21.03 Day 66 Hanoi

Thursday 21st March - Hanoi (Day 66)

With plans to go out and explore I wake up feeling unwell - unwell enough to just look at the buffet breakfast before returning to bed. Kate therefore takes the kids, initially in the direction of Banana Island before reverting back to the lake we’d been to yesterday. 

I emerge from You Stay Classy around 11am and catch them up, where we make our way to Thien Cafe, like dinner yesterday on small plastic stools amongst locals to enjoy a salted coffee / passion fruit juice / hot chocolate / passion fruit yoghurt and just watch the world go by. 

Banh Mi 25 around the corner from our hotel is our intended lunch destination. It’s seemingly one of those places that became popular, then took over a space on the other side of the road simply for the extra tables, and then another shopfront too. However, now some of the reviews complain it’s too touristy, no locals eat there. But we’re tourists. But we’re not the only tourists - long queues dissuade us, in the end settling on more plastic stools 25 metres away at a place with probably no google reviews, but four banh mi’s later and we’re all happy. 

Back for more schoolwork before walking out past the throngs of children emerging from the school opposite Classy Holiday Hotel, heading back to the horseshoe of streets surrounding the cathedral where we dive down a narrow alley to get up the back of Hanoi House, a small bar with a balcony. Armed with the iPad we plonk the kids in front of a cartoon and enjoy our first (!) glass of wine in over 2 months. It’s almost a perfect plan except we forgot to charge the iPad so we only get peace and quiet for the time it takes to drink one glass. 

I spotted extra food carts last night that appeared only after dark and so we head out and for the 3rd time today end up seated on more of the ubiquitous small plastic stools. We don’t quite know what we are ordering, all we can see is the lady at the front cooking meat skewers after meat skewers over flaming charcoal. The very basic meat and bread combo works a treat, but I don’t finish my cartilage porridge with pieces of cold fried bread. 

This gets topped up then, a little further down the street, again perched on the pavement with one of the cheesy coin shaped embossed pancakes we’d tried in Phong Nha with some extra sausages. A bit eclectic, perhaps missing our veg for the day, but full stomachs all the same.