Hanoi for the day

We get up at 7:30 am to start our day. We skip breakfast at the hotel but go straight to a hole in the wall down the street from our hotel known for their eel. They cook their eel one way but serve it 6 different ways all with clear noodles. We ordered a few eel patties to start, I ordered dry noodles, Eric ordered the stir fry noodles, Viet ordered the soup noodles all topped with eel and Uncle Binh ordered the eel congee. The eel was very good because they were cut in pieces and deep fried but they didn't have lots of flavor, but what helped is the pickled cucumber that topped the dishes gave all the dishes a very distinct yummy flavor. Our breakfast was $10 USD. Anh Truong had to wait in the car because there isn't anywhere to park so we get him some to go.

Anh Truong wants to take us to go do some sight seeing at the government area, he wanted to take us to go see Ho Chi Minh in his casket preserved at his house but we declined. We did not want to see him, instead we wanted to go buy more Bia Saigon shirts. We drive past the long lines of people waiting to see Mr Ho Chi Minh. We spot a guy riding a bicycle with a box on the back that says Bo Bia Ngoc. Uncle Binh rolls down the window and asks him if he's selling and he gets very excited and says yes! He tries to pull over right away but we can't because we cannot park on government territory so we keep driving and he tries to chase us down. We go slow so he can catch up and we tell him we need to get to a less traffic area. He follows us for a mile. We get out to watch him make these wonderful rolls. He starts by shaving some fresh coconut, then lays out these small circular crepe pieces, then he breaks pieces of a candy taffy, adds some coconut and rolls it up tightly. It is one of the more interesting things that I have eaten. The taffy is thin and breaks easily but melts in your mouth like cotton candy and the crepe is a perfectly chewy consistency and everything blends together so merrily in your mouth, delicious!

We get dropped off in the town to go buy the shirts. We walk about a block and find a young lady that is selling the Bia Saigon shirts so we stop and ask her how much. She tells us 60,000, we tell her that's too expensive we bought them for 40,000 last night! She makes a mean face and tells my uncle to get lost! He was quite upset because she is half his age but did not know how to respect. So we start walking away and she calls us back and says ok she'll sell them to us for 40,000 dong. I pick out 4 and Uncle Binh picks out 4, I go to give her 200,000 dong and tell her to give me change. She says "no! You don't need change they're 50,000 dong each!" What?! The lady is trying to hustle us and we won't stand for that, we tell her she's wrong and set the shirts down and back away. She moans and b****es and makes nasty faces but gave in and gave me my change. That's what I thought! So I got more shirts for cheaper than I did the night before and I feel happy about that.

Now we are on our way to the boofe (buffet). This is the famous buffet that everyone talks about. When we get there it is a big area with lotus ponds and statues, shopping stores and the buffet. Outside the restaurant was the grill area, and inside was tables and tables of fresh food. First table had stone crabs laying out, the different kinds of cooked Vietnamese food that they prep for you, then already prepped food, then seafood clams, oysters, escargot, a salad bar and a whole table of desserts and fruits. I ate some stir fried fiddler crabs, escargot, grilled clams, grilled shrimp,grilled quail, all kinds of Vietnamese food and if we wanted fresh seafood we just picked it out and they cook it and serve it to you. We eat to our hearts desire.

We get back to the hotel, they drop off me, Eric and Viet and Uncle Binh goes with Anh Truong to ship some of the boxes down to Saigon so we don't have so many on our car ride to Central Vietnam later that night. We decided to take a stroll. Every where we went people stared at us, one because they don't see Americans that often and 2 because I'm a huge Asian. We taught Eric a new saying "Dom cai gi?" (Yom Kai yi) and it means what the F you looking at? He got it down pretty good. We get 3 cups of fresh squeezed sugar cane drink and come by a restaurant that served liquor. Viet went inside to try and buy some and me and Eric stand outside and wait. While we're waiting several men stare in a perverted way. I show Eric and we both stare back but they don't even care. When Viet comes back out with the bottle most of them are still staring and Eric yells out "Dom cai gi?!" And they all chuckle and look away and go about their business. It works! We head back to the hotel and wait for Anh Truong to go switch to an automatic car for our journey down south.

He finally shows up with a car 3 hours later. It's a no name brand car that has a symbol that looks like a Mazda but the car looks like a Yaris. We stand there and stare at it for a while thinking how are 6 of us and 10 pieces of luggage going to fit in this clown car. Anh Truong tries his best to fit the luggage in but was only able to get 5 pieces in and whoever has to sit in the back had no where to lean back. He squeezes everything in and we try to squeeze our way in and as we start to drive we realize there is no way this is going to work. Our chairs don't even snap into place and every time he steps on the breaks our knees hit the seats in front of us. Me and Eric look at each other in despair both thinking "this cannot be happening". We finally convince Anh Truong to pull over so we can tie the luggage to the roof. We drove back to the hotel and ask the door guy to buy us some rope, he runs off and within 5 minutes is back with very sturdy rope and would not take our money. Such a sweetheart! We slip him some money anyways and make him take it. My uncle is very handy with a rope and I completely trust his knot tying skills. They put most of the luggage on the roof of the car and tied them all down very tightly and we are on our way to Hue!