2/7 Back in Hanoi

After the long bus ride (that wasn’t so long because of the company), we made it back to the hotel and were rewarded with our our same room (with the luggage already there).  A nice cool glass of water on arrival, and then up to the room to rest and refresh. 

Well, that means email and catching up on the world (the Giants won the Superbowl?  Wouldn’t really have guessed that – and sounds like a great game.  Oh well…there’s always next year!).

After we caught up, we headed out into the streets for dinner.  It’s a little better tonight because it’s dry. No rain or mist, so the streets aren’t quite so dirty and gritty, and while there’s still plenty of scooter traffic, it doesn’t seem all that overwhelming as it did before. Maybe, we’re getting used to it?

At any rate, we walk around the corner (well, corners quite literally) to Newday, a Vietnamese restaurant that gets great reviews.  It’s always crowded, and tonight is no exception.  We are led to an 8 top table – but we only share with a couple at the far end (he’s a farang, she’s Vietnamese, and they are not talking to each other, nor are they really looking at it each other, not very happy campers down there so we are glad it’s not all that communal at the table!).

The menu is extensive - tons and tons of Northern Viet dishes of every variety.  There’s way too much to choose from, so we settle for the easy one:  Set menu 99K D (or $5US) each.  4 Spring rolls Hanoi style (fried, I think with pork); one bowl pho each (chicken or beef – we think we are supposed to order the same type, because there is some confusion when I order chicken and Ed orders beef, but in the end, that’s what we get), then Chiness (straight from the menu) pork with caramel sauce for me and Beef with garlic for Ed. 

Jeez – the portions.  I’m already stuffed from the pho, but here comes these big plates and bowls of food.  Ed’s very good, tender thin slices of beef stir fried in garlic with lots of veggies (unfortunately most are red peppers, which will stay on the plate).  My pork is a bowl of pork in an incredible brown sauce.  It wasn’t caramel, and I can’t really describe it, just rich and savory, but almost in a sweet way?  Whatever it was, it might as well have been caramel, it was that good!  Sadly, I forgot how fatty the pork is – and I could only eat 1/2 of it – the rest – the fat back – got left in the bowl – but I did sop up the yummy sauce with the rice.  There is also a deep fried hard boiled egg in my bowl.  Hmmmm….it looks like it is wrapped in maybe rice paper? Then fried? Don’t know – I took a bite, but it wasn’t really up my alley.  Cool.  Definitely, but not for me to eat. Thanks. No!

For dessert we get yogurt, which you know I don’t want – and neither does Ed. So we try to give it back to the waiter (it’s those little pre-packaged dannon-type yogurt cups).  We figure they can use them for someone else. No go. He says – take back to hotel. We tell him, no, we don’t like yogurt, really, use it  for someone else. We don’t want a discount, just don’t want the yogurt (I mean seriously – a discount on$5?  Right!).  He wouldn’t hear of it.

So that starts a discussion with the new couple seated next to us.  They are obviously regulars, everyone knows them, their food is served immediately and they are joking and talking to every staff who passes by.  We ask them if they want the yogurt and they just laugh.  He says no, but the waiter won’t take it back because its special for him – the waiter must have you take the yogurt.  We of course protest, but it does no good.  So, as the conversation goes on, they offer us a taste of their rice wine – which we accept – WOW! That stuff will go right through you – although whatever they had bought (and they bought the whole bottle) – it was much smoother than the normal rot gut we’ve had in the past. 

Conversation ensues – he’s from Hanoi, she’s from Halong Bay – so of course we tell them about our trip. We talk politics a bit – about the current government and how it can be hard to live here – but then again so much is happening and growing here.  He is in IT, she is an accountant.  No children.  Brothers and sisters, some living in Australia and someplace else I didn’t catch.  We toast again to something – but i have no wine, so the wife pours me more rice wine from her glass. Ay yi yi!  I have to walk home! But it’s so nice, and sweet.  Everywhere you go here you receive different levels of kindness and sweetness, makes you really understand what a special place this country is – and will continue to grow up to be.

We trundle home after paying our whopping bill ($14 US) – and hang out in the room because – while the boat trip was fabulous, the sleeping (or sporadic bouts of it) have left us whipped!  And the hotel bed is beckoning!