Hanoi Food Tour

Our second night in Hanoi, we engaged a guide (through the hotel) to take us on a food tour. I am not a fan of Vietnamese food, nor is Vicki (!), but we felt (strangely) obligated. The tour took us through half a dozen hole-in-the wall eateries, some fairly well embedded in the urban infrastructure, and introduced us to half a dozen or so dishes. To wit: pho with chicken; steamed spring roll; egg coffee; dried beef salad with papaya; sticky rice, potato, tapioca, peanuts, served on banana leaf; pork noodle soup with veggies; pork/chicken/whatever on a stick in a baguette; mixed fruit salad with jelly, tapioca; black sticky rice with yogurt. Such was my understanding. The photos probably won't match up exactly, but they're representative of what was going on. Next night we ate at McDonald's.

Pho

Why we're not all that much into street food

Making spring roll

Yum

Most of the eateries were near our hotel and Hoan Kiem Lake

Thus

Down an alley and up two flights of stairs

For egg coffee, which I much enjoyed

Vicki making her way back downstairs

Beef jerky salad

Known as "Beer Corner"

Street scene

"I remember Mama" shrine in one of the eateries

Hanoi Scenes, 3

More just walking around...

"It's like what Lenin said, you look for the person who will
benefit, and, uh, uh..." "I am the walrus"..."You know what
I'm trying to say"..."That f***ing bitch!"...I am the walrus"
..."Shut the f*** up, Donny! V. I. Lenin. Vladimir Illanich
Uleninov!"

Uncle Ho wants you

Hanoi Citadel

Out in the government center, wide French boulevards, tree-lined; a bit of traffic

Really nice house; maybe embassies

Foggy Bottom/Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh mausoleum; we demurred

The parliament; or politburo?

Now in the Quan Than temple, near the West Lake

Taoist; very Chinese

Truc Bach Lake, in Central Hanoi, from which was rescued the late US Senator
John McCain, a Navy flier and a very great American hero; his story is inspiring:
when his father became CinC of the Pacific Fleet, the communists offered to free him,
hoping to show the elitist nature of the US; McCain refused unless all the prisoners
be released; he was thrown into solitary for the next two years, and not released until
the war's end

On down the road, a durian and only durian shop

We think this is Vietnamese for "Please wash me!"

On the wedding cake street; a very different concept of wedding cakes

The Chateau D'Eau Hang Dau, 1894; not Art Nouveau

Another war memorial, 1946

Inside a huge market, mostly textile and souvenirs

Hanoi Scenes, 2

Just walking around...

In the sharp things district...knives, scissors, shears, wire-cutters...a dozen shops like
this all in a row

Paint district

The old-fashioned way, measuring tint powder

Gallery district

Up-scale district: bird's nest soup!

Sewing machine district

One of the few new/interesting buildings we saw in the old city

Practicing on his bong

A thing in Hanoi, among tourists anyway, is the people who live along the urban
railroad...

Thus

And thus, the real thing; tourists are no longer permitted to wander along the
tracks, due to several selfie-inflicted injuries

Another thin building

And another tree that has seen so much

Monument to king Le Thai Do, who kicked the invading Chinese out way back in
the day; or possibly someone else; the white pigeons really like this place

Fancy-schmancy restaurant

Power parking

We skipped the Hanoi water puppet show, knowing we'd be forced to watch
another one en route to Ha Long; OK, this is not the only reason we skipped it

90 years...

Moving mannequins selling appliances Uncle Ho could never have imagined

And there he is

Just across from the Trang Tien Plaza, with its Ferragamo, Gucci, Louis Vuitton,
Dior, etc.; one wonders what the old-style Stalinist would have made of all this;
actually, not

Not to mention the nice Morgan and its owner