I don’t know how we managed it but we appeared to both pull up reasonably well after only a four hour turn around from the proceedings which had originated the day before this one, in a city and country foreign to the current place and time. Somehow we were seated at the Hanoi Elegance 3 breakfast table by 8am, Jet carving it up Kelly Slater fashion, a good ‘ole Hanoi style omelette, whilst I got my ‘grease on’ with a gravy beef baguette. I mean it sounds a little ‘down and dirty’ but it was just what I needed after consuming 20 or so spring rolls fours hours earlier on the back of litres of Halida, Hanoi’s finest brew.
It was all fairly relaxed and mid tempo for most of the day. Jet had himself a mission to pick up some knee length socks, which of course could not be found, outside of there being twenty or so potential offers to sell him stockings. We also purchased more than $1,000,000 worth of potential copyright infringement fines by spending approximately $10 on ripped CD’s, but hey, as the Village People use to say, ‘You can’t stop the music!’, and then after cruising through the Old Quarter for most of the morning we revisited our own Hanoi field of dreams from the night before. Steps were retraced, images drawn from the haze of alcoholic confusion and then a consensus made that perhaps stopping in at a bar called the ‘Hair of the Dog’ might just be the valuable tonic needed to prop us up for another day in the capital.
Hair of the Dog - Hanoi - Vietnam
Disappointingly we were quite rational about our selection and downed several caffeine boosters with sweetened condensed milk in order to get our hearts a racin’, and admittedly it kind of worked for a while, well, until such time as the omnipresent cyclo riders finally won the war they had been waging with our stoic senses, your heroes on the streets succumbing to their incessant requests for cyclo tours around the Old Quarter…and yeah, it was cruisy – a nice glide through the traffic which allowed us to just absorb the pace at which this place operates.
Taking a spin around the Old Quarter - Hanoi - Vietnam
After finding ourselves at the top of Hoan Kiem lake post cycle escapade we walked down the western side, Jet making it his mission to find himself a red tie to accentuate the black shorts, shirt and shoes outfit that he had going. Our adventures for the day however had morphed into a concerted search for caffeine, caffeine and more of it the farther we travelled. Late in the afternoon we stopped in at a place called the Fast Food café for another Vietnamese brew. A totally non-descript place, not famous for anything that we knew of and definitely not mentioned in any Lonely Planet guide, this place,as far as the Hanoi café scene went was a pure vanilla option. So Jet ordered himself some type of local soup because he’s hanging out for one, I just hung back a little and decided to go with the single coffee option. Jet at this point decides that he wants one also and in turn the coffee’s are delivered to our table at the same time, both placed closer to the centre of the table that to the edge. Now both Jet and I vague out a little and escape into own head space for a while, just taking in the surrounds and contemplating the last few days in our own way. Then out of my periphery vision I see Jets’ coffee slide a good 10cms across the table towards him, it wasn’t touched, the table wasn’t bumped, in my mind there was no clear explanation for how it happened. A moment after the event however my mind kind of dismisses it, I’m not sure as to why. It wasn’t until a few minutes later that Jet asked me as to whether I’d seen the event and I confirmed that I indeed had. We checked the table for potential slants, slippery surfaces, magnets, pranksters, Ashton Kutcher, but nothing! There wasn’t any logical reason that we could attribute to what we had both witnessed, a full cup of coffee just moved, no assistance at all. There was some trippy poltergeist business going on there!
Recovering from our own private universe of a Ripley’s Believe It or Not induced head spin, we travelled back to a famous lakeside institution, Fanny’s ice creamery for a little bit of Vietnamese sweetness. This place was gooood, gooood! The flavours were outstanding and man those coffees, the best that I’ve ever encountered in Vietnam, which in turns meant that they’re the best I’d had anywhere. Of course Jet had already acquired a fan club before we’d even taken a seat and by the time our desserts had hit the table he’d already mentally ‘smashed’ three or four of the young waitresses that were offering some decent customer service to him, yeah, it was the rock star thing again! Seriously, it really felt like I didn’t exist. I was having conversations with my good self anytime Frichot was around and engaged in any sort of dialogue with another person, *sigh*. In any case Fanny’s was damn good and we made ourselves a promise to return one night prior to leaving, on this night however we needed to be making preparations for what we both knew was going to be another big one. Trudging back to the Hanoi Elegance we dodged bikes, cars, ‘Frichot paparazzi’ and monkeys before being able to rest up for a few hours and spin some tunes prior to heading out.
Our evening started off with a touch of style, albeit with absolutely crappy service. We ventured to the Hanoi Garden restaurant, a Tripadvisor recommended joint not too far from where we were staying. The initial look of the place was quite intriguing, set around a fairly large courtyard some way back from a main road, the moment you were inside the noise of the endless traffic was relatively muted. We managed to get ourselves a nice table in the courtyard and settled in for a hell of a meal, kicking off with some springs rolls then added several other dishes such as blackened pepper catfish, bread crumbed deep fried fish, sauteed shrimp stuffed with cheese and bits and pieces of several other things. Where the Hanoi Garden encountered hard times however was in the service department. Obviously Frichot and I had shown up towards the back end of their evening service and even whilst we were mid meal these clowns started removing all the tables around us. By the time we’d finished we were the only turkeys, sitting on the only table out in the courtyard, and even worse, the waiter that had remained with us until what was their ‘supposed’ closing time had put on his coat and split for home or some Hanoi Garden after party. Seriously, Frichot and I are looking at this guy walk out and both turned to make the ‘Captain Obvious’ comment, ‘Isn’t that our waiter'? Well yes, it was, we’re now flying solo. So there we stayed, all finished, waiting patiently for someone to assist us with finalising our bill at the end of the night. We probably waited 20 mins before someone questioned both the logic and viability of leaving two white boys out in the garden overnight. Hanoi Garden, I haven’t rated you on TripAdvisor yet, but trust me, you’re going down!!
'Where did everybody go?' - Hanoi Garden Restaurant - Hanoi
Now, the scene of last evenings crimes against humanity turned into some sort of homecoming for us on this night. A few warm up cocktails of the daiquiri/mojito style at the Hair of the Dog, then a short crappy stay at a cheesy, sleazy dive before making our way to the Funky Buddha with the familiarity of Hanoi stalwarts for our version of Hanoi Nights round 2 and happened thankfully to encounter the same vibe that had greeted us the night before. Ms Funk n’ Breaks DJ was off working her fantastic grooves again and in turn my main man was attracting attention with his ‘lady boy’ locks and new wave moves on the dance floor,and you know the deal now, as the night progresses, alcohol is consumed and fairy tales are born. From this point on I only have the vaguest of recollections of holding up the fort at the bar whilst some Russian mobsters decided that Jet and his Invisible mate, the one that they sat on, aka me, were more than worthy of a few free rounds. There was also a few rounds of shots bought by some Vietnamese groupies and somewhere along the line an invisible basketball that Jet was playing with somehow got passed around for 20 mins. It would have been a weird sight to see if it wasn't so funny, a few people got into that one actually.
We were awash in a furious sea of alcohol, I was the G'n'T hero at the bar and our Halida freak Frichot spent most of the time getting down with his bad self on the dance floor. I chatted with the bar staff, more specifically with this 21yr old girl called Vanessa who had made her home in Hanoi for the last three years. Much in the same vein as the night before, the lights came on early at the Funky Buddha meaning that we were required migrate up the street to a new abode. On this morning Vanessa assisted us in continuing the session at some joint that was familiar to her but for the life of me I can’t remember the name of. I only know that at some point Frichot disappeared for a long while, a few days later I found out that he’d crashed out in the bathroom for most of this MIA time. As the morning wore on and I got my ‘flirt on’ and we drank ourselves to a point where the hangover from the previous night had looped the clock and caught up with us again. It was right there that we needed to bid all comers adieu and we stumbled out into the streets where Vanessa had organised a mate of hers to give us a lift home. It was kind of amusing waking up the staff at the Hanoi Elegance sometime close to 4am and them looking at us like we were the worlds greatest piss heads, priceless in any language.
All OK!? Obviously it was! Funky Buddha bar - Hanoi
Me making friends with all the 'Invisible People' of Hanoi - Funky Buddha Bar
Kind of reminds me of my Year 10 formal!
We were awash in a furious sea of alcohol, I was the G'n'T hero at the bar and our Halida freak Frichot spent most of the time getting down with his bad self on the dance floor. I chatted with the bar staff, more specifically with this 21yr old girl called Vanessa who had made her home in Hanoi for the last three years. Much in the same vein as the night before, the lights came on early at the Funky Buddha meaning that we were required migrate up the street to a new abode. On this morning Vanessa assisted us in continuing the session at some joint that was familiar to her but for the life of me I can’t remember the name of. I only know that at some point Frichot disappeared for a long while, a few days later I found out that he’d crashed out in the bathroom for most of this MIA time. As the morning wore on and I got my ‘flirt on’ and we drank ourselves to a point where the hangover from the previous night had looped the clock and caught up with us again. It was right there that we needed to bid all comers adieu and we stumbled out into the streets where Vanessa had organised a mate of hers to give us a lift home. It was kind of amusing waking up the staff at the Hanoi Elegance sometime close to 4am and them looking at us like we were the worlds greatest piss heads, priceless in any language.
