My last day in Hanoi and a farewell lunch arranged by Hanc and her friend Rachel at a popular Vietnamese restaurant which specialises in traditional cuisine from across the country.
As you can see from the pics, we ordered tons, dishes from the South, sticky rice –oh memories of breakfast on the rooftop terrace in Saigon, rice paper vegetable rolls with egg pancake, famous in Hoi An and Hue, and tofu from the North, with tiny dishes of what tasted like croutons on rice shells, bowls of fish sauce and papaya salad, and for them meat creations beyond description. Washed down with star fruit juice and followed by desert of rice milk tea.
Now that was an experience! I shall miss Hanc and her family and friends, who have welcomed me, a total stranger, into their lives and been so generous with their hospitality.
I shall not miss Hanoi though- now normal life has resumed it is manic here, impossible to function on foot and hard to be a tourist at a time when everyone wants to make money after the break. The oddest scam-looking down to find a man trying to remove my sandal! He insisted it was broken and he a) would mend it or b) get me another pair. I stamped on his hand. I won!
But without Hanc the hassle here is hard to deal with. Ordinary folk are lovely-walking to the west lake in the late afternoon, eating ice cream with families, everyone was smiling, laughing, showing me where to get ‘kem’ (ice cream), moving up to offer me a seat by the waters edge. Among a multitude of memories, the main legacy I shall take away from Vietnam is the sheer kindness and friendliness of the people.
As you can see from the pics, we ordered tons, dishes from the South, sticky rice –oh memories of breakfast on the rooftop terrace in Saigon, rice paper vegetable rolls with egg pancake, famous in Hoi An and Hue, and tofu from the North, with tiny dishes of what tasted like croutons on rice shells, bowls of fish sauce and papaya salad, and for them meat creations beyond description. Washed down with star fruit juice and followed by desert of rice milk tea.
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| Hanc and Rachel |
Now that was an experience! I shall miss Hanc and her family and friends, who have welcomed me, a total stranger, into their lives and been so generous with their hospitality.
I shall not miss Hanoi though- now normal life has resumed it is manic here, impossible to function on foot and hard to be a tourist at a time when everyone wants to make money after the break. The oddest scam-looking down to find a man trying to remove my sandal! He insisted it was broken and he a) would mend it or b) get me another pair. I stamped on his hand. I won!
But without Hanc the hassle here is hard to deal with. Ordinary folk are lovely-walking to the west lake in the late afternoon, eating ice cream with families, everyone was smiling, laughing, showing me where to get ‘kem’ (ice cream), moving up to offer me a seat by the waters edge. Among a multitude of memories, the main legacy I shall take away from Vietnam is the sheer kindness and friendliness of the people.
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