Thursday, January 29, 2009

SE Asia Day 5

January 28th 2009
Today we woke up to another cold and windy morning for the voyage back to Ha Noi. Fast forward a bus ride, boat ride another bus ride, another obligatory souvenir shop stop and we're back in Ha Noi. On our drive back we saw on the back of a motorcycle a 4x2x2 mesh covered box full of chickens...live chickens sticking their heads out of the box and clucking. It was classic. We decided to meet up with Jenny & Yen, 2 Brisbane sisters who we met on out tour, for dinner. After a sketchy cab ride, just close your eyes and hope for the best, we arrived at Quan An Ngon, the restaurant we were to meet at. Unfortunately, it was closed due to TET.... like everything else. So we called Jenny and decided to meet at another location. Here is where we got our first taste of walking the streets of Ha Noi for the first time. It is crazy...so crazy in fact we saw a scooter accident occur right in front of us. This guy slipped on the wet pavement and landed on his face. I think he was ok, but a couple people rushed over to him, lifted him and his bike up, threw him on the back of it and then drove off. I'm not sure if they were being kind and helping him or taking him to a back alley to finish him off and take his scooter, but I am going to assume the first. :) After that excited we met the sisters at a restaurant called Lotus Life. The setting of the restaurant looked like a Vegas lounge, complete w/ a loud, terrible pianist and violinist overplaying random pop songs. The food was mediocre but we had a great time chatting with the ladies. They were raised in Brisbane but their parents are both from Saigon. After dinner we said goodbye to the Vang Sisters and took a cab back to the hotel and passed out.

No comments: