Tails of the Unexpected

After a short flight we landed in Hanoi, quickly went through immigration and were picked up in our free taxi from the hotel. We then drove into Hanoi via the hair raising highway and the ’Jesus’ handles were constantly used as not one single car, truck, motorcycle or bike drove in one lane but toddled along in between the lanes with our taxi driving about 2 foot at high speed from the vehicle in front frantically tooting his horn and flashing his lights. We were surprised when we arrived safe and sound in our hotel Thuy Lam and we managed to get a huge room with satellite TV and two huge beds.

We headed out towards the lake to see whether Hanoi had changed much since our last visit (almost 3 years ago) and what struck us was how much louder Hanoi was since then. The main culprits being the many motorbikes tooting their horns whereas previously the main mode of transport was the bike. We had a quick walk and bite to eat before turning in for the night.

We woke up after 9 in the morning and thought we’d missed our free breakfast, but when we went down to reception they took us through into the dining area and gave us two huge baguettes with cheese and a tea and coffee. The other plus point about this hotel was we were also allowed free internet access and all for a little over 5 quid a night!! We couldn’t believe our luck.

We then went into the ‘Women’s Museum’ which owed it‘s many displays to the Vietnam’s Women‘s Union. The exhibits gave information on the heroines throughout the numerous years that Vietnam was at war with the French and USA, how women worked in the fields, different traditional dresses of the hill tribes and also various exhibits on the Women’s Union. One display had a list of reasons why a man could divorce his wife two of them being if she didn’t produce a son as the first born and she didn’t keep a clean home, thankfully things have now changed a bit. One of the best things I saw was a picture of a tiny Vietnamese woman pushing a gun against a huge American GI Prisoner of War twice her size.

We strolled around and stumbled on a small market and everything was going fine until we spotted the local delicacy - spit roasted DOG!! Honestly there were whole and chopped cooked dogs sitting on the counter. What we also noticed was how clone like the dogs all looked, breeding dogs for eating, whatever next!! Once our stomachs had stopped churning we went towards St Joseph’s Cathedral which was an ugly concrete building and here we found ‘La Place’ café for lunch. We had some spring rolls washed down with lashings of beef Pho (a noodle based soup eaten any time, any place, anywhere by the Vietnamese). This place also had paper table cloths with crayons provided for us big kiddies to sit and draw for a bit….Picasso eat your heart out!! At night we went to bar street where we chilled out over a few Hanoi and Tiger beers.


The following day we decided that since we had been so lazy of late that we would walk the 10km from the centre of Hanoi to the Museum of Ethnology. We had another grey, cool day and weren’t in any hurry so we wandered in and out of shops on the way. There were a couple of great exhibitions describing the Tet festival (Vietnamese New Year - Usually Late January, Early February) and showing video clips of families preparing for this. The other exhibition we liked was 100 years of Vietnamese Weddings, in Vietnam the groom is chosen by the bride’s family and provided both families agree to the wedding then they will be married. The stories told of how apprehensive many of the girls were about leaving their own home and living with not only the groom but his family as well. Numerous pictures showed how nervous both the bride and groom were. There was also a huge exhibition on every single hill tribe in Vietnam down to one which has less than 1000 people and explained how they lived, farmed, what dress they wore, which religion they practised and how they were married and buried. Within the grounds were also exhibits of traditional tribal buildings and contents and we even saw a couple having their wedding pictures taken there.

We took our time getting back and by this point both of us were ravenous. It was well after the ‘lunch hour’ so we ended up spying a few spring rolls and thought that these would see us through to our dinner. The lady owner told us to sit down at the table and this was the first laugh. The stools were small enough for a three year old and I managed to get down fairly quickly but Chris being that bit taller struggled to get down. He also had to stretch his legs across the small room avoiding the numerous motor bikes parked inside the house to get comfy. We were then given a bowl of soup, some noodles and veg which was to go along with it. Now all we wanted were our spring rolls but it seemed rude not to try some of the soup so we started to add the noodles and veg into the bowl. Two seconds later and the woman was back frantically waving some cooked meat nuggets at us from her chopsticks. “Dog” she smiles wickedly at us and then plonks it down into my bowl just as I scream “No!!!” at her and then puts another into Chris’s bowl. Well my stomach must have churned but the woman stood over us menacingly and I felt that I had to at least give it a try. To be honest I took one bite and couldn’t tell you what it tasted like. I then asked Chris what he thought “Mmmm” says he and the lady gave him a knowing smile putting the remainder of the pieces on the table for him to munch away at. She then put down the spring rolls and I had a couple but since there was unidentified meat in it I was starting to feel a little ruff and left Chris to lick the bowls clean.


We went back to the Spotted Cow a bar we’d been in the last time and met a guy called ‘Mac’ who showed us how to play “Mickey Mouse Darts”. We had had such a laugh that night and reminded of us both going home rather worse for wear in two cyclos with each of the drivers frantically taking over each other so that we could get some pictures. This time there wasn’t much of an atmosphere with several old expats supping their pints and one English guy whooping at the top of his voice when the TV was turned over to Miss World in their bikini’s with his wife right by his side. So we ate our burgers had a couple of drinks before heading to La Place for a night toddy.

On Sunday our weather was much the same so we went into a really good shop which sold lots of Propaganda posters and mugs before heading to La Place for our customary bowl of Pho (minus the dog this time!!). At night we went back to the Hoan Kiem Lake for some night time pictures.


We were leaving on Monday evening and decided to post some things home and like all the other countries in Asia we had about 40 forms to fill in with a customs check before we were able to send it. We wandered in and out of the shops and stalls to kill some time before having our final meal in bar street. We then headed to the train station for what we thought was to be a hard sleeper. Turns out the hotel had cheekily charged us for a soft sleeper which was much better and even included food. We shared our cabin with two young Oz guys who fell asleep at 8pm. So around 9ish we turned out the lights and tried to get some sleep.

We were woken at 6.30am with plastic containers of noodles being thrown at us and about 10 minutes later the two boys left as we were now in Hue. The weather was becoming more miserable the further south we went rather than better with the wind and rain bouncing off our window. Neither of us had slept very well and were dozing when the door opened and we were given two containers with rice and odd assortments of salty meat and veg. We ate a little of these and then about 10 minutes later we were told we were arriving at our destination Danang, 2 hours earlier than we expected. This was a first for Asia and quickly jumped off and into a taxi for our 20 minute journey to Hoi An.