Another good night’s sleep, another lazy morning blowing off Tai Chi. What can I say? We’re happy watching Ha Long bay out the picture window of our cabin until it is time for breakfast (and breakfast of course is before our big farewell brunch!).
I pass on breakfast, just having fruit to put something small in my stomach, anticipating what is to come later. We head back down to our cabin to finalize our packing – is doesn’t take very long to throw the few things we brought back into our back packs, wrapping up my still damp clothes in the poncho I was using yesterday. As we are waiting to go back upstairs for lunch, there is a knock on the door. It’s Tom Cruise, coming to say goodbye and to tell us how much he enjoyed meeting us, and to give us a small farewell gift of a lovely little shell necklace. So sweet! We know he’s trying to ensure a good TripAdvisor review, and he – and everyone else on the boat – will get one, so this for us is unnecessary, but still a sweet gesture. We’re not sure who else – if anyone – got a special gift. We’re not advertising it, and we’re not asking around!
Back to the trough we go, for a full scale buffet lunch that will keep us full for the long drive back to Hanoi. Because Tet is coming up, most of the crew, including Long and DJ Jelly, are leaving to go on holiday, so everyone is in a festive mood as we board the tender for the 5 minute ride back to the waiting area. Once again, we have a bit of a long wait, and once again, who cares? Long escorts us to our Luxury van, which turns out to be not our Luxury van, and we have to go in search of the correct Luxury van, which we find and pile into along with the Aussies and the Brits, plus an additional passenger who was not on our boat. Huh? Oh well – whatever.
We have 2 stops on the way back to Hanoi today. The first is at the Yen Duc Village in Dong Trieu province. This village is also an Indochina Junk project, one in which they have helped the villagers begin organic rice farming, and implemented and agro-tourism program for visitors to stay overnight and help around the village (thus the extra passenger who disembarks at the village for an overnight stay). We are here, however, to see the water puppet show.
Disembarking the van, we follow a short little path through the yard to a tiered grandstand type area with the water puppet stage in front of us. Tea and snacks in the form of a really nice pound cake-type dessert and slightly dry, but ever so tasty, miniature sesame muffins. Diana and Hector are here already, so we sit with them to eat and watch the show.
We have successfully avoided the water puppet shows each and every time we have been in Hanoi, and that strategy was positively reinforced here. It’s traditional Vietnamese, we get it, but it seems better suited for children than adults. There are 4 or 5 acts, about farmers, dragons, fishermen, foxes stealing ducks, all accompanied by dialog (mostly screaming) and loud music. The stories come from Vietnamese fables, which are sort of cute, but can get boring pretty fast. In the long run, we’re glad we saw it, but we’re also glad it was included, so it’s not like we paid extra to see it. And the coolest thing was when all the puppet-masters came out at the end of the show. That was neat to see them all standing in the water waving.
Piling back into the van as the show ended, we passed through the rice paddies being worked by a villager..
…made our way out to the main road on tiny little dirt lanes that were little more than one car width and raised high above the rice fields – making passing nearly impossible, and the 10 minutes or so getting back to the highway a little nail biting.
But once on the national road, all was normal – crazy scooters, trucks, horns. And all along the way – Kumquat tree sales! It’s Tet – everyone needs Kumquat trees – and boy are they selling them. There were hundreds of different little tree “stands” dotting the roadway into Hanoi. Plus cherry blossom stick sellers. Oh, and potato sellers – in this one stretch of road, 30 or 40 people selling sacks of potatoes. It was amazing. Our Aussie companions couldn’t understand it – they are farmers and couldn’t understand the concept of people selling the same product in the same location – why didn’t they move down the street so they could have exclusivity? They just didn’t get it – this is the Vietnamese (well really Asian) way. It was potato street – that’s where you go for potatoes. The next block might have been mango street, or whatever product, but it’s all location driven. Having visited here enough, we understood, but it was impossible to explain.
Regardless, we had a wonderful time talking on the way back to Hanoi. We stopped at the craft factory again – of course – and after we had our bathroom break, waited until the van was washed, then hopped in to make our way into the city. The Brits were dropped off at a meeting point for another van to take them to the Airport, and we continued on, into the soft light of dusk, finally arriving at the E Central hotel for our final 3 nights stay in Hanoi.
After re-establishing ourselves in our rooms, we decided to stick close for dinner. We weren’t overly hungry and didn’t feel like wading into the craziness that was Old Hanoi just quite yet. There was a restaurant in our hotel, but no one ever seemed to be there, plus we had found a cute little place 2 doors down called An Bien that serves Haiphong food – which are southern coastal style dishes with a lot of seafood.
The place is really well done, with exposed brick walls and nice seating arrangements. And the menu is huge – with explanations of everything, including the Haiphong style of “red” noodles and crab broth. I’m still not hungry, so I only order small apps (at least what I think are small apps) – the Banh my que ruoc, which is described as breadstick with Pork Floss (otherwise known as pate) and the Met cha nuong, mix grilled meat skewers including pork wrapped in wild betel leaves, grilled pork and grilled minced pork. Ed of course goes for the red noodles and seafood, called Banh da be be, it is “Banh da” noodles with mantis shrimp.
Topped off with Haiphong beers, it’s one great meal. The shrimp are enormous – and totally fill the bowl. The broth is a little sour, but goes perfectly with the seafood and the noodles, while my meat dishes are excellent. The pork floss is really quite tasty. We ask for our bill, and when it comes, they have incorrectly charged us for draft beer, which is 4x the price of our bottles. We call the waiter over and show him, and he exclaims “Oh, God!” Too funny, I laughed about that for hours (actually for days I could hear his little stunned voice saying “Oh, God!” After correcting and settling the bill, we head back to our rooms, high above the city to watch the crazy traffic and get a good night’s sleep before our bike ride around the lake tomorrow – because yes, Ed is now coming down with what appears to be another cold. Darn those American ladies on our Luxury Van. I knew this would happen…and its only a matter of time until I’m next….sigh…the woes of travel.
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