Oh Hanoi

I arrived in Hanoi teary eyed from leaving Kathmandu. It was time to embark on a new country of adventures.

And Hanoi started off with a bang! Our first morning here, I walked out the front door and legs a flair, I opted to take the stairs with my butt instead of my feet. The weather was dreary and everything was wet.

It's Monday night in America and Doug is jonesing to watch the Redskins game. While there is plenty of futbol on TV, we are both really missing a good American football game. Given that it's Tuesday morning, we consider this our best bet and head over to the Hilton's sports bar with high hopes. We get there to find the sports bar will not be open until 4.

Hopes dashed, I cautiously slip slided my way around town where we headed over to check out Hoan Kiem Lake and the Jade Mountain Temple. After the requesite glamour shots were taken, we decide to head back to the hotel and figure out our plan for Hanoi and Northern Vietnam.

While we entered this city with hearts betrothed to Nepal, Hanoi has won us over. We're staying in the Old Quarter with each street known for the particular item it sells. I find it kind of amazing that this is a profitable way to do business (after all you're surrounded by your competition), but I also see that if you need something made out of sheet metal, well then you're going to go to sheet metal streets. My favorite is fruit cup street - where you can get a delicious fruit cup of watermelon, mango, dragon fruit, and lychee. The city is small and very walkable, although hardly any of the streets actually go straight and they change their name frequently, which makes them somewhat challenging to navigate.

As per the general South East Asia MO, the streets are filled with motorbikes. There are very few crosswalk lights, so you have to learn to slowly make your way into traffic and trust that the motorbikes will navigate around you. It was very intimidating at first, and Doug would always take to my left, but after a day or so I was soldiering out onto the streets alone.

The other best find here is the block with beer places on each corner. Drafts are 40 cents and you can make a dinner out of the different small plates. It allowed us to try goat, rabbit, squid, and tofu on our second night. We also got duck sausage because I ordered what the guy next to us was having (thinking it was french bread) - luckily it turned out to be delicious! Last night I got a bit carried away and ordered a hot pot and a grilled chicken dish, when really a hot pot is dinner enough alone. It's fun trying to match the english to the vietnamese menu and hoping you get the right stuff - as well as pointing to the ground at the discarded peanut shells to indicate you'd like peanuts.

Yesterday we took a group tour to the Perfume Pagoda. Group tours are not my favorite way to travel, but given that it is almost impossible at this time of year to get to the Perfume Pagoda any other way, we sucked it up and payed our $21.

Today we each enjoyed free time in the morning and I opted to spend mine spurring the Vietnamese economy. The souvenir shopping is very easy, as there is one block where it's all concentrated and I could go from store to store checking out the wears. After lugging my newly aquired goods back to the hotel, I went for an $11 massage - which was fabulous!

This afternoon we donned our tourist apperal and hit up the temple of literature and then I went on to the One Pillar pagoda and ho Chi Minh Mausoleum while Doug went shoe shopping.

Tomorrow we're off to Hulong Bay . . .