Vietnam Day 3: Hanoi

I am already starting to fall behind on these posts, so I am going to give you all the highlights to catch back up:

The Old Quarter of Hanoi, where we stayed, is...active. The impression I left the city with is that is is unlike other places I have been in that there is always a fairly active human element on the streets. It feels like phases - the morning, "regular" business of a bustling city, the evening when shops that have been closed all day start to put their shutters up and cook food or sell wares that might be more interesting to evening shoppers, and then the late night when people just seem to sit on the streets talking, eating, cooking. It's hard to describe the motorcycle culture as well except anything but the default. Bikes everywhere all the time.

Our day was one of exploration. Egg coffee in the morning (It will also be Cassady's last - too much caffeine in the Vietnamese coffee), and walk to Sword Lake, Hoàn Kiếm, and then home again. We spent the late morning with two teenagers running a beer place, and became friends with google translate. It was cool to talk back and forth and learn a bit about them, youthful bravado and all. They spent an inordinate amount of time trying to convince Cassidy to commit to a tattoo.

Egg coffee

Sword lake

Huan and Tam

After a bit of a break, we set out to buy some crocs, an item that was everywhere earlier in the day, but couldn't find hardly any (I swear the stalls move product around for different rushes of clientele on the streets) and found everything else, including what appeared to be a Christmas themed couple of blocks.

After that failure we regrouped and headed out for beer and food. We found it on Beer street. I am no expert but the name kind of speaks for itself. A few blocks of competing bars that have employees trying to lure you into their spot. We settled on a place with a chill vibe and parked there for the next several hours as the streets became more and more congested. You could hear the music from the Hooka bar, the Karaoke bar, and everything in between. It was a people-watchers paradise. We met a Japanese couple (in that we cheers'ed them a couple of times), a couple from the Philipines and watched a man and woman who were both travelling have a first date at a table right in front of us. It was kind of awesome.

Beer street chillin

Locals also walked by constantly trying to sell all sorts of wares - stuffed animals, Vietnamese military style hats, tobacco, shoe shining, vapes, and little knick-nacks. People who appeared to be disabled would try to sell gum, as would younger children - the two that kept coming around our table were probably 6 and 10. They were sweet, but it was late and honestly it felt bad engaging them when they probably should have been at home.

Cassidy bought these Capyibura from two older women over the course of several hours and 3 exchanges. It was very funny. I actually ended up buying him the last green one (for 50,000 dong, or about $2.50)

The night ended unceremoniously by forcing ourselves home due to a motorcycle trip starting at 9 am the next morning (though I think I bought the best fried rice I have ever had on the way home).

Talk tomorrow -