Breakfast:
Decided to sleepin (sort of, till 7:30) and went for the hotel breakfast with parents. It deserves a special mention because it was ridiculously good. A buffet with pastries, fruits, spreads, cereals, ham and cheeses and salami, juices, milks,a hot buffet (bacon, sausage, hash risks). And on too of that you could order a few specialties – Korean Kim chi, eggs, or Vietnamese soup which we know is pho but was called just soup.
The soup was a. M. A. Z I. N. g. Really. It was the quintessential example of what pho is. But more importantly it came with this paste that before I only tried as part of “crack noodles” that we used to have all the time as students. (after asking them to write it down – it’s ground up soya beans. Not soya sauce tough. Weird. )
Tour guide:
For day 2 we had hired a tour guide – my parents already had him during their Mekong delta part of the trip. A young student, 24 years old, looks 35. Apparently he asked dad my age and even he commented in the visual age difference. It’s insane. I guess that’s what beeping raised in a developing country does….
Ricksha:
The tour started off awesome! we all got got a ricksha (bike with a thing in front – why does it bother me in Toronto but looks and feels so natural here?) – and had a small tour of nearby big streets and important areas, including the intersection where the monk burned himself in order to get attention from the international press for the Vietnamese struggled. The monument is superbly elegant and appropriate (no eternal flame), and while looking st it a huge butterfly landed right in front of us. It felt very symbolic.
It was interesting to be driven around in a method of transport so fragile in an place where the traffic is so crazy. At least twice I think we took a street and a roundabout just so that we get the kick of being in crazy rush hour traffic in a ricksha.
Markets:
They dropped us off at the flower market which was fun (mostly because everything is pretty but you can’t buy anything because what are you going to do with flowers? so no one pushes at you), and then the wholesale market, which was fascinating – 100s of all the things. We bought a few souvenirs. (not of the “here are 200 toothbrushes, you never have to buy one again” type although the idea crossed my mind and that would be the place to do it). after that we were pretty tired (and it was after 1) so we went to lunch.
Lunch:
In a word: epic. A restaurant where all Vietnamese cuisines are represented by s little stall that’s cooking fresh food, but not buffet style – you can walk around and look at how they are cooking – but you order from a menu. Each stall seemed to collect notes – maye they compete for who has most?
He ordered for us, everything in the stalls looked crazy delicious and everything tht we got was crazy delicious. Many kinds of rolls, many kinds of do it yourself rolls, soups, amazingness.
In case it’s not clear I am I love with Vietnamese food. Seriously.
And i still haven’t got to try fried banana which I KNOW will be amazing and I will just never leave.
Shopping:
So options were shopping or museums and mom and I just couldn’t work up appetite for war museums. And we had big hopes of shopping based on parents experience with kuala lumpur, and mine in HK. Unfortunately it was all a big disappointment – we went to two places (aided by our helpful hired van that picked us up in a prearranged time and dropped us off in a prearranged area – things like “2km down this street past those two roundabouts” are impossible to explain using gestures and broken English, so that worked out very well). I got a blouse and a jacket, neither amazing(good and necessary but … Not amazing) and really a lot of effort to find even those two.
Highlights:
– Zara basic jacket for $400? Like what. It’s $50 in store
– laboutin knock offs for $400. Real ones are $600. Again what? (knock off should be $50-150… Not more!)
– lots of brand label knock offs but labels like mango, h&m, forever 21, banana republic – random and weird
– not many local boutique stores (let it be said my things are from local stores)
Coffee shop:
Exhausted and with my jet lag kicking in we went to s dry clean and posh coffee store where they even had wifi (I checked in!). After a coffee and a break for chat we felt MUCH better and went home earlier of our 5pm deadline (dadline) and decided to go for a massage instead of waiting.
Massage:
The evening wrapped up well. Massage fr an hour (delightful for me, too weak for mom, but I realllllly enjoyed it), mani for me and pedicure for mom.. Total is $30 pp. ugh. This developing country cost is really easy to get acclimatized to for things that I cinder major spoilers in Canada.
We got home kind of late – 7pm and dad was worried. After a bottle of wine I started passing out and parents decided to go to dinner.
So the day wrapped up with me having a peaceful read with my last sips of wine before totally falling sleep by 10.