Vietnam Day 1 – Noodle Soup – Check! Bia Hoi – Check!
The nicest noodle soup lady ever
So first things first. Hanoi: Crazy. Insane. Worst. Traffic. Ever (I saw 4 accidents at 9:30 am on the 25 km ride from the Airport to the city and nearly got run over by half a dozen motorbikes exploring the Old Quarter today)! Colorful. Loud. Fun. Busy. Did I say Crazy? It’s a mishmosh of Colonialism, Communism, and a vibrant Asian street culture – an absolute contradiction of lives that somehow merge into Hanoi. From the 6 inch high pink plastic stool where I enjoyed my noodle soup lunch I could see an Aldo across the road from a stall on the street selling 3 dollar plastic sandals and knock off converse; I could see Calvin Klein next to Kenneth “Kole”*; and my street vendor lunch, which included full service (see 3rd paragraph) was the same price as my “French” style ice cream cone for desert.
The dichotomy of such amenities is also present in the Vietnamese culture. Last night, I went to see an amazing show – one which I never would have thought existed, much less envisioned myself attending: a water puppet show (see video below). Sure it’s gimmicky, touristy, and absolutely aimed at the rich foreigners, with up to 5, 45 minute long shows a day. It’s also a traditional art form, rarely performed (outside of this instance), uniquely Vietnamese, and can trace its roots back over 1000 years. And tonight for only about 2x as much (3 and 6 USD respectively) I went to a world-class performance of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony by the Vietnamese National Symphony Orchestra at the old Hanoi Opera House. Definitely see the water puppets if you’re ever in Hanoi, and if there happens to be something cheap on at the Opera, you should definitely take a gander.
It has been a fun couple days in Hanoi so far, wandering around the Old Quarter with its crazy and unique architecture (French colonial and Chinese influences in a place where land is very expensive so 90% of buildings are probably about 4 meters wide), enjoying refreshing 40 cent draught beers on the street corners with the locals, and having delicious noodle soup on tiny plastic stools. In fact my first meal in Vietnam will probably be one of the cutest: Jess and I sat down at a small stall where a huge pot of soup was bubbling away. We were served two bowls of noodle soup by an old woman who later informed us she was 78 years old! 
Over the course of the meal she couldn’t do enough for us: after eating about 1/3 of the soup she just reached over and refilled our bowls to the brim; she kept topping up the veggies in the side plate and showing us which ones to add to the soup, how to eat it and which vinegars and chili sauces to add; when I selected some fried onions from my soup to eat, she immediately scooped a big handful into my bowl; she fanned us the whole time we sat there keeping us cool while we sweated out the hot soup; she smiled and laughed at our attempts to finish the constantly refilling bowl of soup; and she actually even picked a bit of noodle out of my beard! Now I can’t say it was the tastiest bowl of noodle soup I’ve had on this trip, it was certainly the most memorable one!
Tomorrow we’ll be doing all the tourist things – hitting the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex, the One Pillar Pagoda, the Temple of Literature, etc. or at least that’s the plan! It’s dependant on early rising…which may or may not occur! Ha! Then it’s the night train to Sapa to see beautiful landscapes, do a bit of trekking and hopefully visit some local hill tribe villages! We’ll see though, I’m a bit worried. From here it all seems like it’s a bit of a show put on for tourists (in large part due to the way it’s presented in all 167,359 of the tourism agencies in Hanoi). Still – happy to be getting away from the hustle and bustle that is the crazy streets of Hanoi!
*Artistic license – there’s no such store as Kenneth Kole – it’s meant to represent once again the small booths and stalls which cheap reproductions of name brands.
