Hanoi: Day 5

Museums here often close during the lunch hour (or two), so we had to browse in the museum shop for a few minutes before the ticket counter opened. The History Museum itself was small, but its collection was well-curated. On either side of the lobby were two avant-garde art installations that seemed out of place, but the main collection was full of beautiful art pieces and artifacts from as far back as 300,000 years ago. Aaron and I had the most fun gawking at the statues recovered from temples. We picked our favorites from the naga and dragons and, of course, Buddhas. One thing that struck me is how fantastical it all was. Art in the West didn’t get very surrealistic elements until late in the modern era. Or, at least, they were much less common (big ups to Hieronymous Bosch). Ancient Greek vases depict humans fighting or hunting, but ancient Vietnamese vases depict demon-dogs and flying dragons. 

After the museum, on our way back to the hostel, we came upon a greenhouse. Or maybe it was a small, indoor botanical garden? Maybe a garden shop? Google had two entries for it: shopping mall and cafe, neither of which were immediately apparent answers to the question of what it was. When we asked someone inside they said it was a “tea shop,” but the ratio of tea that was being sold to plants that weren’t was ridiculously high for a tea shop.  We’re still not 100% sure where we went, but it had a beautiful garden. 

We went back to the hostel for our late afternoon rest. Lately, that rest seems to be getting longer and longer. I’m not complaining; travel is overwhelming and exhausting, in addition to being the most fun you can possibly have. Plus, Aaron and I had promised each other that we would put on our party pants and actually make a night of it, for once. Maybe even stay up past 10:30, who knows? 

We started by taking advantage of our hostel’s free beer hour and downed a few Bia Hois (Hanoi’s PBR) before hitting the town. Dinner was at Blue Butterfly, which was a cute place and I’m sure had excellent food, but I was getting kind of tired of meat. I ordered bun cha, but I don’t know why I did. I could only eat a little bit of it. To be fair to Blue Butterfly, what I did eat was very good; I’m just getting a little sensitive about the food I want to eat. I’m not used to having so few choices in terms of cuisines. Americans are spoiled with variety. We can have pizza one night, then sushi the next, then Thai, then Mexican, then New American (whatever that means), etc. In Hanoi, 90% of the restaurants are Vietnamese. Luckily, Vietnamese food is very good, but there are still nights when my stomach rejects the notion that it should eat yet another incredibly flavorful dish. That’s right– I’m getting sick of flavor. 

We popped into a Japanese convenience store for some peach gummy candy dessert. One was your standard gummy, but the other package we bought was more the consistency of noodles. By this point, it was actually getting kind of late. We’d made ambitious plans for the evening, hoping to end up at a dance club hosting a 00’s night on the outskirts of the city. Those were mutually scrapped in favor of one more drink at Hanoi Social Club. We tried our best, but, in the end, we’re an old married couple and there’s no use fighting it. Hanoi Social Club, like almost every place we’ve been here, had a small, garden-variety first floor with stairs leading to a fun, semi-secret second floor. The second floor here and everywhere else usually has a lot of old world charm. I’m really into these Hanoi second floors. We got tipsy and ordered a sandwich and made our version of a night of it. Who wants to get sweated on by a bunch of 21-year-olds when you can have a fascinating conversation in a small, secluded cafe with your philosopher-king of a husband? 

The next day was a lazy one. I’m ashamed to admit we were hungover– ashamed not because we drank so much, but because we drank so little. I’m getting old. We didn’t even get out of bed until 11 or so, and when we did, it was to get some really lame Western food. It was all my hungover tummy could take. After some extremely mediocre fish and chips, I was feeling up to several more hours of doing nothing.