Hanoi – Where to, Gumshoe?

Hanoi/Luang Prabang (Day 115): Vietnam Doesn’t Want us to Leave!

June 23, 2016

Today we were flying to Luang Prabang, Laos at 6:50pm, so we had a pretty full day in Hanoi before we had to go to the airport. We had a leisurely and large breakfast upstairs. I ordered Vietnamese fried rice and it was a lot larger than I expected, so that was basically our early lunch.

After breakfast we went back to our room and started to book flights and some hotels for our last 3 weeks on the road. We’ll be going to Vientiane, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, and Phu Quoc before making our way back to Saigon (then home!). We’ve booked all our flights until KL, we’ll do the rest in the next couple of days.

Since we didn’t have to leave for the airport until later in the afternoon, we asked for a late check out and we didn’t head out into town until 1pm. I think if we asked for even later they probably would’ve given it to us. The staff at the hotel was really accommodating!

We finally checked out and headed out for lunch. We hadn’t eaten any food in Hanoi that we really wanted to have again, so it made deciding what to eat for lunch a bit challenging. Tim is always down for eating more banh mi so we decided to try to find a new place.

We walked through the old town and close to Hoan Kiem lake to see what we could find. We found a Banh Mi shop called, Banh Mi Pho Cho. It looked promising. We ordered two sandwiches and took a seat. I ordered a roasted pork sandwich and Tim had the classic deli meats and pate banh mi. Both our sandwiches were pretty mediocre. I can see now why Banh Mi 25 is supposedly the best banh mi in Hanoi, there isn’t that much competition for good banh mi in Hanoi’s old town.

We walked through old town and decided to go to Cong Caphe to escape the heat for a bit. We are usually indoors during mid-afternoon so it was especially draining being in the sun during mid-day. We wanted to go to Cong Caphe since we weren’t going to be having it again (unless Saigon has one, but we may not have time to go). We ordered a coconut coffee and a frozen lemonade (the exact order we had the first time we went). Both were delicious as usual and we got to spend some time watching over Hanoi’s hectic streets.

We walked around Hoan Kiem Lake, which was nice because it was mostly shaded by all the trees. After we made a loop around the lake, we made our way back to the hotel to cool down a bit before the car took us to the airport. The hotel manager and staff were nice and gave us cold towels (seeing how much we were sweating) and cold juice while we waited for our car. The manager also gave us a Vietnamese lacquered plate as a souvenir – that was really nice of him. Then about 5 minutes later he asked us if we would write a review on Trip Advisor for them. I was going to write one for them any way, but for a small business, I can see how good reviews on Trip Advisor are basically their life blood if they’re in the tourism industry. I told him that’s how I found this hotel, through Trip Advisor, so obviously I was going to pay it forward.

Right at 4:30pm, our car came to pick us up and we said bye to all the staff at the hotel. It took about half an hour to get from Old Town to the airport. There’s a lot of traffic trying to get out of the city, but once you get on the highway it’s smooth sailing.

We arrived at the international terminal and it was a lot nicer than Hanoi’s domestic terminal – mainly because it’s newer. The airport was pretty dead. There were a few flights leaving for Seoul, Taipei, and Hong Kong. The Lao Airline counter was not busy at all. It seems like the majority of the passengers on this flight to Luang Prabang are westerners and only about 10% Laotian.

Once we got through security and Vietnamese exiting customs, we walked around the departures terminal and ended up getting Popeye’s for late lunch/early dinner. The international terminal prices are all in USD and are a lot more expensive than the domestic terminal.

As we neared our boarding time, we weren’t boarding and I knew our flight was going to be delayed. Sure enough, we heard an announcement saying that our flight was delayed from 6:50pm to 7:10pm. Then 7:10pm quickly came and went and we still hadn’t boarded. Another announcement came on saying that the flight has been delayed to 8:40pm due to technical issues. They gave us a small sandwich and some water, which was probably what we should’ve eaten on board as our dinner. We finally boarded close to 9pm.

The plane was pretty small. It’s the type of plane you would fly from Vancouver to Seattle (Tim: Actually, it was an ATR 72 and I think it’s bigger than any plane I’ve been on from Vancouver to Seattle). The flight time to Luang Prabang is only an hour and a half (thankfully). When we arrived at the airport, we were the only flight that was there. It seemed like the only people working at the airport were the customs officers.

Laos requires a visa upon arrival so we tried to walk faster than the majority of the plane since we knew that 90% of the plane would need a visa. Depending on what country you’re from, you have to pay any where between $30 USD – $42 USD for the visa. Lucky for us, Canada is the only country that is $42! Even Afghanistan is $40 USD. Most other western countries are $30 USD. There was a big chart at the visa line with a list of all countries and their prices. Since we landed after normal work hours, it was an extra $1 USD to process. We had passport pictures printed at Costco before we left for the Laotian and Cambodian visas, but had we known that it would only cost an extra $1 USD for them to just photocopy a picture for you, we may have considered that.

After the visa line we took our passports to the customs line. They were having technical difficulties with their computers so we had to wait longer in that line. Finally, we got through, grabbed our bags and the hotel car was waiting for us outside. Lucky our hotel had free airport transfer because there were no cabs or tuk tuks around at all.

We’re staying at “Le Bel Air Boutique Resort“, which is about 5km away from the airport. We couldn’t see much in the dark but Luang Prabang seemed very quaint and quiet as there weren’t many scooters or cars on the street at night. The hotel looked very Thai or I guess very Laotian. The reception and restaurant area are all open air and each room is in its own villa area. We were brought to our room and were pretty surprised at how nice and large the room was. We’re lucky it’s down season because they had a “stay 3 nights, pay for 2” promotion, so we’re paying $60 CAD/night. Hotels in Laos aren’t as cheap as Vietnam.

After a really long day, we washed up and went to bed. Both really looking forward to exploring the city more tomorrow!

Steps today: 11,000

Halong Bay/Hanoi (Day 114): Back to Reality

June 22, 2016

It was our last morning on the boat and we were making our way back to the mainland. No one wanted to do tai chi in the morning so we got to sleep in a bit and have breakfast a tad later than yesterday. Breakfast was the same as yesterday except we also had some fried noodles which were really good. We wouldn’t be eating until we got back to Hanoi so we knew to eat a bit more.

After breakfast and chatting to the Aussies for a while, we all headed back to our rooms to pack up. Our two nights here flew by! We had a great time on the cruise and were really happy we opted for a smaller ship. Everything was very personable and we got to meet a lovely family along the way. The cruise was my favourite part of Vietnam so far.

When we got to shore, we said our goodbyes to our new friends and went into our separate shuttles back to Hanoi. We didn’t book or pay for a private car but our shuttle bus ended up being private (lucky us)!

We got back to our hotel in Hanoi (same hotel as before) at around 2pm. We checked in and then headed down the street for lunch. Tim wanted a banh mi that wasn’t Banh Mi 25. We walked two blocks down from our hotel and found a place that served banh mi but it seemed more like a meat shop. We ordered a pate and ham & pate banh mi. It was basically just the meat in the baguette – no veggies and no frills. They weren’t cheap either, it was 45,000 VND each = $2.58 (okay, it’s not that expensive, but expensive for Vietnam). The meat was actually refrigerated like a deli (which was good) and very good. I just wished they had pickled vegetables in it – would’ve been perfect. Tim really liked the pate, said it was the best one yet in Vietnam.

After lunch we grabbed an egg coffee (Hanoi speciality) at a nearby cafe. We sat and enjoyed our first one. It was like a thick egg nog with espresso. It was tasty and was the first hot coffee I’ve had in Vietnam.

We went back to the hotel, caught up on our blog, and chilled out for a bit. We’re leaving for Laos tomorrow and are running low on our sunscreen supply so our errand for today was to get more sunscreen and mosquito repellent. There aren’t many London Drug type stores at all in Vietnam so we knew it would be a bit difficult to find sunscreen and mosquito repellent. I saw a pharmacy earlier in the day so we went there but they basically only have prescriptions and nothing else. We continued on and went back to the supermarket by Hoan Kiem Lake and ended up finding everything we needed on their 2nd level. The sunscreen selection is pretty small. The options are expensive and the bottles are small. We bought the biggest bottle they had (70g) and the only mosquito spray they had. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers.

For our last dinner in Hanoi, we decided to go for Pho since we hadn’t had it yet here. We decided to try Pho 10, which was across the street from our lunch banh mi restaurant. Pho 10 is a no frills pho restaurant with disinterested staff and service. Pho was good though. The beef I had was pretty tender.

As much as we’re both enjoying all the food we’ve been eating in Asia, it’s also reconfirmed what we already know – Vancouver’s Asian food is really good. I don’t think we’ve had something in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Singapore, or Vietnam that I thought blew our minds and was way better than at home. The main difference is the food in Asia is cheaper (sometimes a lot cheaper).

After dinner, we went to a smoothie place down the street from our hotel that we passed by each day. We ordered smoothies (sinh to) and sat under the fans for a bit. The family who ran the smoothie shop was eating dinner while we were there. I would be happy to go again tomorrow before we leave for Laos.

Steps today: 5,500

Hanoi (Day 111): Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi

June 19, 2016

This morning, after breakfast at the hotel, Kait and I made our way to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum at Ba Dinh Square, which was located on the western edge of the old town in Hanoi. This was one of those sites where, while I didn’t have any particular urge to see, it felt like something that needed to be checked off a list.

It was a sunny morning and the temperature was around 33 degrees. It wasn’t even close to the hottest day we’ve experienced in Vietnam, but for some reason, the heat really hit us while we walked to the Mausoleum. By the time we arrived, we were both dripping with sweat. It didn’t help that when we reached what I thought was the Mausoleum, we had to walk around the fenced off square all the way to the other side of it in order to get into a line up for the Mausoleum. The lineup stretched for some distance, but moved relatively quickly (Kait: I didn’t think we were going to make it in before it closed at 11am, but we did!). We had to pass through security and they had bag checks (for water bottles) and a separate drop off point for camera gear as no cameras were allowed in the Mausoleum.

After moving through the line and finally reaching the Mausoleum, we were led in in two single file lines (Kait: when the line splits into two, go to the left side. You’re closer to HCMC’s body and have better views). They keep the line moving (which is good for everyone waiting), but it really doesn’t leave you with much time to view Ho Chi Minh’s embalmed body. After walking through the Mausoleum, we walked across the square to visit the Ho Chi Minh Museum. Now, I didn’t know a lot of details about Ho Chi Minh’s life, and after going through the Museum, I felt like I still didn’t know much. The museum had a couple exhibitions about Ho Chi Minh’s journeys around the world before returning to Vietnam to aid in their revolution. It also had a hodge podge of displays in the top floor about communism and Ho Chi Minh’s life. None of it felt very cohesive, and I felt like I came away from it without a good grasp of the person (other than the fact that he travelled extensively). (Kait: When reading some of the plaques at the museum, the descriptions were pretty questionable. Ie: Vietnam is described as a “Democratic Republic State”. Either my understanding of what democratic is, is totally wrong or Communists like to make their citizens believe they’re a democratic country)

It’s interesting to me how the Communist Party of Vietnam has built a personality cult around Ho Chi Minh… not unlike Kim Il Sung in North Korea and Mao Zedong in China. It makes me wonder if they knew how they would be used post mortem, and how it’s possible their legacies are not what they wanted. Even with the Mausoleum, I read that according to his will, Ho Chi Minh wanted to be cremated. Makes me wonder how he might be used now in ways he never would have wanted… But I guess he’s dead now so ultimately, it’s not his concern.

After a Ho Chi Minh filled morning, we slowly made our way back to our hotel, stopping at a Highlands Coffee (Kait: The Starbucks of Vietnam) to grab a drink and sandwich. Highlands Coffee is a chain that seems to always have locations with large patios adjacent to parks or museums. Kait had a Green Tea Frappuccino (which she said wasn’t really a Frappuccino, Kait: it was more of an iced drink with jello) and I had a frozen lemonade.

As we’ve done the last couple days, we spent the early afternoon back in the comforts of our hotel, hiding from the worst of the heat outside. We continued to look at booking things over the next couple weeks, and it really hit me we’re nearing the end of this leg of our travels. With less than a month to go, there’s still a lot we want to see in South East Asia.

After a lazy afternoon, we made our way out for dinner just across the street from our hotel. It was a Bun Cha (Kait: Bourdain took Obama to eat bun cha when he was in Hanoi, just not at this place) restaurant that seemed to have some decent reviews online (Kait: it’s apparently “the best” bun cha in Hanoi…). They had large prominent signs in English pointing out that the location beside them was “Fake” and they are the real restaurant. While I have no doubt they might have been at that location serving Bun Cha for longer than the place next to them, calling them fake seemed pretty harsh. I’m sure the place next door serves real food.

The Bun Cha itself was decent, but nothing to write home about (though I guess that’s exactly what I’m doing right now…). We only ordered 1 to share (90,000VND = $5.20 CAD) and it was more than enough food for the both of us. It was similar to the Bun Cha we had in Hoi An, but came with an additional soupy broth/dip as well as pork belly slices cooked with the pork patties. (Kait: this was a more “real” version. The one in Hoi An was much tidier and well put together)

After dinner, we swung by a convenience store to grab some drinks and snacks that we’ll bring with us when we go on our cruise around Halong Bay starting tomorrow. Our first few days in Hanoi really flew by and I’m glad we kept a leisurely pace. We haven’t been hitting our 20,000 step goals consistently lately, but to be fair, the climate makes 20,000 steps a lot more difficult.

And Happy Father’s Day to our Dads and to all Dads out there! It’s also Father’s Day here, although I don’t think they make a big deal out of it. But we did see a sign that said “FatHers Day”.

Steps Today: 14,000

Hanoi (Day 110): French Quarter, Doner Kebabs, and Highway 4

June 18, 2016

This morning, we were woken up by loud speakers blaring Vietnamese music outside. I checked the time and it was only 6:30am! The music went on for a while and then some repetitious ads came on after. We hadn’t heard these scooter loud speaker ads since we were in Saigon. We slept a bit more then headed upstairs for breakfast.

Breakfast was served on the top floor of the hotel and the breakfast room only has 4 tables. They had some food set out as a buffet so we grabbed plates and chose a few things. When we sat down we noticed there was a breakfast menu with western and Vietnamese choices. The lady came by and asked us which dish we wanted for breakfast. I was surprised they had a la carte choices for us as well. I ordered beef pho and Tim ordered French Toast with honey. Both dishes were pretty good, but the pho was better than the French Toast (naturally).

After breakfast we went back to our room and FaceTimed with my family as they were singing happy birthday to Nate. We’ll be home in exactly one month!

We got changed and made our way towards the French Quarter. We walked along the Hoan Kiem lake, which was nice and shaded and lined with large trees. The streets in the French Quarter are nice and clean. The sidewalks are wide and easy to walk on vs. the the non-existent sidewalks in the Old Quarter. There’s fancy hotels, luxury stores, and the Hanoi Opera House.

We found the ice cream place, called Kem Trang Tien, that Tim found while looking online. The store was quite large with different areas: one for single sales and one for bulk sales. The ice cream is served in popsicle form and we had to figure out what flavours they had. We were standing there for a while trying to Google translate flavours and decipher what the pictures were on the packaging. We ended up ordering a coconut (7,000 VND = $0.40 CAD) and a sticky rice (8,000 VND = $0.46 CAD) ice cream. Both were really good and quite refreshing!

We walked back towards our hotel area and passed by a Cha Time (bubble tea chain) on the way back. We went inside and the air conditioning was too good to leave. We shared a roasted milk tea with pearls (49,000 VND = $2.80 CAD). Cha Time had free WiFi so we did a bit of research on what we wanted to have for lunch.

In Saigon and now in Hanoi, we noticed that there were “doner banh mi” stalls around the city. We both really like doners and shawarma so we were pretty excited to see what a doner banh mi would be like. We looked up a place and then made our way there after finishing our bubble tea.

The stall we went to didn’t have a name but it’s outside a Vietnamese bakery. When we got there, there were locals waiting for their doners, which is a good sign! He ran out of baguettes on the order before us so started to use the flat french bread for our sandwiches. After he made the sandwiches he would put them in a panini press contraption to toast the sandwich before he served it to us. It did truly taste like a mixture of a banh mi and a doner. It was interesting and tasty but it wasn’t my favourite. I’m glad we tried it though, I think there could be some improvements to it to make it taste even better.

After lunch, we walked back to the hotel and stayed in for the rest of the afternoon to get out of the heat. We finally booked some of our Laos portion of the trip!

For dinner we went to a restaurant called “Highway 4”, which is a trendy Vietnamese restaurant in town. There are a few locations in Hanoi but we went to one that was closest to our hotel. We walked to the restaurant and got seated right away. We ordered two drinks, morning glory vegetables, chicken wings, pho cuon with beef, and crab spring rolls (362,000 VND = $21 CAD). The food was good but not worth the prices. I was comparing it to Morning Glory and we both agreed our dinner in Hoi An was a lot better and the service was better too. On our bill they charged us for two cold towels for 2,000 VND each. We told them we didn’t get cold towels and they said the napkins were it, but we argued saying those aren’t cold towels so they took it off the bill. Always good to double check your bills here!

After dinner as we walked back to the hotel, it started to get really windy. I knew it was going to start to rain so we began walking faster and faster. Sure enough, the rain started to come down really hard.

When we got back to the hotel, we watched the fourth installment of the O.J. Simpson documentary. This one was pretty graphic and frustrating to watch. Even though we all know the outcome of the trial, it was frustrating to see how the trial was handled and how dumb the jury was.

Steps today: 12,000

Hanoi (Day 109): Hello from the Capital!

June 17, 2016

We set our alarms for 6am, so we could have a quick breakfast at the hotel before we made our way to the airport for our 8:10 flight to Hanoi. I read a lot of good reviews about the hotel’s breakfast buffet so I was looking forward to trying it, even if it was a quick breakfast.

Breakfast at the Orange Hotel was served on the top floor (seems pretty common for hotels here to have their restaurants on the top level). We’re not early birds so we were quite surprised at how many people were there for breakfast at 6:30am. The breakfast spread was pretty impressive and nicely laid out. As we were leaving they were bringing out more food and even some crepes!

We took a cab to the airport and it cost 61,000 VND = $3.50 CAD (15,000 VND of that was the ticket it costs for cars to go into the airport area). When we got to the Vietnam Airlines check in counter, there was quite a long line, but it went quickly. I was a bit nervous because we were cutting it pretty close, but when I saw people were still checking in for 7:45am flights it made me feel better. There’s not much in the Da Nang domestic terminal. Some souvenir shops and a “Calvin Klein Nike” store. I’ve never seen fake stores at airports before!

We went to our gate and had to take a shuttle from the gate to the plane. The flight to Hanoi was a larger plane (Tim: A330) than what we took to Danang and it was quite full. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 8:10am, but we didn’t leave until around 8:40am. The flight to Hanoi was only an hour, so we landed at the scheduled time.

While sitting on the plane, we were surrounded by a couple of men who had to clear the phlegm in their throats every 5 minutes (it seemed). It wasn’t a very pleasant environment. I’m looking forward to being back home in a month.

We arrived in Hanoi and it was overcast and only 29°C (we haven’t been below 30°C in a while). Once we got our luggage, the hotel driver was waiting for us at arrivals. Hanoi’s international airport is about a 30 minute drive from Hanoi’s Old Quarter/City Centre. The highway into the city seemed newly paved and there wasn’t much traffic. It was only until we got close to the city’s core that Hanoi seemed more like any other city in Vietnam. The Old Quarter’s streets had a more small town feeling to them than the streets in Saigon.

When the car got close to our hotel, three hotel staff members came out and greeted us and took our bags. The hotel’s entrance was in a small alley so cars can’t go through. We’re staying at the Golden Moon Suites & Travel Hotel for $31 CAD/night. They gave us welcome drinks, a cold towel, and bananas. Since we got in so early and check in time wasn’t supposed to be until 2pm, they said our room probably wouldn’t be ready until 1pm. We said that was fine and asked for the WiFi password and sat on the couch for a bit before we headed out for lunch. I guess since we were sitting there for a while regrouping, the manager said they actually have a room ready for us now.

The room was clean and nice enough for the price (also includes breakfast this time). The only complaint is that the internet is a bit inconsistent – which makes streaming or FaceTiming choppy. We dropped off our bags, changed, and headed out for lunch.

For lunch we walked to a restaurant, called Xôi Yến, in the Old Quarter that is well known for their sticky rice (Tim’s friend Michael recommended it and Bourdain ate here too). When we arrived at Xôi Yến, we saw there was a Cong Caphe across the street. This was the second location we’ve seen in Hanoi so far, so if we’re craving the coconut coffee, we have options!

At Xoi Yen, you pick the type of sticky rice and you can choose to add toppings to it, such as: chicken, pork, deli meat, eggs, the list goes on. We both ordered a bowl of the sticky rice with “fried shallots and fat”. I ordered grilled pork (char siu) and Tim ordered the boiled shredded chicken. The bowls came compactly filled with sticky rice, a layer of mung bean paste (that we thought tasted like a layer of baked yams), and fried shallots. The rice and toppings were tasty, but I didn’t ration my meat well with the rice so I had almost half my rice left without any toppings. If you know me, I only really eat my rice if it has something to go with it. It’s very filling lunch and I didn’t finish my rice and Tim was too full to eat mine. I would go back to try other toppings but I wasn’t that biggest fan.

After lunch, we grabbed a quick snack to bring back to the hotel for later at Circle K and walked back to the hotel. I had a pretty bad headache and the sun was at its peak for the day, so we went back to our room and rested. I ended up taking a nap and felt a lot better in the late afternoon.

For dinner, we had a few options in mind but wanted to just find something fairly close by. I looked up some options on Trip Advisor and found a banh mi stall, Banh Mi 25, that was very well reviewed by the majority. The pictures made the stall seem very trendy – they even had branded stickers for their paper wrapping. When we got there, the crowd was mainly caucasian tourists, which was expected since it seemed the stall catered to tourists as their menu was in English. The prices were fair, so we decided to give it a shot (ranged from 15,000 VND to 25,000 VND). Tim ordered a pate banh mi (he wanted ham as well but they were out since it was the end of the day) and I ordered the grilled pork with pate. The girls working were nice and friendly and we grabbed a seat and waited for our banh mi.

When we took our first few bites, we both looked at each other and recalled one of the negative reviews from a guy from Seattle saying that there’s not much flavour in the meat or the vegetables (not pickled enough). We agreed that there wasn’t much going on in this banh mi besides the bread being good. They had hot sauce on the table and we both added a lot to get more flavour out of the sandwich. It was the most underwhelming banh mi we’ve had so far in Vietnam. I guess it gets pretty good reviews because it’s like banh mi for beginners, since the environment is very friendly and comfortable (everyone was very nice!).

We headed back towards the hotel and bought some lychees from a lady on the street for our dessert. There was a lady ahead of us on a scooter who bought 1kg for 50,000 VND = $2.88 CAD and we bought 25,000 VND = $1.44 CAD worth. They were delicious and sweet (lychee is one of my favourite fruits), we put them in the fridge before we dug into them.

We had another chill night, watching part 3 of the OJ Simpson documentary and then got to FaceTime Nate for his birthday! It’s funny, he doesn’t even know it’s his birthday. Can’t wait to celebrate with him again when we’re back home!

Steps today: 8,500