Monat: März 2017

Today was a pretty chilly day. I checked out of my apartment and searched for a hostel where I can stay, luckily the second hostel I went to had a room in the dorm free. It costs 8$ a night and the rooms, beds and toilets are all really clean. The name is “Vietnam Backpackers hostel – Downtown”, they also have hostels all over Vietnam and I think when I’m in a town where there is one of their hostels I’m going again to them. After checking in and booking a trip to the Ha Long Bay, I went out to finally eat something, I got me a watermelon juice and fried tofu. It was the first time for me eating fried tofu and it’s pretty good, it was very soaked in oil and had not very much taste, but with the soysauce it was pretty good, it’s still tofu so you can’t expect that much^^
I met there two guys who live here since a few years now, one American and one British. We talked about living here and stuff and some friends of them came too. After a while some of us decided to go to a café. Later we went then to a bar which one of those guys ownes. It was early afternoon so besides us there were nobody yet there. We heared some music and I showed them some good hip-hop of my country. My mobile was then plugged on the whole time I was there^^ later I met a German couple who are on their honeymoon, they really liked my music and we talked a lot about Vietnam and traveling here, they made the same route I want to do, just the opposite way, they went from South to north and I’m going to travel from North to South. They also told me that Sa Pa is not that beautiful everyone wants to tell me, at least at the moment. The rice season is over so all the fields they praise at the pictures are not green but just brown and that’s what’s the special thing about this place. Intensely I wanted to go there tomorrow with the train, but now I’m thinking of maybe staying another day in Hanoi and then heading south to hue, but let’s see.
I tried with them one of those balloons the strange guys told me the other day. It’s kinda makes you feel a little bit dizzy and tingles in your face. The feeling only lasts about 15 seconds then everything is normal again. I think it’s somehow strange, it was a good experience but it’s nothing I could do the whole time, even while you’re inhaling you taste that it’s probably not good for you, it has a light sweet chemical taste in your mouth. It’s really better if you stay away from that, trying it out is no problem but you shouldn’t do it every time, especially with the risks, frequently consumption causes serious brain damage, so it’s really not that much fun.
After talking a little longer with the German guys I went out to eat something, I’ve got a Vietnamese Doner which really was pretty good and some fried rice with chicken which was also very tasty. Considering I had to get up at about 7:30 am I decided then to go to sleep so I won’t be that tired the next day.

You know what they say about never double dipping while eating Chinese Hot-Pot? Yeah, fuck that in Vietnam^^ I was now two times eating Hot-Pot with some locals and everyone was double dipping all the time 😅🙈
So today in the morning I was on a streetfood-tour with the girl whom I rent the apartment from and she told me a lot of the Vietnamese history while we were eating. It was very interesting, for instance that the capital of Vietnam changed several times over the centuries, sometimes because of a war-based strategy and sometimes just for the feng-shui of the Land.
I ate with her a noodlesoup with marinated porkstripes in it, the soup was a little bit cold because the shop just opened but it was still so freaking tasty! The whole soup was a bit sweet but not that strong and with the chilis I added it had a great balance between sweet and hot. I couldn’t finish it though because it was soo much noodles. You got the mountain of noodles on the side to the soup so you could always add some without overfilling the bowl. Thao, the girl who guided me did not just finished the bowl but she also ate it in such a speed! 😅 But that’s one thing I noticed already while I’m here, everybody is eating very fast and very much. I think they just eat two times a day but I’m not sure on that, I have to research this a bit more.
After the soup (which I forgot to take a picture from 🙈) we went to get a dessert. While we were walking Thao explained to me that those small stands like the one we were are just to specific times there, like the soups which the people eat for breakfast are just until ½ there and then they “close” or better said they put all the small chairs an tables on the side and put out their fireplaces^^ and for the lunch an dinner time it’s the same story.
The dessert I had was a cup full of sweet juice(I think) with lotusseeds, litchi, and jelly in it. It was pretty sweet but the lotusseeds compensated for it. Thao had a hot dessert, sticky rice with pomelo. After the dessert we saw the interior of an old Vietnamese building, which was kept like this for the tourists (0,50$ ticket price). We then drank a egg-coffee, which is simply black coffee with a ton of whipped egg white on top of it^^ and had a great view over a lake.
After making a short stop at the apartment, I went to the literature Temple which is really really beautiful. There are 86 stone panels on which the names of those people stand, who absolved a medicine study to encourage younger people to study as well.
I also was in the Ho Chi Minh Museum which has a loot of text in it. And I visited the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, which can only be seen from the outside, there are always guards in front of it, who watch that nobody crosses the line on the ground.
There I met also some very nice people who talked a little bit with me and then asked if we can meet at the lake of yesterday. When we met there we went to their place, we drove with the motorcycle, which are pretty pricey, one ride from my apartment to their home was just 3800 VND which are about 1,30$.
We went out to eat Hot-Pot (which I also forgot to photograph 🙈) and it was soo delicious! The only problem I had was, that when I said I was full and wanted to make a small break for ½ minutes the were very sad and asked what’s wrong and that I just ate so little. So I had to eat more 😅 After the meal I was so unbelievably full and I just ate the half of what the girls ate, I really don’t know how Vietnamese people just can eat so freaking much without exploding 🙈
Well, in the end it was another really great day in Vietnam, I met some nice people, I ate some nice food and I learned more about the land and it’s culture 🙂
Oh yeah and I drank some sugarcane juice, which tastes awesome! 😍