My Bittersweet Cafe: A Day and One-fourth in Hanoi

This is right across St. Joseph Cathedral. I wanted to go to Hanoi House Cafe, but we didn't have time. :(

When I saw the fire trees were in full bloom during a recent roadtrip to Dumaguete, I reminisced the same fiery sight I stared at in Vietnam and how the flowering tree popped the place with its deep orange color--and then it occurred to me--it's been a year since my Indochina trip! Funny how it took this long for me to make a post, considering the excitement I had to update my blog when I arrived in Manila back then. zzzZZZzzz...

What I did find is a short paragraph of how I described Hanoi during our first night at our hotel. I wrote:

"Staring down from the airplane window, I could see the city lights of Hanoi and how far it is from the airport, a pitch black gap distanced the two. We're thankful that our hotel, May de Ville Backpackers Hostel, provided us with a free shuttle service...even if the driver was half-asleep and almost crashed the car several minutes in. I was about to have a my flashback-of-my-whole-life scene but our panic thankfully woke him up, making the 45-minute ride to the hostel more memorable than most. We arrived at our place in the city's old district at 2AM, so it's no surprise that it was dead quiet and unalive." -May 21, 2014

The St. Joseph Cathedral looked so beautiful, it made me
feel like I was in some European country. I can just stare at it.

The view out our hotel window...are we somewhere in Cubao?

Typical breakfast at May de Ville, yellow rice, spring roll, egg noodles that
doesn't really taste anything, veggies, and of course, the ever strong Vietnamese coffee.

The scene that greeted us the moment we stepped out our hotel the next morning was a stark contrast from what I saw the night before. Our hotel was actually located in the middle of a hustling commercial center of the old district. The difference of the street where I stood a few hours prior left me confused. People were everywhere! It only took me a couple of steps before cub motorcycles beeped at me one after the other. They don't hit the breaks, they don't slow down--they expected me to just move out of the way! On a pedestrian road! And usually they don't even beep, just shock you with buzzing engines. The memory of having to do ninja moves just to cross a narrow alley will never cease to make me giggle at myself. But I am glad I had my training from doing jaywalks in my city.

If you do decide to stay in the old city quarters, I can guarantee you that you'll be in walking distance from souvenir shops at basically everything. They have makeshift food stalls that serve coffee and pho for breakfast, but May de Ville serves breakfast, so we never got to try street food in Vietnam, unfortunately. The thing is, I was so careful about not getting sick on the first leg of our trip that choosing to eat at a proper restaurant was priority.

Food in Vietnam isn't as "root-tasting" as the ones being served in Vietnamese restaurants in Manila. I actually liked the food, contrary to how I refuse to eat in Vietnamese restaurants here in fear of an unpleasant meal. Food there was mellow on the taste buds, herbs are constantly used, and vegetables were cooked to perfection. And did I mention the rice being served even on the sidewalks were top notch? It was fluffy and really white, while their coffee was so unbearably black and strong that it made our barako coffee seem sweeter when I got back.

A common residential scene in Hanoi, a three-storey building with a commercial
space on the ground floor, their living space on top, an antenna, and a flag.

The bridge going to Ngoc Son Temple. Costs 20,000 Dong or about Php50 to enter.

Scooters, motobikes, Vespa, call it whatever--there are tons of them in Hanoi!
It's more popularly used than cars, because they can get in on narrow roads.

Women in Ngoc Son Temple. There seems to be all sorts of social activity around
the area, including ballroom dancing at night!

The only cafe we had the chance to chill in before another long walkathon.

One of the most popular places to go there is the Temple of Literature, an ancient place where the Imperial Academy is, Vietnam's first national university. It was huge and subdivided into courtyards and seem to have a lot of interest towards turtles as based on their repeating presences in the carvings. I would have enjoyed it much more had it not been so overwhelmingly hot that day.

On my way in the temple, I checked out a few stalls right along the street and what basically happened made me buy an interesting card in fear of the pack of old women who chased me down the road insisting that I pay up. Well...I shall take note of that experience, not to ask for the price of an item unless I truly want it...because they horde on you and won't stop picking on you until you bought their product.

The gate at Temple of Literature where I was harassed by old lady vendors.

The Third Courtyard in the Temple of Literature, seen are the
Well of Heavenly Clarity and Turtle Steles are seen.

Some merchandise being sold in the Temple of Literature. Didn't really buy anything,
just water because it was really really hot that day.

The Fourth Courtyard of the temple with awesome bonsai trees.

The red doors of the Study of the Imperial Academy.

A prison camp during the Vietnam war. It's a dark and gloomy
place where I get a heavy feeling just going in its walls.

Now, I know this isn't Vietnamese food...because we wanted to eat in an air-conditioned restaurant that day. It's a Korean place, and it was a nice cozy place. What I liked the most is that they gave us a big discount for being tourists, so it was tax-free! Plus the meal also filled me up.

One of the unforgettable moment of the trip that proved the importance of learning a few words was our struggle to explain that we wanted to get service water so that we didn't have to pay for it. The server had to call other servers to help figure out what we were saying. We kept saying "water" with matching hand signals and they gave us confusing stares when we said "tap water", "service water", "water in glass" until she said the word that we were a little embarrass to say, "free water"...and that's how we saved up on drinks and laughed at the same time.

Come to think of it, this was our last night in Vietnam and we just dearly missed the taste of chicken because they were more on the veggies-and-seafood kind of place.

My Barbecue Chicken Set at BBQ for 85,000VND less the tax.

Nice interiors in BBQ, they have TV screens installed on the ceiling for bored customers.

If I were to sit still and close my eyes to try and remember what struck me most about Hanoi, it narrows down to four things:

1. It was the first time I enjoyed eating vegetables meal after meal.

2. It's a charming city that is chaotically beautiful, one so busy that I was at peace just watching them zoom pass me on their scooters. It's like being in Quiapo, so many people, so much business to attend to. I just wish they learn to hit the breaks for pedestrians.

3. The fire trees...when in full bloom, it reflects their pride of being Vietnamese. Flags are raised up on almost every household, and they have every right to hold their heads high after what they've gone through. There's a lot of fire and red in their city.

4. It's an inexpensive place to go on vacation. Although I was amazed at how many zeros their paper bills have, you get use to the idea of buying a bottle of water for 15,000. My dad was thrilled when I gave him a 10,000VND paper bill, he said it's the largest sum he ever received...so I didn't bother to convert the actual value of the bill in peso.