It’s CRAZY here in Hanoi. The streets are full of beeping motorbikes, cars, buses, cyclos, people, shops, stalls, hotels. Hot, humid and sunny. The streets of Hanoi are lined with old trees full of green foliage. As you look up, the power lines are tied together. I cant imagine how many people die from electrocution. This city doesn’t seem to get going until mid-morning after late nights of selling and trading.
Our hotel, the Asian Legend Hotel is fantastic. We had one room for all of us but the manager gave us another for free! We have a balcony and most importantly AIR CONDITIONING!
The people are just lovely, and many can speak a small bit of English which makes life easier. They all love the girls – cuddles and photos and much luck having 4 girls to Steve. When we got here we dumped all our bags in our rooms and got out not the streets to find something to eat. We were not disappointed. Each little shop specialises in one dish. So we happened to sit at the place that specialises in Bun Cha – BBQ pork with rice vermicelli noodles with mint leaves, bean shoots, lettuce and spices of red chilli or garlic in a broth. As soon as you sit down the bowls of broth come out. There is no making decisions as this is what they do!
All up 4 x Bun Cha, 6 x spring rolls, 4 x cokes and 1 beer = $12 (240,000 Dong). It was so yummy the girls want to go back there again. We also want to try Pho Bo which is beef noodle soup.
We also went to see the water puppet show near the Hoan Kiem lake in the old quarter. Tickets cost 100,000 Dong each ($5) and we got into the second row of a large theatre and watched the 1 hour puppet show in Vietnamese. The kids were faring better than me with lack of sleep from our early rise of 3.15am in KL so we grabbed a baguette each from a street food stall with slices of pork ($1 each) and ate them on the way back to our hotel.
This morning everyone slept in and we are ready for the crazy streets of Hanoi. Wait till you see how we cross the roads here! Beware to the girls’ grandparents – this is just how it’s done here in Hanoi and the girls are quite good at going with the flow of the traffic.
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