MY MEMIOR OF HANOI

My annual overseas trip with Jo turned out to be more memorable than I had earlier anticipated.

Though the days to the actual trip went without any pre excitments attacks for me, the actual trip was indeed far more exciting. An real eye opener for how 'alive' these people are and how the country is changing at breakneck speed. 

This is a country I won't mind coming back to visit  again in the near future.

STREETS OF HANOI

If there’s anywhere that lives life on the street, it’s Hanoi.

People around the city seem to just inch everything closer and closer to the side of the street.  Through business, food, and social life. Overall Vietnam  presents a much more acute definition of what it means to live on the street.

Truck drivers mumble with anger because of the congestion. Motor-bicyclers rush in the streets from every direction, making you feel like thousands of arrows are aiming at you, flying from their bows .I was told to just walk slowly and not wait for them to pass . It was their 'job' to avoid pedestrian.

I don't  know if it's compulsary to wear helmets but  almost everyone  have one . Not the big and heavy motorbike helmets but the kind of helmets that professional bicyclers usually wear.
Pillon riders were not restricted to one so even five people riding  one motor bike was a normal sight.
Riders lined in four or five rows..... every attempt they make to chat with each other fails completely as their merry voices fade under the roar of the vehicles in the street.


I saw women balancing shoulder poles skilfully like the artists working in the circus .

Everywhere people are buying, selling, hawking goods and offering services.

Six million people live in this former colonial metropolis; add hundreds of thousands more who jammed Hanoi as tourists. But no, it does not make Hanoi sound chaotic--a little exotic, perhaps, but very inviting, as well.

Many new buildings have been taking the place of some old blocks of houses built twenty years ago, yet many features of Hanoi remain true and modest. Still very 'Vietnamese'

Looking at it from a foreigner's eye....sidewalk vendors, people squating on  plastic stools a foot or so from the busy traffic, savoring the food , drinking green tea while exchanging gossips and watching the crush of 'lives' that goes by is their way of living here.

Throughout the day, these people seems to be enjoying their lives by doing just that.

Notable food-
The French influence is still found throughout Hanoi in a variety of places and theme but none so ovious than the ladies selling baguettes and pâté . It may not live up to the expectations of the bread loving French but you don’t have to pay much for a taste of home.
Everyone loves them and  vendors selling them were not only restricted to the sidewalk but also to the busy highways heading outwards of the city.
The only turn offs as I see it would be the way they were displayed in the open. The dust and dirt of the polluted city air...but then again nobody seems to mind .
We had ours at the hotel....but  'sigh'...who knows where they were bought from.



The one dish that defines the culinary culture of this remarkable city, I was told that it would have to be the flat noodle soup phở. This simple dish of noodles and either beef or chicken is forever popular with locals and foreigners alike and can be found throughout the city.

I tasted mine at the famed (??? I was told but really, I haven't heard of it) outlet named 24.

A small price of around 30,000 VND per small bowl .

Personally, they don't really taste any different from any other beef kue tiaw soup that we have here. Probably just the way they served it..i.e. with an additional plate of  fresh 'ulam' you can choose from to add into the soup.

Vietnam is one of the world’s top coffee exporters, and it’s known for the bitter, super-strong coffee, lightened with condensed milk.

Very aromatic but really really thick,bitter and sweet taste.

 A cup would actually mean half a cup when it is served to you.   I for one don't have a liking for strong coffee ( Im more into nescafe). I will always end up adding water to fill the cup before being able to drink it.

You may also see ads for ca phe chon, the coffee famously brewed from beans that have been digested — in one end, then out the other — by weasel-like animals known as civets. Real civet coffee is extremely expensive. Ones that we tried cost only around 15000 - 20000VND per cup.