Birds Flyin' High...: Back in Hanoi...

The sleeper train arrived back into Hanoi at 4:30am. The first light of day was just creeping in and the city was coming to life. Street vendors on bicycles were delivering fresh market fruit and vegetables to the local restaurants. Women were setting up their street food stalls and preparing breakfast noodles for the first stream of customers.

After a quick shower we took a walk back to Hoan Kiem lake as we'd read that the local people gather to do Tai Chi there early each morning. There were also many others doing a communal stretching routine, with instructions being called out over the tannoy system around the park.

Tai Chi by the lake, at 6am

At 7am we headed to a local restaurant for a bowl of steaming hot Pho Bo (beef noodle soup): breakfast of champions!

There's nothing like a good beef soup for breakfast!

After breakfast and a quick iced coffee stop, we finally made it to the Temple of Literature. This 11th century temple is also Vietnam's first national university. When we visited there was some sort of school graduation ceremony taking place, which was quite interesting to watch (even though we didn't really have a clue what was going on!).

We then went for one last, long lunch before it was time for Annick to leave for the airport, and I found myself back on my own!

Graduation photos at the Temple of Literature

I took the chance to chill out in Hanoi for a few more days before moving on: I needed to rest for a bit, and I also had some serious blogging to catch up on!

On the first morning I did walk over to Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum to see the embalmed body of "Uncle Ho", who helped Vietnam towards independence and eventual reunification. It was one of those occasions where you snake around the whole big complex in a long line for 15 minutes, and are then in and out of the room itself in 15 seconds! It was quite a surreal experience to see him lying there - I felt like I was looking at a waxwork model, and I had to remind myself that it was actually a real dead body!

Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum

The next day I indulged in a Street Food Tour run by the Hanoi Cooking Centre. We started with another Pho breakfast (on top of my hotel breakfast of banana pancakes... I'd somehow forgotten that I was going to be eating all morning!) and then visited a local food market. Here, among the usual meat, fish and vegetables, you could also pick up chicken ovaries, duck embryos, congealed blood and silk worms! Mmmmmm!

Food shopping by motorbike

Silk worm anyone?

Fish and eels

We then visited four more street food stalls and sampled the Vietnamese specialities of Banh Cuon (steamed rice crepes), Banh Xeo (sizzling crepe with shrimp and pork), Banh Goi (a bit like a pasty), Bun Cha (grilled pork and noodles) and Chè (sweet dessert with beans, tapioca, jelly etc). We then rounded it all off in one of Hanoi's oldest cafés with yet another iced coffee. A thoroughly enjoyable way to spend a morning!

Tucking in to some Banh Xeo

Chè

On my final day in Hanoi I went to visit a rural community in the Hoa Binh province (around 70km from Hanoi). The tour was organised by Bloom Microventures, a UK-registered charity which uses the tour fees to provide micro-finance to the villagers we were to meet. I really love this concept but unfortunately the tour wasn't executed that well. Firstly we visited Mrs Nguyen, who would be using a loan provided by our tour fees to buy 15 ducks for breeding. That part was interesting: we had tea in her house and met her family. However after this we were meant to go and observe some more agricultural activities and meet the community leaders, but since everyone was needed in the fields for the rice planting, all other work was at a stand-still. The tour guides didn't seem to have a back-up plan so we spent a lot of time just sitting around, and it was an extremely hot day again. Still, it was certainly a very "off the beaten track" experience!