Hanoi: The capital of dragon country.

Making our way to Hanoi was fraught with challenges. Number one, we are traveling just before Tet, so while the train would have been a beautiful experience, there were no trains tickets left. According to our doctor friend here, one will need to book at least one month ahead of time before Tet... But we were able to book airline tickets from Vietnam Airlines' website for relatively cheap (about $60-70 each way). And the airline allows 20 kilo for check in for free, so no need to worry too much about luggage! 

Upon arrival, I made a mistake. There are these airport transfer shuttles, which are located to the right further up from the taxis that costs 40,000 VND to go to the old quarter. Should've taken those instead of paying 300,000 VND for a taxi that didn't even drop us off at our hotel. The initial asking price was 350,000 and some guy wouldn't even take my offer for 300,000, but given that there is a cheaper alternative, there's really no reason to take an overpriced taxi. 

Just an aside on the airport transfer, these are provided by Vietnam Airline and will take the passengers to the south end of the Old Quarter. The Old Quarter is mostly walkable and there are tons of motorbikes and little bike carts offering rides once there. You don't need to book the shuttle and just pay once you get on. The only problem is that there is no space for luggage, so it would be difficult to fit large luggages in to as these tend to get packed to the brim. 

The traffic in the Old Quarter is waay crazier than Da Nang. The motorbikes are head to head with the cars and the streets are narrow. Traffic lights are only at some intersections and most motorbikes don't obey them. 

In some ways, Hanoi reminds me of an older version of Beijing, but Beijing banned motorbikes about 20 years ago, probably due to concern of safety and noise. So the craziness is partially due to motorbikes. Apparently traffic is significantly better as a lot of people have left for Tet, but being a major tourist scene, the Old Quater's businesses are going strong. 

The Old Quarter is full of these skinny houses as in Da Nang as well, though the ones here are more similar to French style with the decorative side rails. This is our hotel, the Holiday Gold Hotel, which like many is squeezed in one skinny anterior. 

The inside is fairly old with winding staircase (no elevator). The service as usual, is fairly good and friendly, though we only took advantage of the free map, which was what I depended to navigate as the streets are at all sorts of angle to each other and quite confusing!

The hotel provided free breakfast, which was meh in my opinion. They had toast with eggs, Vietnamese noodles, or creeps. This is the apple crepe with lemon sugar and honey. The coffee provided is American style, which at this point is quite tasteless to me. 

So Hanoi is known for the Pho Ga (chicken pho), which is lighter compared to Pho Bo. There are lots of little shops in the streets, but out of concern of having diarrhea on board a ship and sharing rooms, we opted to a slightly cleaner looking restaurant. 

This place offered chicken pho and a chashu dry pho, which we did not get to try. 

This was their cooking area with the chicken and other meats.

The pho is a bit pricier in comparison with Da Nang at 40,000, though considerably cheaper than the tourist shops, which all runs about 50,000-60,000. 

I must admit, this was quite delicious, but was definitely on the lighter side. But after adding the garlic sauce (in the background here), the pho was super yummy! Definitely one can taste the hours that the chicken has been stewing and the lightness of the pho noodles themselves. The garlic sauce added a hint of sourness to kick up the taste which was much appreciated. 

This is Nuoc Mia, sugar cane juice. Unlike most juices here which is mixed with water, this was straight up sugar cane pushed through a Pressor to squeeze out the goodness. It is not incredibly sweet like I imagined and instead is very refreshing with the taste of the sugar cane plant itself. 

There is also a stand selling sticky rice balls, but as if you can see the sign in the background, this shop is located at 77 Hang Dieu and opens from 9a to 7p as evident by the fact that we could not get any before leaving for Halong Bay. 

I actually have no idea what this is called. It is spring rolls wrapped in rice paper and deep fried. It's usually eaten with bun and Nuoc mam sauce, which I would recommend over eating it along as it can get very greasy. We walked by several little street stands selling this around noon, but could not find any stands after 7p. But, the tourist restaurants still sold it, which was where we ended up eating it. This plate costs $50,000. 

Now this! Best find in Hanoi! (Second is the sugar cane drink). This is Banh goi, which translates to pillow cake apparently. At 9000 per one, it is not bad. We found this by chance when walking by this place with tiny stools and lots of Vietnamese people. We initially made the mistake to take away, but you should sit down as it is very hard to dip in the delicious sauce when it's in a little bag! 

This is Nem Cua Be, which translates to crab cake apparently. It is pretty good but I cannot identify what part does it tastes like crab... 

This is the shop and they specializes in deep fried goods. The fried sweet doughnut looked similar to some of the other stuff we ate, and the salty doughnut was basically a Vietnamese meatball in dough... 

But this shop is probably the busiest shop that I saw in my little time there. There were hardly enough chairs, they have 6 family members working and there were people on motorbikes waiting to get their portion to go too!

This was just some fried doughnut that some lady forcefully put in a bag and shoved in or hands. It tasted very similar to the ones I have had in Da Nang and Hoi An, but the little ones had caramel and sesame covering instead...

Hanoi Beer tasted different from Bia Saigon and beer Larue in that it is stronger and bolder in flavor, and not as flat as Bia Saigon. 

The only smoothie I had in Hanoi. It was pricey at 40,000! The avacado smoothie tastes significantly different from the ones back home, but I suspect that is because most Vietnamese people in America are from the south where they like their foods much sweeter...

Okay, enough on food. Some of the other craziness in Hanoi was mostly on the Tet preparation. There were three popular items that I keep seeing over and over again on the back of motorbikes being transported: roosters, peach blossom trees and kumquat trees. 

There is a whole market dedicated to selling the trees that it was quite hilarious to see lots of motorbikes carrying minitrees on the back. 

How does one drive with that?

Here is a peach blossom tree on display. While it supposedly is a twig, the size of this makes me think they just moved the whole tree. 

In fact, it is apparently so popular that people, including airline stewardesses were taking them on the plane! How does one bring back a small tree with flowers on it? :O

And roosters of corse. I have no idea what they are planning for these... I am sure they would be tasty but apparently they can also be used for cock fighting?

These two birds certainly aren't in any shape to be fighting... 

After dinner, we also strolled by Hoen Kiem lake, which was right in the heart of Old Quarter. It was nicely decorated for Tet as well. 

I have no idea what that super shining structure in the middle is, but the light pollution is certainly incredible. I swear LEDs probably have the best business in Vietnam. 

We took the airport shuttle back to the airport. But as the shuttle stops running at 7pm, and our flight was at 10, we took the earlier 6pm bus just to be safe. We were very lucky that the airline agent offered to move us up to the 7:45pm flight! Love the flexibility of Asia. :)

This was a case of confiscated items behind the security point. There were lots and lots of scissors, but also other items like screwdrivers, knives (wha?), forks, wire cutters and other sharp and plastic items... It provided us with a good 10 minutes of amusement. 

And off we went, back to Da Nang!

Hello Da Nang! Actually, Da Nang is probably as equally filled with LEDs...