{"id":2325,"date":"2013-03-10T23:37:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-10T15:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/?p=2325"},"modified":"2014-03-23T20:50:33","modified_gmt":"2014-03-23T12:50:33","slug":"vietnam-day-16-hanoi-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/2013\/03\/10\/vietnam-day-16-hanoi-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam Day 16 – Hanoi again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last day in Hanoi and I spent the entire day… walking. From 0940 till 1640, I did not sit down at all.<\/p>\n

Breakfast at the hotel was pho, and I asked for two eggs boiled. After my boiled eggs, I was excited to see if the hotel could do it. I wasn’t disappointed.<\/p>\n

\"Vietnamese
Vietnamese know how to boil eggs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

I walked from hotel to the HCM Mausoleum area. I only wanted to check out the museum (25,000VND) but somehow got into the line for the mausoleum that snaked around the entire complex. I got out quick.<\/p>\n

\"Change
Change of guard at Mausoleum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The museum I would say is odd. It’s like part history, part 70s look, part Sputnik landed in here, part cultural, part artistic. It was just odd. I felt like I was in a dream.<\/p>\n

\"HCM
HCM greets visitors in HCM Museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nearby, I found this market at a street called Ngoc Ha, that was so narrow and had these bends in the road that allowed me to take many photos.<\/p>\n

I went on to West Lake again, and looked for Phu Yen street, which we whizzed past yesterday on the way back and I saw this bird shop that wanted to see again. Either it was closed, or I missed it. There were other bird shops. But not as crazy as the one I saw.<\/p>\n

\"Cock
Cock fight time out.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then I returned by another lane and walked Truc Bach and the other side of the lake. It wasn’t as nice, as rich or as clean as West Lake.<\/p>\n

\"Self
Self Portrait near West Lake.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Looking, for a bakery called Thu Huong on 41 Phan Dinh Phuong, wasn’t too excited by it, and started to return back to the hotel. That was about 1535.<\/p>\n

But on Ly Nam De street, I got a bit distracted. I found another bakery there called Gia Trinh which has been around since 1946. Here, I saw a sesame ball that everyone was eating. Banh Ran 2,000VND.<\/p>\n

\"Banh
Banh Ran at Gia Trinh Bakery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Inside
Inside the sesame ball, Banh Ran.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I crunched into one and it was lovely. Crisp. Thin rice flour outer skin. Then chewy. Oh it was good. I think the ball inside must be made of mung bean or something. I dunno. It was good. I wanted another. I should’ve had another. I regret not having another.<\/p>\n

Along this street, I also saw a bird cage shop.<\/p>\n

\"Bird
Bird cages!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Getting to the end of Ly Nam De street, I knew I faced a difficult junction and I had to get onto the correct street in order to get back to the hotel. Not only did I make all the right choices, I came upon the first bakery I’d chanced on the first day in Hanoi. Anh Hoa, a French bakery. I picked up some bread.<\/p>\n

From there, I started recognising my way back and got back to the hotel at 1640.<\/p>\n

An hour’s rest, and I was on the hunt for food.<\/p>\n

Mien Luon (35,000VND) at 87 Hang Dieu street. Eel was chewy rather than crisp. But maybe I ordered the wrong version. Should have asked for fried, I’m guessing it’s Xao. I had the Trong, which I’m guessing means soup. Glass vermicelli. Broth was sweet-ish and the leaves – I think they’re laksa leaves. Quite okay. Want to try the fried version next time.<\/p>\n

\"Mien
Mien Luon glass vermicelli with fried eel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"See
See the woman on the right? She's got the fried version.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tried to find some bun cha which is more an afternoon thing, and the two addresses I had: one was closed, the other was cleaning up. I was too late. I should’ve gone straight to eat, rather than resting at the hotel.<\/p>\n

More walking and I was back where Hang Bong meets Cua Nam streets and I read this guy’s recommendation for bread. I just pointed at someone’s bowl of beef stew (40,000VND).<\/p>\n

\"Beef
Beef soup and bread at 252 Hang Bong.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was taken aback by the starch thickening. But the beef was tender. Bread was standard Vietnamese baguette type bread, but nothing spectacular. Overall, disappointing.<\/p>\n

Made my way back to hotel. Super tired. Tomorrow back to Singapore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last day in Hanoi and I spent the entire day… walking. From 0940 till 1640, I did not sit down at all. Breakfast at the hotel was pho, and I asked for two eggs boiled. After my boiled eggs, I was excited to see if the hotel could do it. I wasn’t disappointed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[465,464],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/20130310-060023_JTJ_4558.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2325"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2325"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2365,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2325\/revisions\/2365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}