It’s not just George Harrison’s birthday today
The birthday boy and our good friend Douglas. And dessert.
Some birthday food from the day. Fried rice, sautéed pumpkin and pork belly.
Bánh cam (sesame balls with sweetened mung bean balls inside)
xe ôm (translation: motorbike hug) OMG
Hey, we got a motorbike.
We spent six weeks learning how to walk through the traffic and now we want to become part of it. You ask what Hanoi traffic is like?
Here’s a video of the steady flow in an intersection in the Old Quarter on a typical evening. Two perpendicular currents moving through each other without substantially stopping.
It took a while to absorb the rules, which are different from the law. One way means one way unless you need to go the other way. Stoplights mean stop unless there’s a break in traffic that your bike can get through. Drive on the right side of the road unless you’re only going a few blocks and you have to cross over anyway. Sound your horn to let them know where you are. Don’t look back. Concentrate what’s in front of you and don’t worry about what’s behind. The traffic regulations are suggestions to be used or discarded as the situation develops and as you, the driver, need to shape it so that you can keep moving. There’s no screaming, no anger, no tantrums, and no loss of face. Just a focused calm, constant beeping and an awareness of the flow: pedestrians, children on bicycles, city sanitation workers who actually sweep the street gutters daily with their special hand-made brooms and toss the garbage into their rolling push-bins, vendors in conical rice hats with two baskets hung from a bamboo shoulder-yoke carrying anything from hot food to scrap metal, quiet electric bikes, the occasional ego-fortifying Ducati or Harley wide-ride, cars, taxis, minivans, city buses, huge touring buses, and utility vehicles. And filling in the gaps is the eternal river of motor bikes. U-turns that stop traffic on a major artery are okay. If the road gets too crowded, traffic moves onto the sidewalk. And, yes, it’s okay to take a phone call while driving. The power of patience is remarkable.
It’s difficult for foreigners to get a valid license but the police don’t like to stop them anyway because their English is limited and they might lose face, so foreigners drive without a license. There’s a box on the rental form that says License and you write yes or no. You can answer either one but it doesn’t change the outcome. It does protect the leaser if necessary, proving that he didn’t break the law, you did.
We tried out three bikes before deciding what to rent; a Chinese Vespa knockoff, a new Honda scooter and a Yamaha automatic motorbike.
The fake Vespa model called Elizabeth, was definitely the cutest. This is Doug not liking it.
This is Doug continuing not to like it.
Here’s the winner. A 2009 Yamaha Nouvo. We rent it by the month so we can trade up. The automatic transmission is definitely appreciated.
Vietnamese kids grow up on motorbikes, the family station wagon of the country. It’s not uncommon to see mom on the back, dad driving, one kid standing between dad and the handlebars and the baby sandwiched between dad and mom, as they weave through the traffic. Kids ride bicycles during rush hour, completely comfortable. Not me; the first time out on a run to buy gas, I was acutely focused in the moment by the terror.
This is Beth liking it and hoping the white knuckle grip will soon relax.
Tucked into alleys and nooks are these bike piles. This one would be fun to clean up. Right?!
And for the foodies. Since landing in Vietnam we have tried outdoor street food, indoor street food, average restaurant food and above average restaurant fare. Most of it was good, some really good and a few were great. The kind of food that is centered around flavor, where every bite is fun. Nearby, down a small unmarked alley is a restaurant called 1946. It’s based on the conditions in Hanoi and the food available in 1946 when the world war was over and the war for Vietnamese independence was gathering steam. Fried salted field crabs, banana flower and marinated beef salad, grilled spiced pork, sautéed garlic and morning glory, sour pork soup, beer, and corn water. $17 US. Expensive for an evening meal but worth the occasional splurge.
Here’s a 2012 article from the NYTimes featuring the traffic in Hanoi.
Bamboo Street (how to solve a 1st world apartment problem)
Zoom Cafe, which hosts tours for photographers, as well as makes a great cà phê sữa nóng (hot coffee with sweetened milk).
The small cups of coffee are served in dishes of boiling water to keep them hot. Coffee always comes accompanied by diluted herb tea. These were lemongrass.
Drinking our coffees and contemplating the complexities of the world. Here’s the view from across the street.
A bicycle vendor stops to buy some produce from the basket vendor, and wins “best home-made kickstand” award.
At the end of the street we spy bamboo. Walls of it. A light bulb goes off. We can’t put any holes in our walls. We need a place to hang things, instead of dropping them on the floor (not naming any names).
Ladders. Yes. That could make a nice hanging rack. And they’re beautiful!
This place?
or that?
Closer…
Sold. For the bartered price of $200,000 VND ($8.50).
1.5 mile walk home.
Made it. Yay!
Independence-Freedom-Happiness
We’re legal. Here’s the top of our lease. For some reason, I love this piece of paper.
Here’s what it translates to. A sweet, one-room studio apartment on the 2nd floor with a little balcony.
And a cool bathroom door. Even more cool than the bathroom door is the bum gun. Heh, heh. Who knew we needed one of those? If you don’t know what that is, you’ll just have to come out and visit us.
The outside of our apartment, with the abandoned building next door cut out of the frame.
We have our own little alley to get to the street behind us. It’s the “good acoustics” alley. Every day the same food stand is set up at the other end. Each day we all smile and repeat, xin chao. Hallo.
Our market run for the day. The green leaves are morning glory, called rau (which translates as “vegetable”). They’re stir-fried into everything, or sautéed as a solo dish.
The big purple thing is a banana flower. Take the leaves apart, roll them up, then slice super thin. Soak in lime-water, then toss in a salad and dress with lime, garlic, fish sauce, sugar and chili. A little crunchy, like a cross between an apple and a daikon.
This big dude looked too good to pass up. Gac fruit. Turns out, it cures pretty much everything.
Also new to us were the little, round, reddish fruits. Fresh passion-fruits. Their aroma is heavenly.
Outside our gate a vendor walked by with the 2 baskets hanging from a pole, with these freshly baked sesame crisps. The smell was as good as the crunch.
Just another day in the country of independence, freedom and happiness. So far, so good.
Hoàng Hoa Thám aka Plant Street
The desire to spruce up the balcony took us in a new direction today. We wanted some live plants to alter the forsaken, empty pots. Could we find herbs? Other edibles? Occasionally, bike vendors peddle by with plants, but they’re large, ornamental houseplants. Not what we want. Where should we look for a nursery? Shopping here is concentrated by product and street. There’s guitar street, wok street, bathroom street, shoe street, muffler street, pet street…the list goes on. These “streets” can be anywhere from 3 blocks to 15 blocks long. I had read about Plant Street, so we headed westward to find it. We strolled along the boulevard on the southern side of Hanoi’s big freshwater lake, called West Lake. The lake is over 10 miles in circumference. It seems to be the lungs of this city. It’s beautiful, yet scruffy. There’s an odor that permeates the area, a mixture of earth, dead fish, runoff, garbage and fresh air. Visually, at times it felt a little like standing on Alki beach looking towards Seattle.
Swan paddle boats. They’re out everyday…not sure if it’s tourists or locals. Probably both.
Many coffee shops line the street. Like this one called Xương, which means bone (bone?) which is decorated with stacked tire tables and beer bottle lights. The forlorn looking pooch caught our eye.
Also along the street is a famous high school, called the Chu Văn An (10-12th grades). It is one of 3 hard-to-get-into magnet schools in Hanoi. This (gorgeous) school library is an example of the French influence, built in 1908.
Fishing. Always people fishing, either on the banks, or from boats. Netting, too.
Grin House coffee house, complete with coconuts for sale outside.
Getting closer to Plant Street. Street vendors set up anywhere and everywhere. This one is selling bird cages. Chickens and roosters seem to appear out of nowhere.
We made it to Plant Street. Over 10 blocks of greens, plants, trees, bonsai, birds, planters, tools and soil amendments. Browsing while walking requires a lot of concentration. I’m certain we missed a lot. We’ll definitely go back another day.
We found some starts for shiso, cilantro, mint, basil, chives, and thyme, along with a little shovel. I can add them to the cuttings I’ve been surreptitiously nabbing on our walks. Yay!
Chợ Châu Long wet market
5 minutes away from our apartment is one of the permanent established wet markets called Chợ Châu Long, taking it’s name from the street where it resides. We’ve heard that grocery stores are starting to appear around Hanoi, but we haven’t seen them and most people still use the wet markets. These markets have everything food-related, except fruit, which is sold outside the market from bicycle vendors. Just-butchered meats, offal, birds, seafood, frogs, all shapes and kinds of eggs (fertilized, goose, chicken, quail) fresh tofu made that morning, rice, sausages, pastes, patties, vegetables, herbs, spices and layers upon layers of fresh noodles. It’s all available and all for sale. The only priced items we saw were the rices. The numbers here are 1000 VND per kilogram. (1 kg of Tám Thai = 2.2 lbs = 18,000 VND = 80 cents)
See the shrine? They’re everywhere. The market wouldn’t be complete without a small shrine and the daily offerings and burning incense.
The market looks messy but is in fact totally organized. With all the meat and fish laying around you’d expect to smell a certain aroma. But no. It’s a good smell (except for the scooter exhaust.) The meat is fresh and sells quickly. The fish, seafood, frogs, snails, clams and prawns are all kept alive until sold. It’s impressive. The tables and aisles get hosed down every night in prep for the next day, hence the name. Super crowded every morning (scooters! people drive their scooters in here!), it slows down mid-day after the meat and fish are sold and packed away. Nap-time rolls around every day from 12-2, so most vendors cover up and rest, or hang in a hammock, or pull out a cot, while others played cards with each other. If we time it right, we might be able to see what card game they were playing.
Skinning the frogs. Wow, she was swift.
These banana-leaf wrapped bundles are appearing everywhere the closer it gets to Tet. Modern folks are getting too busy to make them at home (it’s a 2-day process) so they’re buying them instead. Bánh chưng. Rice cakes for Tet. The story goes that there was a family competition for their father’s throne. The winner was the quiet, youngest son who created banh chưng based upon a dream he had. In his dream, a genie had told him to take sticky rice (which symbolized earth), wrap it around a ball of mung bean paste (which represented the sun), wrap it in a square shape (at that time the ground/earth was thought to be square) then boil it for one day and one night.
The longer we’re here, the more we hope to figure out how to use all the interesting and unknown market products. The vendors are friendly and willing to share their knowledge. The weak link is our language ability. We’re working on it. Meanwhile, we’ll be getting some bánh chưng soon.
How to make bánh chưng Tet rice cakes
ra vao đơng cưa
While sitting in this sweet restaurant, it occurs to us that the only writing we recognize are the numbers on the clock face. We’ve been here in Truc Bach a week now. (Yes, it feels longer.) Our daily life rotates between the inside of our quiet, peaceful, little apartment and outside in what sometimes seems like a non-stop noisy frat party that’s spilled out onto the streets. Doug likens it to being on acid out there. (Ummmm…) Our needs right now are simple. How to go out and find the one thing we need for the day, how to ask for it, and how much to pay for it. We’re gleeful when it works, and shrug it off when it doesn’t. There’s always tomorrow.
For dinner tonight we decided to just walk in somewhere nearby and order without prepping ourselves. Like the olden days in Seattle. We must’ve retained some language this week, right? We think we’ve found a place. From the outside, it’s sometimes difficult to tell if we’ll be walking into a restaurant or into someone’s private living room. Everything is intermingled. From the outside there are signs (which we can’t decipher yet) and scooters parked everywhere. Signage is common. Some are valid, some are old. We figure if it’s someone’s living room they’ll yell at us and we’ll quickly and graciously back out, saying “rất xin lỗi. So very sorry.
Our first hurdle is this sign on the door. ra van đơng cưa. Does it say “stay out, private party” or “come on in” or “leave your pets outside” or “beth and doug don’t you dare come in here” ? We walk in and stand there. A big table of people turn to stare at us, and no one returns our smiles. Not even the children. They all go back to their loud family dinner. We smile at the woman in the kitchen sitting on a tiny red plastic stool washing the dishes in a plastic tub on the floor, hoping she’ll usher someone out to help us. She doesn’t smile either. A little panic starts to well up. Is it a restaurant? We think so. There seem to be a lot of tables. Then a petite teenager comes out with 2 menus. Yay! They’ll let us stay. The sign must not say “private party”.
We look at the menu, and we look at the chalkboard, and the waiter looks at us. (You can see where this is going.) She asks us something and points at the chalkboard. Uh…hai bia. 2 beers. While she goes to get them, we confer and try to find a few words that are familiar. Thịt bò. Beef. Rau. Vegetable. She delivers the beers and we point at 2 dishes. She nods and waits. It seems like enough but why isn’t she leaving? “Enough?” I ask, then decide to be more clear. “Good.” Then “cảm ơn”. Thank you.
Whew.
In a very short time, she brings the 2 dishes we ordered. Sautéed beef with morning glory, and vegetable soup with rice noodles. Haha, didn’t know we ordered soup. Then steamed rice and a little fishy sauce. Perfect. And delicious.
We’ve learned that once seated, we can stay as long as we want. No one will bring the check until called for. Ever. There’s no pressure to hurry whatsoever. It’s becoming very comfortable. I know that once we have a few more words, the beginning part of this story won’t be repeated quite so much. In the meantime, we will continue to review the words on the chalkboard and hope to retain some of them for next time. At home, we sorted out what some of it said: Today. Fried frog legs. Stir-fried perch. Beef and rice. Crab hot pot. Kohlrabi and something. A spring roll of some sort. Some of it remains undecipherable. Blackberries and garlic. What? Arcade center? Bargain? Dad?
And finally, the sign on the door. Close door when coming in or out.
160 Trấn Vũ
We’ve moved. We’re still in Hà Nội, along with 7 million other folks. It’s been the capital of Vietnam since the 7th century. From the outside, it looks like a jumble of chaos, noise and modern sophistication. We know it’s much, much more than that.
Our home for the next 3 months is a studio apartment on a lake. Hồ Trùc Bạch. (Sounds like “chuck bok”). We have the 2nd floor of the 5 floor building. That is our balcony with the blue and white striped awning. It’s an airy, spacious, high-ceilinged room. Comfortable.
Looking across the street:
Looking south:
We’re getting settled in and acclimated. Today we looked for and found some useful things. A shower curtain. A kitchen knife. Real honey. We even found baking soda and vinegar, my hair cleaning regime for the past 2 years, a’la the ShamPhree method. It’s the little things, right?
During the day, we duck and dive our way through the twisting streets. At night we play fiddle, then study the language. People have been kind and helpful as we practice our new words. We’ve found a cooking school and will soon suss out language courses. We’re part-time tourists, part-time job seekers, and full-time explorers here in the City of the Soaring Dragon.
Can’t forget dinner… cõm tấm sũờm (broken rice with pork chop), nộm xoài banh (green papaya salad) and bia hà nội.
lunch
The best way to get better at wordpress is to post, right? So here’s a few photos from today’s excursion. We found a SIM card, noodles (pictured before the condiments came out), and other delights, including little pineapples that you can eat like corn on the cob.
We have an elementary school right behind our little studio.
No escaping Disney.
Hello, Hanoi
After hours of help from friends and family (thanks!) the house got packed and we were delivered to the airport. 20-some hours later, we made it. Our studio is a block away from Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum, a revered and busy site, in the Ba Dinh neighborhood. It’s a place of non-stop movement and noise, beeping and barking. We have figured out how to cross a street that is full of scooters and cars and bikes all in perpetual motion. Lights exist but appear to be suggestive only. We’ve navigated some alleys and dined on satisfying unknown street food.
We saw a griddle, a big pot and some little bowls of things, with this sign on the wall, and were ushered in by a friendly young woman. We needed breakfast. It turned out to be super thin rolled up rice pancakes with a savory filling of pork and mushrooms (ba ̉nh cuổn) and chicken soup (ga ̉ tân). Herbs, limes, chilis and sliced pickled garlic were added.
Tomorrow we will do it all again.