Hanoi, Vietnam - 29 & 30 Nov 2009, Mon & Tue

From the boat transfer off the Halong Bay Cruise, we will all squished into a very very tight mini van back to Hanoi. Extremely uncomfortable for a lot of people. Seats were even arranged so Allan and I sat 2 rows apart. This will likely be the one and only time to and from Halong Bay...

Good thing Elegance Hotel 2 was better than what we were expecting. Thank you Elaine Tay for the recommendation. Our room was on the top / 8th floor. It was US$75 nett via TripAdvisor's link. If Pea had stayed, it would have been the same room we would've paid US$95 for 3 people. The receptionist said that their rooms vary from US$40 to US$75 per night, and the rooms come with free wifi and a personal computer in each room. :)

Walked around the Old Quarters again trying to locate the 'famous' beef pho behind the Water Puppet Theater, instead we found a chicken pho place and unknowingly had unborn eggs. Unborn eggs are not fertilized, so they are NOT the chicken foetus. They are more like just the very round egg yolk wrapped in a like-sausage-skin casing, I found them tastless :P

Dinner was a problem, should we go all local? Or should we go somewhere nice again? It was decided that we will do a nice place, so off in a cab to the Metropole Hotel area to check out the fancy restaurants there.

We thought that the Press Club's menu looked interesting so we went up & settled down to decide on what's for dinner. But when we opened the menu, the familar honking of motorcycles and cars from 3 floors down reached us, we looked at each other, paid for the sparkling water we ordered and headed for Nineteen 11.

Granted the first experience for me wasn't great, it was good for Fata :) Plus! it was very quiet :) Fata had the pumpking soup with dumpling and a steak, we shared a cold foie gras dish, and I had the same bisque, but went for the chicken breast with pistaschio paste. Okay, i picked a real dud with the chicken, the pistachio paste had a strange taste :( oh yes, the chef's French, Hugo Baberios (spelling?) so we don't think he understood us very well :( oh well... But Fata had a good time :)

Luckily I got my waitlisted 30 Nov flight out of Hanoi :) I don't know what I would've done by myself for a day in the Old Quarters :P Moreover, Facebook was inaccessible via laptop (only by cell phone) since the Tuesday before :(