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Published: April 23rd 2007
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Remi and Robin
Enjoying a couple of bia hoi's! EDIT: Sorry for the multisending of email alerts!
Dear reader,
I have finally found the time to rounding off the story of our trip to Southeast Asia. As you know, we started in Singapore, went through Malaysia to Thailand, and from there to Vietnam via Laos and Cambodia. Travelling with Remi and Anne-Line through Vietnam from south to north, we ended up in Hanoi, the capital, from where we also went on a trip to Halong Bay.
As you know, I split with Remi and Anne-Line in
Nha Trang; they wanted to party hard, whereas being slightly more culturally inclined, I went to see
Hoi An and the
Demilitarized Zone, both of which where great experiences. I then met up with the two in Hanoi on Friday 9 March, where we spent one night before going on a boat trip in Halong Bay.
Hanoi Hanoi is a wonderful city. Admittedly, we spent all our time in the Old Quarter, and thus cannot really tell how the rest of the city is, however, the Old Quarter
is in many ways Hanoi! We spent time walking around enjoying the mix of French and Asian culture. Most men wear berets or sixpences;
Anne-Line
Viet Cong pose. add a cigarette to the corner of their mouths, worn-out leather jackets, and longing looks after the elegant ladies passing by, and you are transformed to Paris in the 1930s! The atmosphere is simply superb - you could walk for hours just absorbing. We did that, but we also sat down and ejoyed quality Vietnamese highland coffee at some of the many coffee shops, some of which had views onto parks or lakes, adding to the beauty.
Some of the main attractions in Hanoi are the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and museum. Unfortunately, they were both closed at the time of our visit. We went on a Friday and surprisingly found that they are both normally closed every Friday and Monday! Thus, we missed out going inside both of these. On the other hand, skeptical tongues claim that it is not really Ho Chi Minh anymore who is put on display, but rather a wax figure made by Madame Tussaud's, so maybe there was not much to miss out on! Of other attractions worth seeing we went to the One Pillar Pagoda, which was so small that we nearly missed it! The pagoda is placed on a single stone
Robin
Viet Cong pose. pillar measuring 1.25 metres in diameter. We also went to the Air Force Museum, which, to no surprise, also was closed!
Nightlife In terms of night life, Hanoi is pretty civilised, as the police enforce a curfew after midnight and 1 am during weekdays and the weekend, respectively. On our night out, we first went to a beer joint serving
bia hoi, a draft beer said to have been introduced by the Czechs. Bia hoi is extremely cheap, around 0.5 USD per glass (and apparently even cheaper in some places), and thus very popular with the locals. Anne-Line did have her objections at first to sit down at the place; it looked a bit shabby with its plastic seats inside a tent (!) and its local clientel, however, Remi and myself, being suckers to cheap beer and a taste of the local culture, could not resist forcing Anne-Line to join us. We sat down and had an incredibly cheap meal that involved chicken soup (Anne-Line), eel, scorpions, crabs, crickets, and last but not least, beef testicles filled with chicken (Robin and Remi)! We finished everything... After a few more beers, we decided to join a group of security guards
who clearly was off duty early. They drank vodka which cost around 4 USD per bottle! Feeling rich, we could not help buying a bottle and sharing it with them, a gesture they appreciated so much that it nearly embarrassed us.
Later on we ended up in one of the many pubs and bars located in the Bao Khan street. Unfortunately, it was all very dead, even on a Friday night, so we decided to move on. Outside, and this could only happen in Asia, two very friendly and very gay bouncers started complimenting us, well, Remi in particular, and were very keen to give us advice. We jumped on a couple of scooters and drivers who took us to the recommended place, again an empty place. We played a game of pool with one of the bouncers who surely must have been over 60 years old! I suppose he did not need to be fast and strong with the (lack of) clientel there! We decided to leave, when we met a girl outside who we had already met at the first place. Clearly, she had followed us. She told us she knew a good place and we decided
to join her. After all, you only live once, and I have unlimited trust in the power of Remi's bicepses, so we went with her, declining all alarm bells. The club she took us to was located on a boat on the river that divides Hanoi. It was a very theatrical location, all deserted and with thick and moisty fog floating a metre above the water. There was something of the Thames a dark London night and Jack the Ripper lurking around in the air. Of course, my gut feeling is rarely wrong, and neither was it this time. The girl was trustworthy and all four of us had a lot of fun - there were no bad men coming to beat us up and rob us!
Liquor restaurant There are many things to do in Hanoi, but a particular mention goes to what I cannot better term than a liquor restaurant. Although serving incredibly tasty food (we had the best spring rolls I have ever tasted), they also sell their own liquor. The menu listed probably more than 50 different kinds (ranging from easy-drinking clear spirit through whisky-like spirit to the very bitter kind which Norwegians (and Danes
of course) know as Gammel Dansk (Old Danish)! And some of these contained snakes, fish, scorpions, and the like. We naturally had to try quite a few of these, all the same being entertained by the brilliant barkeeper, Mr. Dung Van Nguyen! A fun and culinary experience that we highly recommend! Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of the place, but I will update this blog when I found out.
What happened next We went on a boat trip around Halong Bay, which was great. I will write about in the next journal entry.
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