Day 2

Up at 6am. My room has no windows (well it does but it's against another building) but hell it's Asia and it's Hanoi and it's a sweet little cozy room in a pretty cool hotel so there. I do have a flat screen tv but the media filters make it interesting. Pho for breakfast (everyday). It's really good at the hotel I think because it's all they make...

First things first, I head to the Temple. I had a specific offering to make and didn't want to forget it.

(there is both temple and pagoda here)

Head out to my first foray into the Old Quarter and without a map, I spend most of it lost but it's the Old Quarter, a monkey could draw a map of it. Not big, just lots of little crossing alleys. I like it though. Kinda like Paris, kinda like nothing I've ever seen. I smell a LOT of Nouc Mom. and bread and pho and chocolate and coffee. yum. I played it safe for the first purchased meal and went to Highland's Coffee, partially to get my bearings and particaly bc everyone said I'd get sick from the food at some point. That didn't happen. Not even close. Just because it's not American Sterile doesn't mean its dirty enough to outsmart the billions of good bacteria in the human intestines. Note to all, eat the food, eat it up. It's good, and if you get sick it's because you're a filthy animal, not anything to do with the delicious food cooked on a sidewalk.

I get back to my room and wash my feet, then wash the shower. dirt.tay. The little tiny kittens are so cute but I don't think they are very good hunters. Leave it at that. I am beat and take a 3 hour nap. When I wake up I head back to the Old Quarter area for the Water Puppet Theatre which comes highly recommended, and which I missed. So I go to the Tamarind Cafe instead for a beer and some food and literature. Because it caters to westerners, the prices are higher, like instead of $1 for a meal, it's $2. Assholes. Wander around and eventually head back to the hotel (it's a bit of a hike to my hotel). Decided that I wanted to get to Ha Long Bay sooner than later and book through the hotel, which uses Sinh Cafe..it's decent. The cooks on the boats are AMAZING, but overall it's not for jetsetters and people without backpacks. I get hooked up with Chia at the hotel and we decide we'll room together to save a bit of money but really it's more fun together. I head back up to my room to crash again, as the wake up call will be EARLY the next day. It doesn't matter though, I'm up at 4 starving to death. Ok no obviously not to death...to know me is to know that I'm not in danger of wasting away and time soon. Tick tock, 4:01AM, still hungry.