Hanoi

is a city the way cities were meant to be: they eat strangers. It smells of charcoal and burning money. We walk in the streets with the mopeds, buses and cars now. It's amazingly clean even while women hack the nails off of pigs' feet and eels squirm in their plastic bowls. Hanoi howls and honks. It's life lived on the sidewalk. The bolts of silk and bags of buttons, zippers, sheet metal furnaces, steel pipe, silk lanterns, wrapped reams of paper, embossed invitations, candy offerings formed like flowers, three foot talk candles, all spill out onto the sidewalk. There are no lines to draw or drive between here. It's woven movement. There's chicken soup and there's charcoal braziers. Roosters run beneath the grills. You look into a doorway and see someone's bed. The brick pavement has collapsed into holes, or heaved itself with the roots of the banyan tree. There's cigarette smoke and incense. They paint their gods blue here.

We arrived here on Tuesday afternoon just fine. Our guide, Thinh Thi Le, met us at the airport. Seattle to Taipei was a 13 hour flight, then we had a 3 hour lay over. We have pictures of the Taipei airport, including the "Hello Kitty" gate. The drive into the city was uneventful, until we hit the Old Quarter. The traffic is stunning. No one stops at the red light to wait for the green in this district. Mopeds come at you down "one-way" streets. Everyone merges on a right had turn.

After we unpacked, we decided to go for a small walk to find a restaurant recommended by everyone & the guide-books. It was supposed to be "right" out of the hotel, then take a left. We found the restaurant four clover-leaf's later. We walked for nearly two hours to make the four blocks it should have taken us. The streets change their names from one shop to the next. We decided to try to follow the map, again, back to the hotel before it got dark. We should have left bread crumbs for all the good the map did us. We wandered the streets parallel & perpidicular to the one which has our hotel on it. We walked back to the restaurant for fried fish. It only took half -again the time this third trip. After dinner, we knew to keep walking when we passed the hardware street. You can build a house with what you find on the sidewalk.

We've begun to take pictures of our food, but this first night we forgot. We had the fried fish at Cha ca La Vong. They have little hot plates set at the tables. The front part of the restaurant, the part straight off the side walk, is where you pull your motorbike in. That's also where they keep their coolers. The restaurant has its whole front wall made out of glass, but this isn't a glamorous joint, it's to keep the air conditioning in. There were a few tables. We sat down at one next across from a family of six. They brought out a small skillet with the fish. They brought out a bowl of dill, a bowl of onion & cilantro, a plate of rice vermicelli, one of peanuts, one of thai peppers and a bowl of dipping sauce. They heated the skillet with the fish & oil & then placed a goodly amount in with the fish. In an empty bowl, you place a good grab of vermicelli, then put some of the onion & cilantro, peanuts, & pepper in it. Then you grab the cooked dill & fish & put that in the bowl. Then you pour the sauce over all. We don't know what the sauce was made of, but it was grey & had a frothy skin of some kind of on the top. It was more on the sweet than on the savory side. This is the only dish they serve at Cha Ca La Vong. Tast-eeee...

We walked back to the hotel through a dark Hanoi. Light flickers red because of the charcoal braziers at night on the street. I walked back to the hotel in a daze, holding on to David for balance I was so tired. There's no even pavement, or if you think there is, the next step will prove you wrong, or you run out of sidewalk & have to walk back into the street.

Yesterday Thinh took us for a walking tour through the old quarters. Once Dave & I figure out how to hook up the usb to the camera we'll try to upload pictures - or maybe those will just have to wait until we get back. We walked through the markets with someone who knew how to find our way home. We gave in to the smells, the sights, everything which was strange. We ate sugar cane from a woman who hacked the bark off with a ancient steel cleaver. The cleaver didn't gleam, it was black and she wielded it in sure strokes down the stem. Then when the stem was bare, she started shearing it into sections - her fingernails were black, but her fingers knew exactly how to move across the branch. She split the sections into half. I ate my first cane and it was clean and only a little sweet. It killed my thirst without sticking to my throat.

Thinh took us for Bun Cha - a specialty of Hanoi. This is pork grilled over one of the charcoal braziers. We walked up stairs to the private quarters of the family. Additional tables had been added, but they cleared the family table for us. Dave got pictures of this meal. It starts out like a bowl of pho with plates of vegetables around. You put your pork in the broth, add the vermicelli, a little bit of fish sauce, et viola - bun cha! Amazing pork. We've never had anything like this. I think it was marinated for at least a year it was so tender. The broth was dark and rich without being thick. It had a generous amount of pepper.

Dinner was at au Lac in the French Quarter. We took cyclos across the town - $3 and the fat lady sang. It was the perfect pace, but yes, we were riding in the front of a bicycle through metropolitan traffic. Remember: red lights do not mean "stop," they mean - get the hell merged before the bus eats the bicycle. We tapped the bus once or twice. Motorbikes flew around us like raindrops down a windshield. Hanoi is a beautiful city at night.

Pictures next time - hopefully!