Hanoi is hectic! The pace of life there is far too crazy. There’s a constant stream of bikes zooming around every corner loudly tooting their horns on average every three seconds, or less. And the streets are packed full of little shops each with their owner trying to entice you in to buy something. If you walk down the street a Xe Om (motor bike taxi) will ask if you want a ride. If you stand still a cyclo will will hunt you down and insist that you must want a tour. As if that wasn’t enough if you sit down anywhere for a ‘quiet’ drink, guaranteed within 5 seconds someone will come and ask you to buy a book/hat/banana or any number of other things.

Despite all this we really liked it. We had a lot of fun there. In fact maybe too much fun. In true “if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em” style we hopped on the back of a scooter and zoomed over to “Beer Corner” (a crossroads with small bars on each corner, marked C on this map) where Bia Hoi the local brew is sold for only 3000d (12p) a pint.

It was a respectable start, just one or two beers before going to meet my Dad and Elaine (who happened to be on holiday in Hanoi while we were there). We chatted with them for a while in their hotel, which Andy and I both agreed was undoubtably the strangest place we’d been all holiday. After the craziness of the city and general grime of the streets and squat toilets that we had become used to this place just seemed insane. A quiet, ‘civilised’ bar, spotless western toilets and receptionists who spoke perfect English?! It was all a little too odd. Like we’d been transported to a different world, far removed from the city we were really in.

It was really lovely to see them, but also kind of sad to realise that that’s the last we’ll see of anyone we know for months now.

It was after this that things went a little crazy. We made our way back to “Beer Corner” and settled down at the side of the road for another one or two. We got talking to some really nice people, Cara and Angus, from Australia, with who we decided that the best plan of action after the bar had closed was to hunt somewhere down that was still open and sold cocktails. We found a place within minutes and then spent the next 5 hours drinking very strong Long Island Iced Tea, arm wrestling (always a bad sign!) and rambling on about something incredibly important that I cannot remember a single thing about.

In a drunken stupor we’d arranged to meet them at 2 o’clock the next day to go see Uncle Ho (By that time the mausoleum would have been closed for at least 3 hours, but regardless that was our plan). However we didn’t even manage that. We barely were able to crawl out of bed for ten past two and after a failed attempt to find a taxi we gave up and went home. We weren’t fit for anything. This behaviour became typical of our whole stay in Hanoi. It’s the only place we’ve been to so far that made us completely incapable of doing anything constructive.

Actually that’s not quite true. We did manage a trip out of the city, to a beautiful place called Mai Chau. Although only just- we woke up late after yet another unplanned night of merriment feeling pretty groggy. A cat had eaten part of our laptop’s keyboard, everything we looked for was missing, the washing we needed to take was wet, the bus we wanted to catch didn’t exist. It was a bad start. But we made it. And what an amazing place it is! It couldn’t be more different from Hanoi. We stayed in a little village just past Mai Chau called Ban Pom Coong, which is the home of the White Thai people .

We stayed in this house:

Slept in this bed:

And looked out of the window to this:

Although most people have now abandoned their traditional dress the village, and the place is pretty obviously managed to make for a comfortable rather than authentic stay it is still very different. The ladies are expert weavers,they make some really beautiful fabrics, if you plan on visiting and like that kind of thing take a lot of spending money. There is so much lovely stuff. Actually you shouldn’t need too much. I treated myself to a bag and was all ready to start bartering but she only wanted about £2 straight off for it. Really I felt like I should be offering her more, not less.

The village is a jumble of stilt houses laid out along small paths surrounded by ponds and paddy fields. In between the houses you’ll see various animals, cows, chickens, ducks, dogs happily wandering around amongst the people. If we weren’t planning on moving on I think we would have stayed much longer. It is the perfect place to just relax and do nothing except maybe go for a walk, bike ride or read a book.

Eek! Huge centipede! Actually it was dead, or there’d be no way I’d have my foot so close to it, yak!

We went for a bike ride to the next town where we saw the best toilets ever. The town itself turned out to be nothing much, but the toilets alone were well worth the 15km bike ride. We gone there hoping to get some lunch only to find that the only food available to buy in the whole town was choco pies or crisps. Hmmm. Anyway so we sat ourselves down with a bottle of beer and packet of crisps (healthy lunch hey?) and enjoyed a bit of people watching. Andy went to the loo, never said anything when he came back, although he did have a slightly cheeky grin. A little while later I went too. You walk through the back of the cafe/shop which is also the persons bedroom/living room (as most places over here are) and then through a door to a kind of store room/kitchen/shed. At the back there is another door to the toilet. It’s a fairly basic squat toilet, no flush, just a bucket of water to throw down, not that that’s too unusual. However on either side of the toilet ther were two pens,one which contained about 12 chickens, and one with 4 pigs! Crazy. Just in the back of their house. It was just so unexpected. Why not though I suppose.

If you ever go to Hanoi I’d definitely recommend taking a few days out to visit this area, it’s so relaxing, beautiful and different. Some places in the city offer expensive ($100!) tours, but it’s easy and cheap to do yourself. Take a bus from My Dinh bus station (6.30am or 2pm price 50,000d – around £2). It’s a four hour drive, so the 2pm gets you there just in time to find somewhere to stay before it gets dark. When you get there you just walk around and find someones house to stay in. Usually people will be hanging about outside and ask you if you want to stay, so it’s easy to do. They’ll normally make you some dinner too, very tasty traditional Vietnamese food. We paid 100,000d/£4 each a night for dinner, bed and breakfast. Perfect.

The family we stayed with were lovely. There was an older lady who wandered around chewing Betel nuts smiley and chatty (no idea what she was saying though! I suspect most of it related to her wanting us to buy her scarves and blankets), and then the lady who did most of the running the guest house bit who was very friendly, spoke pretty good English and was really helpful. When we left they were all hanging over the balcony waving us off! How nice.

After a couple of days of relaxing it was time to head back to the city. While we were in Hanoi itself we’d been staying with a Spanish guy called Ugo (from couchsurfing, again). He was really cool. Quite chilled, although he certainly likes a good “discussion”. He made us feel really welcome in his beautiful house. So much so we ended up staying much longer than planned. An intended 2 or 3 night stay in Hanoi somehow turned into over a week. As a thank you we made a meal for him and a couple of friends. I was pretty nervous about it. I’d told him usually I would make Spanish tapas style food, but that as he was Spanish I was afraid it wouldn’t be up to scratch. He insisted however so I made a tortilla, patatas bravas, garlic mushrooms, pan con tomate and a couple of salady type things. The food got official Spanish approval! Hurrah! Although he said, of course, it wasn’t as good as his Mother’s.

A couple of foody things. Bia Hoi Hanoi (map) is pretty good. A true locals hang out, it’s always packed so the atmosphere is pretty lively. The food is very typical Vietnamese, noodles, rice, various soups, spring rolls etc. One thing that was a bit wierd though. We’d gone on the 15th day of the lunar calendar. We’d gone to this particular restaurant specially on this day as most Vietnamese don’t eat meat on either 1st or 15th day of the month, so we’d assumed as this was a really typical Vietnamese restaurant this would be THE place to go for good veggie food on this special day. So we went and ordered a soup, a morning glory, rice and a tofu dish. The waitress then told us they didn’t have any tofu on at all. Strange we thought, but never mind. However 5 minutes after our food had arrived literally on every other table were Vietnamese people happily tucking into several different types of tasty looking tofu dishes! No idea what was going on. Maybe we just weren’t allowed. Humph!

I’ll finish the post with our first experience of the most typical Vietnamese meal, Pho. This is sold through out Vietnam and eaten for any meal, breakfast, lunch or dinner but usually breakfast. The basic pho is a noodle soup, which has various things added to it. Usually beef or chicken (but just ask for without) and then some herby salad, spring onions, chilli, beansprouts and lots of other different things can be added which vary between each place it’s bought from. Typically it’s just a small street-side cafe or even just a lady with a table and a couple of pans set up on the pavement. Very tasty indeed. Healthy too I recon. And cheap. The standard price seems to be 10,000d (40p). What a bargain. We’ve been having a lot more days on budget since we’ve got into it. Deffo another new breakfast for home too. I wonder if it could ever take off there? It seems to be the norm here to eat breakfast out in one of these small pho cafes, and why not? Given the choice of a poxy bowl of sweetened cardboard or a lovely nutritious bowl of hot noodle soup I know what I’d choose. The campaign for a new British breakfast begins.