We have all day today free. Since we ditched the Ho Chi Minh memorial until tomorrow, we decided we’d just try to do a little walking tour we found in an old Hanoi book. Just around the old neighborhood and then maybe to the lake.
Breakfast is a feast, as per usual – Western or Asian – today they shame me into an omelet – “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”, Ed has one too, and then they top it off with a big plate of fruit. Yikes! No lunch for us!
But first priority – a supermarket! Hotel guy #1 gives us perfect directions to the market over by the lake – that’s our lake walk for the day. We successfully navigate the organized chaos of traffic to cross the road…hold hands…keep at a constant speed….done! Then walk around the lake to the store.
They’ve got a decent selection of wine (yay, this is NOT wine country – although most everyone now has it, it is expensive – of course relatively speaking – but we’ll end up paying the same amount for a glass of wine as for a whole entree meal – sigh!). At any rate, I pick up an Australian Sauv blanc and then find a Vietnamese Sauv Blanc I figure I’ll try. It’s only $5, so what the heck? Ed finds a few beers, but they don’t have a big beer selection – probably because you can get it on the street so easily and cheaply. We also stock up on Nescafe, so we won’t run out of coffee, and get what we think are salted fried corn nut type things. Who knows? It’s all in Vietnamese!
We check out and head back to the hotel with our stock, only to find out that we should have paid more attention to the check out – the Vietnamese wine which should have been $5 was rung up as Vodka for $10. Crap! Better pay attention next time.
So, out we go into the cool and dreary day. We don’t mind the dreary because the cool is marvelous. So refreshing! We head out into the bustle – I take a picture of the corner where we need to turn to get to our hotel – but I’m feeling much more comfortable here this time as opposed to our first visit. I don’t know why, but I get the old town now.
We wander down the streets snapping shots of old style vendors as we go, amazing what they can fit on those bikes or hoist on their shoulders..
Then we hit the pineapple banana lady who wants to put her bamboo carrier on Ed for a picture – somehow she manages to do it, we’re normally not into such hustles – I snap a picture and Ed says $1.
She’s not buying that – she shoves a bag of bananas and pineapples in my hand and I’m willing to go maybe 20,000 or so, but she says 180,000. Oh, please! I had 100,000 in my hand, which she takes, folds under her wad of bills then proceeds to tell me I have her a 10,000 note. Not on your life baby! I tell her no, give me my money back. We continue to haggle, I put the bag of fruit back on her tray, she wouldn’t give me back the money – so I grabbed her whole wad of cash and grabbed my 100,000 out from the bottom and said forget it, goodbye. She tried to argue, but that wasn’t going to fly, and very quickly she realized she was made and walked off down the street. Well, heck, we got the picture for free after all that!
So, scammer incident over, we continue on our tour to the headstone street where all the vendors are carving their headstones – but why are there so many still there at the shops? Odd…..
We backtrack and walk past the thief, who isn’t working anyone currently, and onto the Jewelry street –with – you guessed it – all jewelry shops, then to the clothing street with bargains galore (none that we bought – but if you want to shop…this is the place) and onto the Bach Ma temple, which wasn’t open. At this point, we go off the tour track and head straight to the Old East Gate – one of the original gates of the walled city.
Getting a little noshy now, we stop at what we are calling the Subway of Hanoi – V+. It’s a Banh Mi fast food sort of chain (only a couple though), with a really cheap Banh Mi – I don’t think it was even $1. So we settle down on our little stools at our little table and munch away on a really good sandwhich. Perfect to hit the spot.
We head back toward the hotel, and pass a Bia Hoi joint that is totally local. All men, all in the same type clothes – at least the same color – sitting on the little stools with beer. Yay – it’s that time! Well, not there, not in a million years – bad enough they were all looking at us as we passed. 
We head back to our local Bia Hoi place on Bia Hoi corner. Still there, still the same price – 5,000 each, which is 25 cents. This is why the supermarket doesn’t have a lot of beer! We just hang out, sipping our beer and watching the world go by…The Walmart lady (see all the clothes and stuff on her bike?), the flower lady, the fruit and veggie lady….
So fun! On our way back to the hotel, at the corner of the alley, they are obviously setting up for a wedding party. The colorful decorations are so vibrant against the backdrop of the dreary back alleys.
Hopefully we’ll catch a glimpse of the party on our way to our street food tour tonight.
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