Hanoi, Vietnam

Goooooooooooooooooood Morning Vietnam!!! I have been waiting a looong time to do that! HA ;)

What a BIG difference than Laos. Hanoi (the capital of Vietnam) is jam packed full of people and motorbikes (about 4 million bikes)! Hello big city!!! Hanoi is known for the sights, sounds, and smells. And Pho (beef noodle soup) mmmmm.

Our first night in we wandered a bit trying to find the place to eat the hotel recommended to us. Little did we know it would give Lauren gastroenteritis(???). That hindered our sightseeing abilities a bit. We did get a chance to walk to Hoan Kiem Lake in the center of the old quarter...which was a nice calm place in the middle of a crazy insane city. When I say crazy and insane I am mostly speaking of the traffic. I once again can not begin to explain the horn blaring sounds or the near collision accidents I heard and saw. I had some serious anxiety crossing the streets. I had to dodge motorbikes all the time.

The next day we headed for the Temple of Literature (Vietnam's first university). This ancient Confucian sanctuary is now considered one of Hanoi's finest historical sites (Wikipedia).


That night, we still had not become too familiar with the area so we walked around a bit and found what we thought was a little cafe for dinner. Little did we know how awful this place would be. I ordered vegetable fried rice. Harmless right? WRONG. First bite in, I felt something crunchy, I took it out and saw a fingernail...no nope not a human fingernail...a bird of sorts and it was still attached to something. Completely grossed out (EWE) we paid our bill and walked out the door. We came to the conclusion it was a chicken's nail based on our second dinner of the night...when we ordered "chicken swings" and the nails were still attached. GROSS I KNOW! I should have known better, seeing that this is a country that eats dog.