And the prize for the fastest eater of soup most certainly does not go to me.

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Salut! Barnyard here for your blogging pleasure 😊

So, I left my last post at the Rex Hotel, with us having just changed rooms twice in a daring endeavour to actually get a room akin to what we had paid for it.

Mike got the hotel to reserve us a table at Ngon, and I dubiously followed his directions to it. He assured me that he knew the way since the hotel man had showed him. But I was suspicious because he was leading us in TOTALLY the wrong direction, if our guidebook map was to be believed. My fears weren't exactly alleviated when we managed to walk right past it, despite it being a heaving restaurant, spilling out into the street. We didn't walk too far past it though before checking with the maitre d' if they had our booking, which they did. We sat on a table practically on the curb. The restaurant was quite strange; there appears to be a bank operating next to our table. Very strange. We both had Saigon beers, which were MUCH nicer than the hideous Angkor beers we'd sampled in Cambodia (HIDEOUS!).

I decided to be brave, and ordered a beef pho (a beef noodle soup). Apparently the Vietnamese have this for breakfast, but it was on the dinner menu so I stand by my perhaps slightly unusual choice. Mike had vegetable noodles, which he inevitably finished ages before me, since, as any of you who have kept me company whilst I've eaten soup (most notably Catherine Williams, who came with me to Wagamama to watch me eat a Saien Soba - I took an hour), I do so at a pace that could in no way be described as fast, or even as leisurely. A snail could eat soup faster than me, and Mike was soon regretting his decision not to dissuade me from ordering one.

We did have a nice meal though, but this was slightly blighted when, about halfway through, an ENORMOUS black rat ran from near my seat by the undergrowth to under the banking table, and thence into the kitchen. That was not encouraging, gastronomy-wise. But Mike completely failed to notice, and I'm sure that the rat was quite happy in the kitchen, as long as it didn't get thrown into any of the beef noodle soup. My soup didn't taste ratty though...

Mike and I then went to Sax 'n Art, a jazz club. It was fun in there; the saxophones were blaring, and there was a very good singer after them, who was clearly enthused about his set. The only drawback was our position under the stairs, although this wasn't so much of an issue once I swapped seats with Mike. I had a very very sweet drink that had pineapple juice and grenadine, and I think rum. Mike, as usual, had a drink that I found to be absolutely repugnant, but he seemed to like it. Then I came over all Utopian; I looked around and saw a properly multi-cultural and eclectic mix of people: Vietnamese, Chinese, French, an African-American singer (this being a blog, I'm trying to be PC, but this is at least an accurate description since the man was unquestionably American and was deliberately evoking a sort of slave-trade-y, soul vibe/a bit of Mo-town), and, of course, us. And we were all sharing the same experience and I thought to myself, "Isn't this nice?!". Only then the Frogs had to go and ruin it by taking pictures of themselves making out. Oh well. C'est la vie!

Depuis, we went to an ice cream parlour, because the guidebook raved about it. But I didn't want any ice cream, so I just watched Mike eat his Longan ice cream (no idea what this is, but I tried a bit and it tasted of prunes - bleugh! - so if Mike is particularly regular for the next few days, we'll know why! :P ), but this didn't even vaguely make up for him having to watch me with my soup (I actually was slowing down the more I ate, because it was becoming increasingly difficult to actually get any soup onto my spoon as the soup level declined).

Then we did the short walk back to the hotel, and Mike played on my DS, but I was very tired despite my earlier nap, so I went to bed with my eye mask on so that Mike could keep the lights switched on. It was later in the night that I noticed that he had fallen asleep in his clothes AGAIN, this time in his new, white (and by now probably incredibly creased) Hollister t-shirt. Honestly!

The hills are alive with the sound of PANTS, people
xxx

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Comments

[traveltovietnam1]

Nice Travel
Vietnam is very interesting place to all foreigners , We have Hanoi , Sai Gon , Halong bay , Muine , Nha Trang , ..... You should add Vietnam in your Travel List at www.vietnamtravelroad.com