19/05/2023 From Hue to Hanoi
Extra income
After a very good sleep for me and a very bad sleep for Blake in the sleeper train, we arrived in Hanoi. Before we started the ride, the conductor had asked us if we wanted our four-people-cabin for ourselves for an extra 200 000 dong (around 8€). Since we wanted a good night sleep, we paid her the extra money. We were 99% sure that she kept the money herself. The Vietnamese way…
What to expect
Hanoi
It’s getting hot in here
In Hanoi we were welcomed with another heat wave of over 40 degrees – welcome to Vietnam’s capital! Luckily, our hotel “Lavender Central Hotel & Spa Hanoi” was located right in the old town.
Have an egg coffee
Even though we have tried egg coffee before in Saigon, egg coffee is originally from the north.
This is why we went to the “Loading T Cafe” to try it. The uniqueness in this café is that they only start beating the egg yolk once the coffee has been ordered to keep it as fresh as possible. With the richness and high amount of sugar it’s a type of coffee we probably shouldn’t have everyday. It tasted a little bit like liquid crème brûlée – we loved it!
Do a food tour
In the evening we joined a tip-based food tour. Vietnam has a sharing culture where you order many dishes, put them in the middle of the table and everyone picks away with their own chopsticks. It reminded me a lot of tapas in Spain – minus the chopsticks and the Asian dishes of course.
The food tour was really interesting and tasty! We ended up eating seven different dishes, which included:
- noodle dish and spring rolls
- papaya salad
- mini donuts
- sugarcane juice
- beer
- pho
- mango sticky rice with coconut ice cream (my absolute favourite!)
All options were served as a vegetarian option for me as well.
It was all street food, which in Vietnam means sitting on mini plastic chairs on the pedestrian path. Apparently, these mini chairs are used to move them very quickly in case the police shows up as it is illegal to have a food business on the street in a public space (instead of inside a restaurant).
Needless to say, we both really liked the food tour a lot.
Have a beer “Bia Hoi” on Ta Hien Street
We both felt pretty full – but not full enough for one last stop of the night: Ta Hien Street aka Beer Street. Blake and I had both experienced this street when we were here in 2015 separately. We remembered it as an entertaining street where you could enjoy a beer for 20 cents from a beer keg while sitting on mini plastic chairs with other backpackers and locals.
This time, however, the street was full of people! We were shoved through the tight spaces while every waiter was grabbing us in order to get us sit in their bar. To Blake’s disappointment, the beer kegs had been replaced with beer bottles. The scene was horrible!
It reminded us a lot of Buy Vien Walking Street in Saigon, which felt just as crowded and loud. We sat down for one beer (mainly to people watch) and then quickly escaped back into our calm hotel room.
20/05/2023 Hanoi
Do a free walking tour
As in every bigger city, we did a free walking tour in Hanoi – in 43°C! Standing in the shade alone made us sweat, so walking in the heat felt quite challenging.
At least the tour ended in an air conditioned café where we tried salt coffee and egg coffee again with the other travellers from the tour.
Watch the train pass on Train Street
After planning out our next and final ten days in Vietnam, we took a “grab” (uber in Vietnam) to meet a Costa Rican girl from the walking tour earlier. Together with her, we sat in one of the cafés right by the railways to watch the train go by closely.
Let’s face it: it is a touristy thing and besides us there were only other travellers who took just as many pictures as we did. Our waitress even placed a fan for us right on the railways and only put it away again minutes before the train arrived.
It was a cool experience seeing the train go by so closely. But I definitely moved a bit closer to the wall of the café and away from the railways once it drove by.
See the world’s longest water puppet show
And then the three of us watched something a little disturbing: a water puppet show in Vietnamese. It was fascinating listening to all the different – to us foreign – instruments. At the same time we listened to some Vietnamese songs and viewed a puppet show that told a story. Sadly, we could only guess what it was trying to tell us. It felt very mesmerizing. And while we were watching these small Vietnamese puppets splashing water at each other, all I could think of was: how amazing does air conditioning feel (just like in the theater in Hoi An)!
Time for food
Afterwards Blake and I had dinner at MET. Here we had a very tasty banana flower salad, fresh and fried spring rolls and a pho.
Banana flower salad 
spring rolls and summer rolls
Back to our dessert place
Of course we had to go back to our new favourite dessert place before starting a new adventure tomorrow. We sat on the small yellow plastic chairs in one of the many busy side streets and enjoyed sticky rice with coconut ice cream one last time.
A new (tourist) hat for Blake
For some reason Blake wanted to buy a new hat for the upcoming adventures in nature to look “fully Vietnamese”. However, in the past three weeks in Vietnam I don’t recall having seen any Vietnamese person wearing a big green tacky hat with a Vietnamese flag on it. Little did I know that Blake was going to wear his new favourite hat for the next ten days in Vietnam. So we will have a lot of “great” photos to look back on…
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Unbelievable pictures and your adventure continues.The pictures of the food and your descriptions made Diane and I wish we were there trying out all the delicious entries. They looked amazing. The scenery is a bit different from one country to the next but still amazing , the sunsets and the mornings seem so picturesque. Your photo album will be so memorable once you have completed this trip. We look forward to seeing all the pictures again and hearing the stories you have experienced. Till your next blog, Stay Safe, Enjoy the rest of your holidays and keep those pictures coming. Love you lots. Garry and Diane👍❤️😊