New Year’s Day in Hanoi is bizarre.
Normally the city is a bundle of energy – traffic is crazy, business is booming and people are everywhere.
But when we head out in search of breakfast it’s like the city has become a ghost town. Almost every store is closed and there are hardly any cars on the road… it’s actually kind of eerie.
Unfortunately for us, the only restaurants that seem to be open are the tourist haunts. We usually look for street stalls because the food is better and much cheaper. However their owners are celebrating the holidays, so it looks like it’s western food for us. We grab a breakfast of omelettes, fruit salad and French fries and then begin wandering around.
We visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, Ho Chi Minh Museum, the One Pillar Pagoda and the War Heroes Memorial. The museum and mausoleum are closed because of the holiday but they are worth visiting any way for their significance and architecture.
We wander around the city for a bit when we stumble upon a small complex of narrow alleys and tall houses. We’re really enjoying watching everyone celebrate their holiday and we decide to explore it further. The next thing we know we’ve gone a little too deep inside and can’t figure out where the exit is. We know we’re in a safe area because it’s filled with families, but it’s starting to get cold so we want to find our way out.
As we turn yet another corner looking for an exit, we find a street flanked by two small lakes. In one of the lakes are the remains of crashed B-52 Bomber. There’s a small monument explaining that this is an American plane that was shot down by the Vietnamese Army and was a turning point in the war. The fascinating thing for us was reading the point-of-view – it’s a gentle reminder for us that there’s always another side of things during war… it was pretty cool.
We eventually find our way out of the “neighbourhood” and ironically run into a couple tourists specifically looking for the B-52 crash. They ask us if we know where it is and we feel kind of bad explaining that we did see it, it does exist but unfortunately we have no idea how to get to it.
We really don’t want western food for dinner, so we begin the search for a local restaurant that’s open.
The first place we find is really only serving Pho, which both of us are getting tired of. They do offer “fried Pho” which we order along with a dried beef salad. The salad is good but the Pho left something to be desired. We’re still hungry, so we continue out in search of Dinner #2.
Although we were trying to avoid having a baguette sandwich for dinner, we find ourselves sharing one while watching some of the New Year’s entertainment... a juggling act. We’re now unsatisfied on numerous levels, so we carry on our search for Dinner #3.
Well let me tell you, this is THE dinner. We find a food stall that specializes in shish kebabs Vietnamese-style. We are absolutely thrilled and sit down to enjoy our final meal of beef with tomatoes & Chinese mushrooms, crabcakes, fishcakes with lemongrass and grilled whole mushrooms.
It’s so good we plan to return tomorrow night so we can enjoy some more.
We head home, satisfied – finally – and crash out.
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