Ha Noi Vietnam

This is a post with no pictures because we are in a hotel with a computer in the room but we don't want to download our pictures onto this computer because we don't want a virus.
We took an overnight sleeper bus from Hoi An to Hanoi yesterday. It was a bus ride from hell. The sleeper buses are supposed to be straight through to your destination with maybe one stop.This one was like a milk run and made many stops. The driver smoked so he not only had the air con on full blast, he had the window open too. It was so cold we couldn't sleep. The last sleeper bus we took was really warm so we didn't take any extra clothing except a fleece each. We got on the bus in hot weather wearing shorts and tshirts and when we got off in Ha Noi it was about 9 degrees! Oh, yeah the driver also talked very loudly to his assistant as he drove like a maniac. Bus and truck traffic at night is very heavy and they pass multiple things at a time with no passing lanes and sometimes roads with hairpin bends..... another experience!

Luckily we bought wind breakers before we got here but I'm still cold and will have to buy leggings or something to wear under my pants before we go further north. We are going to the far north of Vietnam tomorrow to a place called Sapa. The weather forecast for Sapa this week is sleet and as low as 4 degrees because of a cold front coming down from China, but by next week daytime temperatures will be about 20-28 degrees.

Because of Tet or Vietnamese New Years hardly anything in Ha Noi is open and everything including food and hotels is more expensive. Last night we went out for supper and had a wild and crazy experience. There were hardly any inside restaurants open so we ate at a restaurant set up on the sidewalk.We found the busiest one, we do this because they turn over the food and its fresher but in this case it was maybe too busy because once they get you committed they more or less ignore you unless you get right in their faces and demand what ever it is you need. I think being a westerner may factor into this. I kept thinking of all the times I worked at Newman's when it got really busy and how you had to pick what you could and couldn't do for customers and hope for the best.

We managed to get the only empty table and squeeze in between everyone else. We were at a low plastic table and Philip sat on a low plastic stool and I got a kid's size chair with a back. Here's the picture, we were totering on the curb with manic motorcycle traffic competing with pedestrians on the narrow street. The street beside us was littered with garbage and food and chopsticks and loaves of french bread that the waiters had dropped and the level of noise was off the map.

We indicated that we wanted the same food as the table beside us and hoped for the best. Everyone had small burners on their tables and were cooking their own food. We were given a burner, two loaves of french bread and a platter of marinated meat and veggies to cook along with cooking oil and a bowl of pepper, chilis, sugar and limes to make our own dipping sauce. This was all jammed onto a 2 by 2.5 foot table. We thought you made the sauce and dipped before cooking but a woman who was eating beside us tried to show us what to do and we were meant to use it to dip after cooking. I also noticed that some people had another soysauce type dipping sauce so I asked for that. It's very awkward because you are pointing to other peoples food to show what you want.

We started cooking and it was really delicious but about every five minutes they would come and yell at us to get up and move while a door behind us opened and a motorcycle came through the tables. This went on throughout the whole meal. Then our burner ran out of fuel and we had to run back and forth several times to get someone to bring more fuel. As we were nearing the end of cooking I got up to remind the waitress we still wanted the beer. As soon as the beer was opened a woman came up to me and yelled that I should move off my chair to another place. I put my foot down and refused and gestured that we were still eating. I thought that because we were nearly through they were trying to free up the table but what was really happening was that I was using a chair from the restaurant that was next door which was indistinguishable from the one we were sitting in and that owner had a customer who needed a chair and she was very angry with me for using her chair. When I realized this I changed for a stool..... the food was really good but it was exhausting to eat there! It was like eating a meal with a toddler when you are constantly getting up to wipe spills or get things or take potty breaks all the while talking on the phone and planning your husband's birthday party!

When we got back to our hotel three of the male staff were having the last party of Tet and invited us to join. I had a beer, some freshly roasted peanuts and some cucumber sticks with salt for dipping. There was a toast every minute or so! I decided to go to the room because in Vietnam the women don't really drink and I thought it would be better if I left Philip with the men. They were really nice and two could speak English fairly well. Philip stayed for a few more hours and bought them some more beer and they produced some platters of cooked food and a good time was had by all.

The very best thing about the hotel we are staying in is the staff. Very, very nice. We have two beds ( a double and a single), satelite tv, a good bathroom, a platter of fresh fruit, breakfast included, a heater, good warm bedding and it's really clean. The downdside is that you have to run the water for ten minutes, I repeat ten minutes for it to get hot and we're only on the second floor. The breakfast is an attempt to make Vietnamese and western food and as a result it does neither well. We were in a hotel that had breakfast included in the Mekong Delta. It was coffee or tea with sweetened condensed milk and french bread with butter and jam, or french bread with cheese or a hot dog. A young man we were sitting with ordered the hotdog and he got a loaf of french bread with a cold weiner in the plastic wrap and that was it! We always ask for two beds because the rooms with more beds are much bigger. We had one room that had two double beds and one twin bed and it was the same price as a double bed room. It's really common that people bunk up in rooms together to make it cheaper and that's why there are rooms with so many beds.

Tomorrow we are heading out and the options for travel are a sleeper bus going through mountains and fog or a daytime train with wooden seats for 12 hours or a public bus with all kinds of craziness happening on it. Debating which one to do.....

Well I'm going to take a deep breath and venture out in the steets again.........