The Capitol!

From all of the other people we'd talking to, it seems like people either like Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh and dislike the other. It's strangely polarizing. I liked Ho Chi Minh, so I was excited to get to Hanoi and see what I thought.

Turns out I like both. I think if I had to choose, Hanoi might win out simply because it felt like the touristy area was more a part of the city, not its own little bubble created to please tourists. The street our hostel was on had tons of people selling vegetables, butchering eels, and carrying fruit. While some streets had more tourists than others, it felt like a bit more of a cohesive city not "tourists go here, locals go here."

It was also in Hanoi that I realized I've gotten a lot less squeamish than when I left. Big pieces of pork and some pigs feet. Oh hey there dead de-feathered chickens. Or even better: hey look, that guy has a big bag of frogs and he's currently slicing up turtle shells. Oh look, turtle heads on the ground. Oh boy. At least the Vietnamese markets don't have the flies and the smells that accompanied many of the Cambodian markets.

Don't look to hard if you're squeamish.

This was a really nice city to just wander around in while doing errands. It's a pretty good place to do shopping if there are things that you know you need before embarking to a country like Laos. I picked up my malaria meds here and found a place to get my nose pierced. I know that may sound sketchy, but this place really wasn't.

We also ate pho at the best place in the city and tried egg coffee. It sounds weird, I know. But it was so good! Its like having a rich meringue or frosting in your coffee. They sweeten it with condensed milk and froth up an egg. It's the most substantial coffee I've ever had.

I had a bit of bad luck going to see Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum. I saved my museum day for one of my last days, only to find out that they take the last entry at 10:15am. Swing and a miss. Instead I went to go see a Women's Museum that had some pretty interesting exhibits about everything from the women in wars to marriage traditions to clothes of various ethnic minorities to the worship of the Mother Goddess. I don't know much about the Mother Goddess, but its the first mention I've heard of it as a religion in SE Asia.

Cheyenne and I took a cooking class at a little restaurant about a ten minute walk from our hostel. For $25, we got a tour of the market to buy some of our stuff for the class. We made papaya salad, spring rolls, fried eggplant, five-spiced chicken, and fried whitefish. And then we tried to eat it all. So good. Hopefully I can replicate this at home. I'm seriously going to miss the Vietnamese food.

Two of us tried to eat as much of that as possible.

Hanoi was full of all sorts of really awesome finds. My roommate at the hostel told us about this little french movie theater called Le Cinematique that was playing all of the Oscar nominated films. Not exactly a Vietnamese thing, but The Grand Budapest Hotel and Gone Girl were both great in incredibly different ways.

For some reason, wedding couples like to get their pictures taken in front of the fanciest mall.

After coming from such a backpacker-y hostel in Phong Na, we opted for a Vietnamese-family-run place. They were incredibly helpful and also had a hilarious 19-month-old boy. Some of my friends had the pleasure of getting to meet him when he joined in our Skype date. He really loved all the filters and showing off the English that he knows: "Hello, bye bye, good night, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8910!" He also had a balloon and figured out pretty quickly that he could make a game out of letting it go and recruiting an adult to lift him up to get it. I felt a bit bad because when I got up to get some coffee, he came up and smacked my bum. It was surprising and hilarious. But I don't think his parents thought it was too funny, and he got in a bit of trouble. I felt bad, but I guess they want to make sure that's not how he greets new guests or something. When he came back out he was sulking. Luckily I got a smile and a wave from him before we left so I don't think there were any hard feelings.