Get lost in Hanoi

Found a mini-hotel in the Old Quarter north of the lake. Its $8, nothing special and typically above a tourist office. So, a new city, a new map. We walked for hours last night desperately looking for a bite to eat. We didn't want street food, we wanted a restuarant or a bar cause we really needed a beer. Its quite a difficult city, restuarants close early and bars are hard to find. There is plenty of street food on offer, long donut things, giant steamed buns, mini sausages and random rubberly chicken parts being charred over a flame, and even a kabab man! Mmmm kebab man.....

The Old Quarter is very conjested. There are shops just 2 meters wide that have been selling the same produce for 5 generations. Apparently the taxes where so high for shop front that they cut their shops in half. the smaller the width of the shop the smaller the tax. They call them tube houses, they can sometimes be one block deep.

After trekking the city for a beer and a small bite to eat we settled on a small plastic chair place next to the flower markets. No menu and no english and with no Vietnamese and alot of pointing we were served little clams in a lemongrass ginger stock. We were given little side dishes of shrimp salt, fresh chilli, ginger and garlic and tiny limes with the tops cut off. Didn't know we were supposed to squirt the lime into the other spices to make a quick sauce. The chef was quick to show us, everything had to be right. They armed us with plastic gloves, the same ones you use to dye your hair with, and we went mad peeling our bbq'd prawns.

Hanoi is the easiest city to get lost in making it the hardest city to find your way around. Its bloody frustrating, thats what it is! Every street changes its name on every corner, one long street could change its name 5 times and to make thing harder all the street names start with Hung! So, we spent the rest of the night getting lost around the streets before heading home. We found a steamed bun lady, she puts quail eggs inside, thats the shit, but we probably wont remember where she is. Most streets have their own merchandice themes, a shoe street, a jewellery street, a toy street and even a kareoke street. We tried looking for bars recommended in the Roughguide. Cant believe some of their recomendations! Crappy, festy bars where I wouldn't let my dog eat. One was right on the outskirts of town next to the smoggy highway. Yeah, kick back on the balcony and suck in all those fumes!

Its Friday night and the markets are on, I was lucky enough to find a pair of Amarni sunglasses. I tried to barter them down, the guy says "But they're Amarni"......I got them for $4 US. There were heaps of little pokemon type things and jewellery, it was mainly a tourist market and we became bored.

We found a bar overlooking the lake where we had a couple Vodkas. We asked some random guy where there was somewhere good to go for a drink. He turned out to be the owner (opps) anyway, he told to go to 'Salace' nightclub which opens at 1.30 but its a bit of a trip across town, but everyone goes there. It was still only 11.30. I dont know what happened between 11.30 and 1.30 but the next thing I know we are at Solace dancing to OK music put on by a crap DJ. Solace turned out to be a boat moored on the river and has that same tacky feel about it like the pubs on the Thames except for the endless hordes of stag nights. The Vodka was expensive but it was free to get in. I dont know how we survived that long, we were having a great time....5am and we are fanging along on the back of a moto through the desolate city back to our hotel room.