Hanoi - December 3

I   believe it   is  Thursday,   December 3, but I'd not bet my life on it.  The plan was to meet for breakfast at 9:30 (sounds late, but hey, we travelled for 24 hours without sleep, so give us a break).  The  Hanoi Melia hotel has a great breakfast bar meaning that most of the food was recognizable.  After gaining the sustenance we required, it was off to the Hanoi Hilton the  notorious prison in which American pilots, including Senator McCain, were imprisoned.  Actually, the Hoa Lo Prison was built by the French colonialists in 1896 to hold thousands of Vietnames patriotic and revolutionary fighters.  Imagine, by the time our fighters were housed there, the Vietnamese people had suffered over 70 years of French rule and inhumane treatment.   Is it any wonder that they would be so cruel to yet another set of fighters hoping to disrupt the plans they had for their own country.  I left the prison confused and sad about man's inhumanity to man.  I'm not sure why we lost over 65,000 of our people to fight for who could control another country.  I guess I just don't understand colonialism.

Next stop was the Museum of Literature.  Not sure what the names means because it appeared to be a university and we were there on what also appeared to be graduation day.  The graudates threw their mortar boards in the air, very reminiscent of graduation at say the Naval Academy.  What was noticably different, however, was the lovely Vietnames girls in their equally lovely ao dai AO DAI.  I wish I could put a photo in this blog to show these lovely outfits, but can't figure out how to do it on my iPad.  Drat.

Back to meet our tour guide who took us through the Hanoi market streets.  Each street specialized in a particular product and so the streets were named as such.  So we went through Shoe Street, Fabric Street, and what appeared to be Home Depot Street.  It looks like there is nothing you can't buy in the market.  How about Weasel Coffee?  Really, this is the specialty coffee that gets its name from the process by which it is produced, namely that weasels (the animals, yes) injest coffee beans then poop (that's the scientific name) said beans out their other end.  Thus far, we've not tried any.  We also saw fruit JACK FRUIT that makes it's way through the body odiferously and is thus banned from office workers' breakfasts.  Turtles and frogs in cages ready to be cooked, but thank god no dogs!  I don't think I could have taken that.

We were very lucky also that Pam has a friend who lives here!  Farris has been in Vietnam about four months.  He is a deadringer for Jimmy Fallon, except maybe more handsome.  He served us champagne and a variety of Vietnamese fruits at his beautiful apartment overlooking the city.  Next stop was an outdoor restaurant that was fantastic.  The concept was great:  gather together all of the very best street food vendors under one roof, put together a huge menu of all of their best offerings, add in waiters, let the patrons order the various items, and the waiters gather them up.  What a treat.  Not sure what we ate, but I loved what Farris called the Dunkin Donuts - soft round rolls with some kind of meat mixture in the middle and just a little bit sweet.  The big surprise was that for six of us including two beers or two glasses of wine each the bill was only a little more than a MILLION Vietnamese dong!   Really, only $59.00  Quon an Dong come here next time you are in Hanoi.

The reason the price was such a surprise is the difference in cost from within the hotel and the outside.  Hotel:  $8 for a beer.  Outside:  3 beer for $1.00    As my dear old dad likes to say (jokingly) "I wonder what the poor people are doing?"  Hopefully, we will learn how to order beer and wine outside.