Tuesday 23 October 2018

Travel Log: Rain-Kissed in Stormy Hanoi (Day 4 & 5)

Previous Day: Day Trip to Trang An

Destination: Hanoi, Vietnam
Duration: 4 Days 4 Night (Aug 29~Sep 02, 2018)

Day 4: The Sound of the Rain needs no Translation

After 2 days of joining planned day excursion, we’d decided to spend our last day in Hanoi by foot to explore the rest of the city. This was the last day we would be exploring the city as we had an early morning flight to Penang tomorrow. We started the day with very light breakfast at hotel before starting our food hunting. 
Just couldn't resist the Baguette!
Our 1st destination was Dream Beans Coffee as it was highly rated in tripadvisor for their coconut coffee & egg coffee. We ordered the 2 products and the owner seemed to be really passionate about it and explained to us on how to drink it. The coconut coffee consisted double shot of espresso with one already with coconut ice cream on top but another shot to be added in on top of the ice cream. The main difference between Dream Beans Coffee and the café we tried last 2 days was the stronger coffee taste. The owner mentioned this was how he wanted to position & differentiate from others. As a non-coffee drinker, I did managed to drink at least some mouth of the coconut coffee before getting ‘drunk’. But I must say that the coconut coffee did taste very refreshing due to the icy coconut ice cream. Hubby had to finish off the remaining 3.5 shots of expresso by his own. Oops…
In Dream Beans Coffee
Coconut Coffee & Egg Coffee
Coconut Coffee after the extra shot of Espresso...
Getting Drunk on Coffee!
After the heavy shot of espresso, we noticed that the famous Banh Cuon Ba Hanh was just like 10 steps away. We couldn’t resisted and walked in to order a set of “Teen’s Choice Combo’ for sharing. The set consisted of 4 rice rolls, 1 omelet with mushroom, 1 lemon glass skewer & a glass of soya milk. The set looked so instagrammable when it was served and it tasted great as well. The rice roll was really silky and melt in your mouth goodness with the mushroom inside added in extra palate. Gosh I wished I’d discovered this earlier!
Banh Cuon Ba Hanh - a  Must-try in Hanoi!!!
Our Teen's Choice Combo - for some reason  we were given 5 rice rolls instead of 4 per written in the menu...
Yummy Rolls!!!
After an overly full stomach, we continued to Hoa Lo Prison to take a look at the living quarters of the POW. The place was really depressing and was smaller than expected. The story there was during ‘peak season’, the POW couldn’t even lay down properly due to the space constraint. Needless to say there was a lot of horror stories on the board which was not for the faint hearted. There was also a guillotine there which made the place even creepier.
Hoa Lo Prison
Scary..
The drain where the prisoners escaped from...
Cannot imagine how to crawl through this...
After leaving the prison, we walked through the French quarter to take some pictures of the Opera House and some other French buildings. It seemed like the road around Hoan Kiem Lake had been closed for either weekend or in preparation of Vietnam National Day which falls on tomorrow. People were setting up stages in the square as well. We took advantage of the closed road to walk freely on the road without having to worry about traffic. We visited the famous Ngoc Son Temple and took more pictures around the lake before departing to Dong Xuan Market. 
Opera House
A Full View of the Opera House

At the French Quarters
At the Square where the celebration is being setup
Another nice French Style building..
Sammy & the Turtle Tower
The Fallen Tree
Entrance to Ngoc Son Temple
The Red Bridge!
Ngoc Son Temple & the Lake
Turtle Tower on my palm!
No Cars Day?
Old Buildings at Old Quarters - look at how narrow they are..
The Old Quarter's Landmark!
We actually walked past the Crab Noodle Soup place (which was closed during the 2 nights we went) and this time it was opened!!! Thank goodness!!! We sat right in front of the stall and ordered 1 bowl of the noodle with fried fritters. It was a tomato soup base so it was really appetizing. The downside was the hot weather which made us sweated a river while eating the hot noodle. Luckily there was a convenience stall nearby where we bought cold Hanoi Beer before we fainted under the sun.
Eating like a Local!!!
Our Crab Noodle Soup!

Another Nice Building at Old Quarter
We finally arrived at Dong Xuan Market after some walk under the hot sun, where is the rain when we needed it? The market had more than 1 level and was packed full of stalls. However, I think the non-stop walking had caught up with us and we actually just sat there without actually exploring the stalls. *facepalm* This was when our jaded lover decided to visit with a vengeance – one might ask which jaded lover? The rain of course! This time the scorned weather brought us torrential rainfall so we took the opportunity to continue sitting inside Dong Xuan market. Well, this was definitely the classic example of be careful of what you wished for! =P
The Famous Dong Xuan Market
Resting during the Rain...
Once the rain turned gentle, we walked to Serein Café which had a fantastic view overlooking the Long Bien Bridge. The bridge was designed by French Architect Gustave Eiffel of Eiffel Tower fame. There was also a stretch of mosaic wall in the area which was finished in 2010 to commemorate the Millennial Anniversary of Hanoi. We sat at the covered balcony with some soda & margarita overlooking the bridge. We also saw some brave souls finding an opening at the railroad gate on the bridge to get inside to take pictures. Before we left the café, we went to the rooftop which was closed initially due to the rain to take more pictures.
Found Serein Cafe
Happy Family!
Let's have some Margarita while we are at it!
A View from the Rooftop
With some alcohol in our brain, we walked towards the bridge and found that small opening of the railroad as well. Well, my advice was DO NOT TRY THIS!! At least go read the train schedule 1st before doing this. The schedule was right at the train station on the way to the bridge. We quickly took few pictures and jumped out of the railroad – the process took less than 5minutes as we did not want to risk our life further even in our alcohol-fuel mind. We continued to walk towards the middle of the bridge on the pedestrian lane to take picture of the muddy Red River. One thing we noticed was the motorcycles there were absolutely crazy on the bridge as a lot of them were driving on opposite direction and they did not care about it at all and horned all the way. Seriously!
This is Forbidden!!!
The Mosaic Wall - too lazy to walk down there to take a closer picture though..
The Bridge & the Red River
The Train Station!
The Train that went through the Bridge!!!!
We finally made our long walk back to our hotel after a long long day. However the journey was distracted by the street foods – it was as if we hadn’t had our tummy full to the brink. We bought the meat skewer from the roadside stall and had some dessert thingie in the front of the shop since we saw lots of locals eating that. The skewer was quite hard to bite but the dessert was quite refreshing with milky taste. I think it was quite similar to the Thai dessert – tub tim krob. One could even requested to add Durian inside that dessert.
The Skewers Stall
Got our Dessert as well!
Refreshing!!!
We made another detour again to the famous Banh Mi 25 as it was just on the way back to our hotel. We ordered the mixed banh mi and an egg & pate banh mi. I must say I was not disappointed as their Banh Mi was indeed delicious and packed full of flavors. It was definitely on par with An Café’s - the main differentiator was An Café had fried shallots on the banh mi. So if you are not a fan of fried shallots, Banh Mi 25 is the one for you!
More Banh Mi!!!
Yummy Yummy!!!
Our tummy almost burst after the non-stop eating but hb decided to make another detour to another dessert shop! OMG!! I think the shop is called che ba thin and hb ordered this sticky rice thing with thick ginger broth and a sweet drinks with tons of ingredients in it with coconut flakes topping. The shop was packed full of locals and we had to make our order by pointing at what the local was eating there since the menu was in Vietnamese. I liked the drink since it was revitalizing but the sticky rice and the ingredients inside the drinks were definitely not my cup of tea.
Yet another Dessert Shop!!!
Vietnamese Traditional Dessert!
We finally reached the hotel by 8pm and we could hardly move anymore. We kept hearing horning during the night no doubt due to the national day celebration but we were too old to join the party anymore. We had an early flight tomorrow and had to leave the hotel by 6.30am.
Can't feel my legs anymore
Last Night at Hotel
Sammy getting Attacked!!!
On the Nose!!!
Day 5: The Best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it Rain

We had an early checkout from the hotel at 6.15am. Our booked car from klook called the hotel and told us to walk outside to the left to meet the driver. However, it seemed like the hotel mixed up and escorted us to walk to the right instead! We were waiting there for a while before decided to walk back to the hotel to re-confirm before seeing the driver waiting at the left junction. *facepalm* We finally arrived at the airport and the immigration and scanning queue was really long. At the end we had to rush to the gate without having a chance to browse the shops in the airport.
Time to go back to Reality...
Run Forest Run!!!
The flight was quite empty so we got to take the whole row for ourselves. Yay! The flight departed & arrived in Penang on time. Little did we know that torrential rain had followed us back to Penang! There were even floods in the Bayan Lepas area…
Sammy has his own seat!!!
Goodbye Hanoi...
We will miss you!!!
All in all, a trip to Hanoi in the rain? Why not? There's just something romantic about a walk in the rain especially in a city full of French architectures. Not to mention the surprises and advantages one may face traveling in a ‘bad timing’. Other than beautiful architectures and landscape, Hanoi also offers lots of mouth-watering local cuisines to warm your tummy in a cold wet day. The memory of rain-kissed Hanoi will definitely imprint into our heart.

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