Day 11 - Ha Noi

Wandered the streets of Ha Noi looking at the markets which were interesting but not really different to any other market we have seen but for the fact I spotted and took a photo of toads for sale at one of the meat vendors. The lady who was selling them was none too happy with me doing so.

We decided to try our luck and grab a cyclo to the KOTO restaurant for lunch. Cyclos have a terrible reputation for being ripoffs and hitting you up for extra after you get to your destination. After some spirited bargaining Dawn and I grabbed one each. One of the added attractions of the cyclo driver is that they try to make you guilty about making them push your ENORMOUS bulk in all of this heat and so will puff and sigh about the injustice of it all.

Koto was great with roll your own rice paper for 50,000VND and bread and butter pudding (that I managed to stab myself in the mouth with the caramelised top) for 30,000VND and a can of Halida bear for 10,000VND.





We walked across the road to the temple of Literature and I was quite enchanted by the history of the place as well as the Vietnamese musicians playing in one of the buildings. On leaving we were ushered to one side by shouting officials as a party of important people were being escorted in. Wonder who they were. Dawn and I shared a cyclo on the way back after walking away from the driver who was trying to milk us for all we were worth. Much puffing and sighing on the return trip!

Our plan for the night was to go to the 30 or so seafood restaurants that were by the lake to the north of the city. We grabbed a cab (that came in considerably cheaper than the cyclo) to where the Lonely Planet said these were. The Lonely Planet also said it was a popular spot for the locals. I think the Lonely Planet is a load of shit! Not only couldn't we find it but we walked for probably 5klms looking for it. We managed to walk past the IBM office though (or warehouse or construction plant, it was hard to tell as it was dark). Eventually we grabbed a cab and pointed out on the map where we wanted to go. The cab driver took us in an enormous loop and we ended up back at the very spot the first driver took us...when we started to splutter he handed Dawn the two way radio and handpiece (he didn't speak English) and gestured that she was to ask the radio operator where the place was. It was all quite funny if we weren't hungry and tired after the long walk. In the end we told him to take us back to our hotel and we would find something close by.

I said I wanted to try the Thai place near the disastrous Cha Ga fish place. Dawn looked dubious and doubly so when the service was terrible and we had to ask for things like the hand towels. We ordered fish cakes, seafood fried rice, pad thai and morning glory in garlic. The food was FABULOUS. Dawn's eyes appeared to be rolling back in her head with delight at the pad thai and it more than made up for the disaster that was the trip to the fish market restaurants!