I mentioned to a number of folks that I've managed to book myself on so much stuff (a classical FOMO response) that it's almost like a competition.
Today's event: Walking Street Food Tour of Hanoi. Commences at 6:00PM local at my hotel.
But, in the meantime...
The lovely Joy checked that I was going to be collected by the tour group for me and confirmed that I'm on the 6:00 PM tour. So, I took her advice from yesterday and went wandering around Hanoi, particularly down to the lake in the middle of the old quarter, because it was fenced off as a pedestrian-only locale. It was on the same route that I took to find a restaurant last night, so I went a bit of a different way to see more of Hanoi. Good plan, as it turned out.
Almost immediately, I'm in a narrow alley filled with food vendors, their customers, and the ubiquitous scooter traffic. One hears about these street vendors but it's kind of confronting (to me) that they trade in fresh food, on the street, in polluted, steaming hot, Hanoi. Not such an issue for vegetables (I feel) but the trade in fresh, raw meat and live seafood is difficult for me to reconcile with hygiene and food safety standards. They appear to be doing a pretty brisk trade, and I presume that the food is all fresh, having been in the ground or walking around only the day before. Still, I'll not be sampling their wares.
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| Vegetable Street Vendor | Meat and Poultry on the street |
I quite like the old quarter of Hanoi, given that it's a crowded, hot, polluted rabbit warren of bustling people and scooters. I like the ramshackle architecture and the simple approach to just make things work, however, rough-and-ready that turns out. It's a characteristic of most third world cities that I've visited and I admire the people for making their living in that way. They're just getting on with it in what I assume to be pretty austere circumstances.
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| Street scene in Hanoi | Example of architecture |
(I know I sound like a distant, privileged white guy with no connection to the real people here; and I am, I guess. I don't want to sound patronising though. I genuinely believe that people here, and in other major third world cities, are doing the best they can. They have different values and standards to me that make me feel uncomfortable and out-of-place, but that doesn't make them wrong, or less than my values.)
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| Pagoda (temple?) in the middle of the lake |
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| Looking North across the lake |
I walked around the lake through some well-kept gardens and along the streets that bound the park (which is mostly lake). I was accosted by a woman who wanted me to practice English with her daughter. Sure, I said. The little nine-year-old (so she claimed) managed a brief conversation with much encouragement from her Mum. Ultimately, the conversation led on to how I must visit Oak Water, which was around the park somewhere. Ha! Pinched by a tout! At least it was a pleasant experience. After leaving them, I saw a similar thing playing out with tourists all around the park. I was accosted a couple more times, but I politely declined to be involved each time.
I headed into a major shopping centre just as it opened (10:00AM local) mostly to find sanctuary in the air conditioning. It was an up-market place with ALL the big brands. Reminiscent of the shopping malls in Dubai. I wandered around rising gently up the various floors until I got a Dunkin' Donuts shop. Always a sucker for a donut and not having to worry about counting calories, I thought I'd get an iced coffee and some donuts. Well, that plan didn't really work out. I got the iced coffee (eventually) but the donut shop hadn't received its donuts for the day, yet! My restricted diet is being forced upon me.
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| I think this might be the town hall (faces onto the lake) |
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| Small dance troupe giving their all to the camera (and no audience) |
More walking around the lake, this time past quite a few seemingly impromptu dance groups. All doing hip hop dance routines to pop-style music, highly-choreographed and launched into seemingly at random - in that they didn't wait for a crowd to form, or to announce the next act. I couldn't work out if they were rehearsing, performing, or staging an event. None of it was particularly excellent, though every group had someone video-recording them and someone else in charge of the music show seemed also to be in charge of what the group would do. All a bit confusing to me, especially in the 30+ degree heat.
On the walk back to my hotel I stopped to have an iced tea with coconut milk ice cream (yummy!) in the AHA Cafe, which I'd seen on the way to the Gecko restaurant last night. Then, having walked back to the hotel, I decided to walk on around the corner to the big street/avenue there and find a cafe to have something for lunch. I spotted a gang of tourists sitting in a cafe across the road so I went there. I knew that would mean I'd be paying more for the food, but it also meant that there'd be an intelligible menu from which I could select something I liked. Turns out the cafe is on the self-proclaimed "most dangerous railway track in the world". No trains came past while I was there, but a lot of tourists did!
Pho and a Vietnamese beer and my day is going very well, thanks! Now I'm going to relax for a few hours in my airconditioned hotel room before heading out for the first organised tour.
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| San Ga Cafe from across the street | San Ga Cafe looking back towards my hotel |
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