p0nderosa: Vietnam - Hanoi

After the traumatic massage, we had dinner, or perhaps more like dinners. We weren't really sure where to go and ended up at City View Cafe overlooking Hoan Kiem Lake. The menu didn't look that enticing so we just ordered cocktails and some hanoi spring rolls and decided we would try somewhere else. But damn - they were the best spring rolls I have ever eaten, and that apparently I will EVER eat because I can't find similar ones anywhere else. When in hanoi - eat as many spring rolls as possible, the hanoi-style is the best!

View from City View Cafe - look at the smog!

On we headed to our second dinner destination, we thought we would try Green Tangerine for a bit of a treat. Dinner here was quite pricey at 399,000VND each and I am not sure if it was really worth that, the best parts of the meal were the traditional vietnamese street foods, not the attempts at french fusion.

The next day we got up early. We were due to be picked up at 8.00 for our trip to Halong Bay and still had to fit in a walk around Hoan Kiem Lake. A walk around the lake is a must-do as it seems almost all the locals head down early and practice tai chi. We had a great time walking around and checking out all the different tai chi groups. It seemed that each group had its own style and would try to out-do all the other groups on offer to get as many people as possible to join in. There would be small groups with a leader demonstrating each move, bigger groups with loudspeakers, even bigger groups with loudspeakers and boom boxes and the biggest group of all was under the statue of Le Thai To practically dancing to pop music.