Hanoi Rocks... (sort of)...Day One

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

The sun was already setting as we flew into Hanoi. We were NOT eagerly anticipating our arrival as we knew we would have to negotiate a taxi ride into the city. We also had heard about how unfriendly people in the north were compared to the south (might have something to do with how Nixon's regime threatened to bomb them "back to the Stone Age"). We didn't know how much more wretched treatment we could possibly get judging by how we were treated in Saigon.

Our first omen was a good one -- the taxi system appeared totally legit -- it was extremely easy to figure out and we learned there was a "fixed rate" by the person overseeing the taxi line (much like how it is in NYC).

We had already booked our hotel the night before in the city Old Quarter which we were very excited to be staying in since that seemed like the place where most of the action would be. This meant that all we had to do was take our taxi straight to the hotel, unpack and grab some (hopefully) tasty grub before doing a short exploration of the neighborhood we would be staying in.

During our taxi ride to the Camellia Mini Hotel we noticed that we were indeed going to be staying in a cool area that seemed to have a lot of cafes, cool clothing boutiques and galleries. We also passed an old Catholic Church nearby which we were surprised to see because we thought such a powerful symbol of Colonialism and Western culture would have been destroyed long ago. We would later find out that Hanoi was full of surprises ... and contradictions.

We did not have too much information on Hanoi and most of the tourists we ran into so far (or people we knew in the U.S.) had only experienced Vietnam from a Southern perspective. While it was exciting to be exploring virgin territory we were wary of being overly optimistic after the miserable experience in Saigon.

The Camellia Hotel was described as "my favorite home-away-from home in the Old Quarter" from the sap who wrote about it in the latest Lonely Planet guidebook. Perhaps his standards were askew. We entered this strange building on a street with what looked like permanent road construction and roadblocks all over (despite it being incredibly narrow and -- unbelievably --2 lanes). A large metal security door was poised overhead, the kind you roll down at night when closing. The chap who met us was affable and spoke a bit of English. He showed us to our room at the top of the 2nd floor landing. We decided to move floors right away when we saw how incredibly noisy it was. The center of the hotel was "open air" -- noise and cigarette smoke (every single person in this city smokes) rose and could be experienced by all. Our stay on the 3rd floor would last one night -- never had we heard so much yelling, screaming, honking cars, etc. This place made NYC seem like a quiet country inn. We were too tired and busy to book another hotel so we decided to bite the bullet, move to a slightly quieter (though pretty drab and dirty) room on the 5th floor and make the most of our stay.

We were disappointed that Lonely Planet let us down yet again with such a bizarrely optimistic opinion of an obviously dreary place, but we did find it a good omen that the hotel clerk was so accommodating and, dare we say it, cheerful. Things were looking up for our stay in Hanoi!

As soon as we unpacked our bags and freshened up we decided to head out, explore the neighborhood and find a place to eat. We tried to map out our path to Nha Tho Street where we read about some good restaurants and bars, including a French restaurant called Cafe des Arts (link to a great review). Once we started walking we realized that the streets in the Old Quarter were a lot like the streets in the Latin Quarter of Paris, i.e. confusing to navigate. What seemed like a straightforward path to Bao Khanh Lane ended up taking us on a roundabout journey past the Catholic church (St. Joseph's Cathedral) and a large beautiful lake (Hoan Kiem Lake). We knew we had some great exploring ahead of us for the next day. Laura's normally wonderful navigational skills were failing us and Charles' ever growling stomach was about to force us to throw in the towel and eat at some questionable touristy pizza joint, but we miraculously ended up on Bao Khanh Lane and quickly found Cafe des Arts (link to their French-language website).

Mon Dieu!

We were greeted by the extremely friendly French ex-pat owner of the cafe who seated us. Due to the lateness of the hour, there were only one or two other groups in the place. The restaurant was decorated with posters of jazz musicians and art and had great lighting. We were excited to be there!

Our waitress was a delightful, smiling young Vietnamese woman who we later found out also spoke French. After perusing the menu and realizing that this was not going to be a cheap meal, we settled on two glasses of lovely French wine, escargots and a cheese plate, and followed up with a tasty nougat and butterscotch sauce dessert. Laura thought we would be eating the inside of a Three Musketeers bar, but the nougat was in fact light, fluffy and delicious, and topped off with a artfully sculpted sugar icicle. We learned from our waitress that she was from the countryside, but was going to college and living in Hanoi so she worked two jobs in order to pay the rent. The owner came over to our table toward the end of our meal. We attempted to use some of basic French which we think he appreciated. Charles told him about his French-Canadian roots which he seemed interested in. Of less interest was Charles' story about his French cousin who lived in Hanoi during colonial times. It seems like no French ex-pat we told this story to cared in the slightest! Apparently everyone around the world would prefer to forget the colonial era.

Toward the end of our dinner we realized just how exhausted we were and decided to go back to our hotel and call it a day. As we walked back through the now empty city (yet perpetually smelly) streets, we noticed how much this area reminded us of certain parts of downtown San Francisco. We passed a cute cafe on the way back to the hotel (which we figured would surely have strong, tasty coffee and, hopefully, pain au chocolat) and knew we had our first destination for the following day decided upon.