New City, Same Country
Just landed in Hue about 3.30 Vietnam time to light rain and 21 degrees.
The Camillia hotel is lovely (bout 4 star on NZ standards) and they had Oreo biscuits in the mini bar – nice!
We spent this morning in Ha Noi visiting the Hoa Lo Prison when Senator McCain stayed for a while lol Better know as the “Ha Noi Hilton!” Interesting walking through seeing the original prison and cells. Very well set up for visitors and really cool memorial carved in a huge marble wall for the Vietnamese who were imprisoned during the resistance. Then for something completely different hunted out the Paris Deli (recommended in Rough Guide Vietnam) and had a beautiful chocolate pastry and mocachino – now that’s what I call a cafe! We had a nice view of the Opera House and Hilton Hotel from the cafe and checked out the longines watches in the nearby mall in the French Quarter and did lots of window shopping. Brought some nice local Vietnamese art and am the proud owner of some knock off Oakly sun glasses!
Yesterday got back to Ha Noi by night train from Sapa at 4.30am and were greeted by a half asleep receptionist to check us in even though they don’t have a 24hr front desk. The staff at the Golden Lake hotel are great and speak really good english which they are happy to practice. After going back to sleep until 12 noon we headed out to wander around the Old Quarter and found Shoe St (Carolyn, your kinda street!) Ella and I can now be trendy in our rip off Converse shoes – very comfortable! We had dinner at the Green Tangerine Restaurant (bookings are essential). Wonderful French Vietnamese fusion food. I can recommend the aubergine, olive and tomato bruschetta with Parmeson biscuits which went well with my Pina Colada! For dessert there was banana and chocolate tart with chocolate and pistachio ice cream – it’s a hard life!
After dinner we happened apon some hip hop dancers behind the Ha Noi Founders statue who were on a par with the Step Up dancers but had a video glitch so lost the footage and didn’t see them again – one of my most frustrating moments so far! We were just in time to witness a dad trying out his son’s remote controlled helicopter. He flew it over a government building and we watched as it went into a tail spin out of control and never to be seen again I suspect. We left them debating how they might retrieve it – good luck with that! To end the evening go dupped into holding a Vietnamese womens baskets of pineapples for a photo then she slipped 2 into my bar and it cost me about $20 NZ all up very clever trick for young punters:)
Related posts
- Binh Thuy Ancient Houese
- Vietnam - Mekong delta - Chau Doc
- Journal Day 33 - White sand dunes of Mui Ne.
- Around Hue
- Cheo - Dramatic Art
- Dancing for a new crop
- Soft pillows, Forbidden Cities and the quantum theory of Bonsai trees
- As the journey continues . . .
- The pure beauty of Co Tu people
- The sound of music
