bloody brilliant you too, love hearing all your tales . lots of love mama and papa xxxx
deb glithero p.s. l love the photo xx