We cruised around the bay for a couple more hours, and had the boat's chef demonstrate some food art for us: a watermelon flower, and a carrot net like what was on the carp last night. The flower in particular was very impressive (I reckon I could manage the net given a few attempts to find my feet).
The carrot net looked easy
At around 10am we got back into port, hopped straight on our bus which pulled up just as we were walking up the pier (the driver is some sort of magician). As we were leaving Ha Long, Ngyuen told us that a typhoon is going to hit Ha Long tomorrow, and all boats will be cancelled. Lucky we got to go when we did, as there would've been no chance to go if our scheduled trip wasn't running!
We stopped off at a pottery workshop on the way back, and whilst a man was showing us how they create their stuff I found out the difference between porcelain and ceramics, 2 words I always thought were interchangable. Apparently not. Porcelain is white, and ceramic is brown. After shopping for a while we got back on the road.
Lunch was taken at a service stop very similar to one we stopped at yesterday, and I opted for a very Vietnamese cheeseburger. To be fair this was the first time on the holiday I'd seen western food (except for the kfc right by our hotel), and I will be eating Vietnamese for the foreseeable future. It came with crisps on the side, which was kinda funny.
We got back to our hotel at about 3, and had just enough time to grab some bread and stuff for tomorrow's breakfast before a street food/walking tour of Hanoi's old quarter. This was optional, and only me, Dave, Belle, Gary, and Jennifer were interested, so we had a few random people join us, and our local guide Sun: a couple from Australia, and a Swiss girl about my age.
The tour was good, as I hadn't had too much of a chance to look round the city (and would probably have got lost if I tried!). First course was bang me (yeah, stupid name), which is like a long, thin, small baguette filled with chilli sauce, mushrooms of a local variety, a few green things, and pork paste (whatever that is). It was very nice.
We then walked around the exterior of the market, where local shops buy wholesale rice, dried bamboo, dried fish, and the like, along with some black market fruit sellers. Apparently the reason all the carts have wheels is so they can run from the police, as it is illegal to sell fruit at the side of the road like they do. This didn't stop Sun from buying a load of rambutans for us from them though. I've tried them before, but this was nicer. I think it might be the illegality giving it some spice.
Next up was a walk along a dark alley with a dead end, and a tattoo parlour. I was convinced this was going to end up with us getting an initiation into street food culture with some commemorative ink, but we were just going to look at an old well, and to see how the locals lived a bit. It was round this time I noticed that I haven't been approached by a single beggar yet this holiday, which is a pleasant surprise!
We walked on towards our next food stop, through mat street, and blacksmith street. All of the roads of the old quarter have names describing what the shops there used to (and often still) all sell/do. Indeed, mat street still sold a lot of mats, and blacksmith street had iron everywhere, and an old man hammering away at an anvil in 35 degree heat, wearing sleeves! Our next course was rice pancakes, filled with beef, some sort of small black beans, the local mushrooms again, and some other stuff I forget. They were delicious, but I made the mistake of trying a bit of fresh chilli on top after Dave said it was 'very nice and not hot at all'. He lied, and I think I actually burnt the roof of my mouth on it. It looked just like a normal chilli all cut up, but it was too powerful!
Next up was a walk along some train tracks, which are still in use, though only 16 trains pass through a day. The locals seem to know the times or something: they had all sorts out on the tracks! More or less straight off the tracks was our main course, barbecued chicken, beef, and squid with pak choi and corn on the cob, all cooked on a hot plate on our 'table', which was a 1 meter diameter metal plate sat on 2 tiny stools. We also had accompanying honey coated bread. We sat on more tiny stools, they weren't even a foot tall! The meat was delicious though, and I was sat round with the Swiss girl, and the Australian couple, who ate probably half the food between the lot of them, which meant much more for me!
Most of the walking was done by now: it wasn't very far to the place for dessert, which was fruit salad. It had dragonfruit, grape, watermelon, mango, apple, bits of water chestnuts covered in jelly (weird I know, but that's what Sun said it was), and my personal favourite, and something I've never even heard of before, drakefruit. All of this was served in condensed milk, which was very sweet, and I couldn't manage all mine thanks to all the meat.
We had one more stop, which was nearby, and something which has simultaneously intrigued and repulsed us all when mentioned at the start: egg coffee. It was served on a terrace a few stories up, with a lovely view over the lake, and it was actually quite nice, though a bit sweet for me. It had a texture like angel delight, and was more like a dessert than a coffee.
We got a taxi back to the hotel, along with the Swiss girl who coincidentally happened to be staying there also, and had about an hour to relax before we got the bus to our overnight sleeper train.
I am expecting carrot net on Monday nights from now on
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