Here’s the latest walk in my Rediscovering my Toronto video series – in an area I don’t know at all. From Sherbourne Station on line 2 of the Subway, I walked north on Sherbourne then worked my way east on various winding roads, through a high-end residential area, to Castle Frank, from which I connected back to the Danforth, finally ending the walk on the Bloor Viaduct. There are opportunities for more interesting walks in this area, for instance on the south side of the Danforth and west to Jarvis and Yonge. I’ll come back soon.
I’ve never been anyplace quite like Hanoi, and I have to say it is one of my fave cities. It is relentless, chaotic, at once beautiful and ramshackle. Traffic seems like an organism of its own, expanding and contracting. Here in Toronto, I complain about congestion, but Hanoi takes that phenomenon to a whole other level.
Amongst the fantastic chaos, there are serene, beautiful and quiet places, sometimes unexpected.
Hanoi is one of the world’s great food cities, of that I have little doubt, and some of the best food is served up in narrow alleyways, by Aunties serving up a single dish, superbly prepared. We stayed in a hotel in a alley. Around the corner, in a smaller alley, we enjoyed a soup whose name I still don’t know, with meatballs and pork knuckles, bun noodles and a scrumptious broth, served with fried bread-sticks for dunking. Each day she serves from very early to about 11:00 AM when she sells the last of her precious broth. By one, another group has moved in, making grilled and fried sausages, served with fries, and a plate of melon, cucumber and jicama.
We found market gardening going on in the Red River flood plain, on the edge of an intensive neighbourhood on the back side of the dike which hosts the longest mosaic wall in the world.
We heard traditional Vietnamese music, Asian pop, and American jazz played expertly by Vietnamese players.
And we met so many beautiful, kind, wonderful people, people prepared to laugh at themselves and at us, tremendously hard-working people who showed us joy over and over again.
Hanoi is at the same time a great walking city and a difficult one. In Canada, sidewalks are for pedestrians. In Hanoi, sidewalks are for parking motorbikes. We learned to cross streets with dozens of motorbikes bearing down on us. Just watch out for the increasing number of cars and buses who can’t just swarm around us.
This is a collage of video bits and pieces I shot in Hanoi and Ninh Binh. We also spent a day in the port city of Haiphong, but I didn’t shoot video there. I’ll create a post featuring our experience in Haiphong on another day.
The fabulous Museum of ethnology in Hanoi helps make sense of the mind-bending number of ethnic groups making up the population today. The museum consists of 2 separate buildings + they have tranported a number of authentic thatch and mud buildings to the site to see the different ways people have lived in rural Vietnam.
InstrumentsIn the second building, there was a Korean exhibit, which included this lovely Baduk table
Great museum. Even the two museum shops are excellent. Take a Grab from the Old Quarter to get out there. We made a long hot walk from the museum to Tay Ho (West Lake), through a flower market and a street filled with aquarium shops. At the lake we stopped for Bia Hoi (local draft) and some lunch at a very Viet beer hall overlooking the lake. We were the only tourists there and some of the staff seemed pretty amused we showed up.
Hanoi is dotted with hot pot places – set ups on the sidewalk mostly, with blue or red plastic seats. Stagg and I went to one a short walk from the hotel tonight, anb it was great.
They set up a burner for us and put the broth on the heat. Then they brought us a serious tray of food.
They brought us a tray with octopus, squid, giant shrimps, giant chunks of tofu, half a dozen rolls of beef, mushrooms, napa canbage, and loads of yummy small clams. It would have been enough for three but we did the best we could to devour most of it.
It was a feast, and including a couple beers each, it was just 30 bucks. Fabulous.
Bun Cha is a Hanoi specialty, and is a spectacularly yummy dish. It is served deconstructed with a bowl of bun noodles, greens, along with grilled pork belly and pork paddies. Normally it is served with spring rolls.
You eat everything out of a bowl, which contains a concoction which is somewhere between a sauce and a broth. Today we enjoyed it for lunch at a fab place in the Old Quarter. Just fabulous.
This morning Stagg and I were walking around near Hoan Kiem Lake and we sat down for a few minutes. We were approached by a fellow who identified himself as a teacher. Would we be willing to talk in English to a coulple young students trying to learn. We said sure.
These kids were around 5. The boy who interviewed me asked my name, where I came from, hobbies, fave Viet foods, my age. There were only a couple things he said I didn’t understand and his understanding of my words seemed very good. The teacher asked me how well I thought the boy was doing. It was impressive. Before we carried on, a mom approached me with her young son. I bet this child was under 5. He wasn’t quite as far along but he was determined to learn. His comprehension was better than I expected but he was a bit challenged pronouncing what he was trying to say.
I think this kind of “interview” is common down by the lake to help kids get English practice. It was a delight to participate.
Stagg and I decided to get out of town for today so yesterday we signed up for a last minute 12 hour tour to Ninh Binh. This included visiting temples dedicated to royals during a time when the ancient capital was nestled among the limestone towering mountains. It also included a bike ride through part of the area, and a boat ride in which we were rowed through caves that created a passageway right through the mountain. Finally there was an opportunity to climb one of the mountains. Stagg did it, but I decided to protect my heel, which has some nagging tendonitis.
King Kong lived here
Every day dozens of busses leave Hanoi for Ninh Binh Province. On the river, boat after boat after boat conveys tourists through the caves. The presence of huge numbers of tourists is disconcerting at first, but once you are in the caves with your rower shouting head down head down.
Lunch at a restaurant offered a huge variety of foods to eat with rice as well as a wonderful seafood soup. The foods included mountan goat which was yummy if a little bony and chewy. I enjoyed it.
We learned a lot of history and our guide (there were 8 of us) was excellent. It was a fun but exhausting day.
We’re taking a siesta after a very hot and humid day in Hanoi. Still, today we managed a visit to Long Bien Bridge and the longest mosaic wall in the world, and later to the Fine Art Museum and the Temple of Literature. The Fine Art Museum does not get the tourist crowds constantly flowing out of busses at the Temple of Literature, but it has a remarkable collection well worth viewing. Here are a few of the things we saw today….
Tomorrow we’re jumping on a 12 hr touristy-tour to Ninh Binh, which promises a bike ride, a boat ride, caves and more.
It takes a lot of flying to get to Hanoi, but it is one of my fave cities and it feels great to be back here. I’m traveling with my buddy Stagg. We got into town late last night after a late flight and a changed connection and a twelve hr time difference.
27th Street 