2/8–Hanoi day 1 - evening

After chilling out for a bit, we wander out into the streets of the old town, with Bia Hoi corner as our destination.  Sadly, as we had read, but didn’t want to believe, the corner is no longer Bia Hoi Corner, but Bia Bottle corner. The little sidewalk beer places are still there, but the only choices are traditional bottled beer instead of the made fresh daily brew.  It’s still crazy fun sitting on the little plastic chairs and watching the insanity around you. But it does lose something without the Bia Hoi…just a little originality and maybe even a little tradition.  Nonetheless, we’re happy sitting here watching the world, and crazy tourists, go by.

After a bit, we make our way down the street (that has way more bars than we remember) and over to Bun Cha Ta, where we had our first taste of Bun Cha on our visit two years ago.  The place is packed, and we are escorted up to the 3rd floor (who knew there were so many floors?) to sit traditional style, shoes off, at a low table on floor pillows.  We order a regular Bun Cha and also a combo with spring rolls, one beer to share and water – all for only 195,000 VND ($8.50 USD).  It’s just as good as we remembered and crazy amounts of food – I can’t even finish most of my Bun Cha, there’s so much!

Thoroughly stuffed, we head back out into the night and stumble across a little cafe called Cong Caphe Co, that has a happy hour with buy 2 get 1 beer free.  They’re talking our language!  The beer is a little pricey (again, in relative terms, it’s $1.50 USD for 1 small beer, which is almost double what it would be at other bars) but the atmosphere is totally worth it.  It’s like sitting in a bunker or prison cell or something. Three or 4 floors, all concrete, accessed by a concrete staircase with traditional seating areas (meaning shoes off, crawl over to the floor pillow) and steel bars on the windows.  Totally awesome.  In addition, they give us snacks of these sweet peanuts which are incredible.  They are home made (I watched as they poured them out of a mason-type jar) and I’d ask for the recipe, but that will definitely not translate!  So, we just hang out, drink our beer, eat our peanuts, revel in the atmosphere while examining old war photos and propaganda (the real thing) hung on the wall.

 

Great way to end our busy day in Hanoi. Next, we’re back to the hotel to pack for our 2 night 3 day Halong bay cruise.