Hanoi: Day 3

Apparently, Cocoon Inn was turning 3 years old. That’s what we learned when we rode the elevator to the bar after our naps. To celebrate, they were serving cake and fruit in addition to the already free beer they gave out at happy hour. Aaron and I did our part to join in the celebration by singing “Happy Birthday” to an accompaniment of the eponymous song that could only have come directly from a 90’s kid’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. We drank our free beer and ate our free cake and decided this hostel was really growing on us. 

Dinnertime rolled around, and we grabbed a taxi to La Badiane. Today was laundry day, and the only clean clothes Aaron had were his nice shirt and pants. “If we’re going to eat somewhere fancy, can we do it today, so I don’t have to wear these dorky clothes again?” he asked. I obliged. La Badiane was that somewhere fancy. Inside, a live string quartet played “The Entertainer” to the white-tableclothed crowd. Artistic, black-and-white pictures of very sad-looking Vietnamese people were an interesting choice for wall decor, and our waitress tried at every opportunity to upsell us, but I thought the food was fantastic. It started with an amuse bouche pairing of pumpkin soup with a salty tomato salad, followed by a smoked salmon cannelloni (their name for it, not mine), and ended with a tenderloin steak with prosciutto, blue cheese, truffled potatoes, and a red wine sauce. I’m not really a steak person, but this was divine. Aaron shrugged. “It was fine,” he said. I got huffy– indignant, even. Why couldn’t he just make me happy and pretend to enjoy himself at one of these schmancy places? Wasn’t good art good art, no matter who its intended audience was? Wasn’t it just as snobby to turn your nose up at opera and wine sauce as it is to turn it up at tacos and punk rock? I sulked all the way home. 

Then, this morning, it hit me. He was trying to make me happy and enjoy dinner at the schmancy places I dragged him to. The mere fact that he was showing up and game was his way of showing that, and I couldn’t be mad at him for not being as impressed with the food as I was. It’s not like he pouted all the way through dinner or anything. I asked him what he thought of the food, and he gave an honest opinion. You can lead an Aaron to champagne, but you can’t make him drink. I chalked my mood from last night up to exhaustion and apologized. All was forgiven. 

After another lackluster breakfast at Cocoon Inn (but hey, it’s free), we decided to continue our walking tour of Hanoi’s Old Quarter. We started at the Old East Gate, which was exactly what it said on the paper, then meandered through the various street markets. I’ll be honest: for me, the markets in Hanoi are upsetting. Dead animals, live animals being mistreated (watch this blog for Aaron’s thoughts on this), and very busy foot and car traffic leaves me stressed and sad. The New Year’s market, at least, was selling only decorations and gifts. The crowding and sharing of the street with scooters stressed me out. Still, all the red lanterns and cartoon rats (this upcoming year is the year of the rat) lifted my spirits. After a couple of hours of weaving our way through it all, though, we needed a coffee. 

Google recommended the Blackbird Cafe. It was a cute, courtyard-ed building that clearly catered to western tourists. We unwound and re-charged, then made our way to St. Joseph’s cathedral. On the way, we stopped for another street stall lunch. This time, banh goi was on the menu. Banh goi is basically Vietnamese empanadas, filled with pork and vermicelli, that you dip in one of those broth-sauces I so love. Ours were delicious and uncomplicated. The cathedral was closed for another hour, and we’ve seen cathedrals before, so we walked back to the hostel for some r&r.