Day 12 - Hue | Main | Day 14 - Ha Noi
We packed up and left the grandure of La Residence, and our driver hurtled through the Hue traffic to the airport to catch the daily flight to Ha Noi. The Hue airport is probably the same size as Avalon or Coolongatta (not big) and the process of ticketing was unbelievably slow, however we were not in a hurry and the lounge was hardly a place to truly relax. it featured 200 plastic chairs facing forward with a big LCD screen TV in the middle (turned off) and a small flickering colour TV which was some horrible vietnamese talk show shouting out at the room. We had a good flight and were met by our driver and taken to our new hotel the Ha Noi Elegance Hotel - where they had done a lovely job of welcoming us in. This hotel is right in the middle of the old quarter and our room has a small balcony that over looks the road chaos, amazingly its not too noisy, the traffic starts around 6am but maybe we are just used to the constant horns now?
Ladder Man
Fresh Chicken - killed & chopped up while you wait
We went down to the Hanoi Press Club for lunch and wandered around the lake looking for the mythical 200 year old tortoise said to reside there then we partook in the local custom of Hoi Bia, which is fresh beer served on the foot path in basic plastic chairs so close to the curb that the you can reach out and touch the traffic. The Beer is fresh daily with no preservative and so it is really cheap and the locals and tourists sit together seeing out the early evening, watching the various food stalls set up for an evening dining session. It is quite amazing to see how these mini restaurants that feature little more than a small fire some plastic stools and a tray of basic ingredients set up for the morning, lunch time and evening trade, each has a slightly different dish that they feature, few offer lots of choice - but they are very popular.
we had dinner at the 69 Cafe which is just around the corner from our hotel, the food was excellent, the service however was terrible and incredibly slow, it took an hour for our meal to come and we had to ask for the bill 3 times!
roses for sale in the market are often individually wrapped in newspaper
Posted by crispin at January 2, 2008 07:59 PM