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On Friday we left Peace House to spend our weekend off in Hanoi city centre. We checked into an awesome hostel called May De Ville Backpackers hostel- highly recommended! It feels more like a hotel than a hostel with the plush towels, air con, lift and amazing buffet breakfast (incl fried eggs!) on it's 10th floor restaurant- all for $6/night. Alice, Emily and I celebrated the start of the weekend with some cocktails at White Horse Bar. I had a 'Godmother' (straight vodka and amarretto with lime- eek!), and a passionate fruit mojito.
On Saturday, a local vietnamese volunteer supporter called Wendy gave us a guided city tour- a bit late, I know but it was a free day out! We visited the Museum of Ethnology, which exhibits the different cultures of the dozens of ethnic minority/tribal groups in Vietnam. It was a really well done museum- just the right amount of stuff to read and with full scale traditional houses to explore. Admittedly, as a medical student the most interesting part for me was the featuring exhibition on HIV. It was really encouraging to see that work is being done to educate people and dispell the misconceptions about the disease.
Wendy then took us to one of her favourite cafes for lunch- our first experience of Vietnamese street food. It was a really interesting experience; we sat down at the table on children's plastic chairs and our food was immediately brought out for us- there was no menu, everyone has the same set meal. We had a plate of rice noodles, a bowl of a thin but very flavoursome soup (I think it had lemongrass in it, but my palate isn't exactly renowed for its accuracy!), barbecued lamb, spring rolls, and a massive plate of salad leaves. Wendy showed us how to combine the different foods- it was delicious!
We then visited the pagoda on Hoam Kiem lake, pictured. Wendy also treated us to an ice cream- we went into a warehouse type building, which was full of people sitting on their motorbikes eating ice cream- very strange!
In the evening me and Alice met up with the other volunteers from Peace House for a night on the tiles! We started at central backpackers hostel for the happy hour of free beer and cheap Jagerbombs- the atmosphere was great. We then all moved on to Bucket Bar, a lively club in which the drinks are literally bucket sized! Me and Alice shared a bucket of vodka and red bull- it was so strong!! In our resultant merriment, we joined a load of people dancing on top of the bar- a first for me!
After a great night out, we spent most of the following day sleeping- in the hostel until we had to check out, and then in Highlands Coffee (Starbucks). In the early evening we went to a multiplex cinema to see 'Bad Teacher', a really funny film in English with Vietnamese subtitles.
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