Anne's blog travel 06-07

Sunday February 4th 2007

I find that I have a repertoire of food I eat here all the time. Each vendor specialises in one or two things only. Like you may stop at a Pho stall which usually sells Pho Ga (noodle soup with chicken ) or Pho Bo (Noodle soup with Beef) and that's what you get. You may go to a place that advertises Com and there you will find rice and a number of dishes and you can just point to what you want like vegetables and Tofu or meat or whatever. Banh Chung is a favorite of mine which is sticky rice with yellow peas or beans inside and sometimes a small piece of meat and fried on a large plate served with soy sauce and a few marinated vegies. Banh Khut seems to be similar but just steamed and served on a bamboo leave with sesame seeds and peanuts sprinkled. Omelets and french bread we already know about. But there are a great variety of other things I haven't tasted yet and do not know what they are. So sometimes I just stop by and look at someone else ordering something. Like Bun dau ran...who's to know what that is? Well from my observation this is cold rice noodles stuck together and cut into pieces and fried tofu served with a sauce to dip into. And I'm still looking around for Rice Congee (chao) supposed to be the stapple breakfast. I'm sure it's right there under my nose and I can't see it.

Otherwise I've found a lovely lady down the corner who sells some sweet snacks. Everyday I go and buy a few for about 5000Dong (US$0.30) which usually gets me three. Most of them are made with yellow or black beans, coconut, and colored jellified rice water. She cannot say much in English and as much as I try I cannot say much in Vietnamese but she is always so nice.

The city is preparing for TET. It's been preparing for a while now. A great big monument has been erected in the area around the lake and colored flags planted all around it. Ambulant saleswomen are selling party bags of shiny color. And just yesterday was the celebration of the 77 years of the communist Party. In the newspaper (I found one in English) I read that the party are promoting the ethics of late leader Ho Chi Minh. Corruption exists and some people are lining their pockets; everybody seems to know that.

Andreas tells me about TET saying that it's quite surreel. He says the New Year eve is very busy but then the city is dead. As much as the traffic is crazy and the noise constant now, he tells me that during TET you could drive a vehicle at 160kph on the road and not see a soul. Every Vietnamese goes back to their district and family and so a lot of businesses are closed. It's a holiday period. Even the Sheraton which is fully booked for the next ten days becomes quiet for the two weeks around TET. No business is conducted in Hanoi during this time. I'm sure that things in Bangkok will be very different.

bye for now