We had a great first day in Hanoi. I love this country. Granted, it's probably only because I'm here as a tourist for a limited time. Whatever. The food has been delicious, the shopping good, and the people friendly.
HCMC was a more chill place than Hanoi, I think, but the traffic was definitely more hectic there than here.
We spent our day wandering around the Old Quarter. We got an excellent (free!) city guide at the airport today, which included maps, a list of which streets sell which products (as in, shoe street, bag street, handicrafts, jewelry, lacquerware, fake Adidas... the list goes on and on), and a guide to street food, including pictures! I wish we had one for Bangkok.
We had an overpriced, mediocre lunch, followed by a stroll around the city. We walked around Hoan Kiem lake, took photos, poked around a Catholic cathedral, and went to an ice cream place listed in our magic book.
The place was packed with locals (and their motorbikes), and the most popular flavor of ice cream bar seemed to be "green." We decided to go with it.
It had a wonderful, creamy texture and the flavor was a combination of something like coconut, sunscreen scent, shea butter, and corn. Sounds awful, but it was strangely delicious. We're going back tomorrow for seconds.
Street restaurants here feature low, low tables and tiny, kid-sized stools to sit on. It's not the most comfortable way to eat, but we had some delicious fried rice and baked shrimp for about $1.60 each. Did I mention that I love the food in southeast Asia?
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