Birthday Bash...Hanoi-style

So, it was the 6^th of November, and that meant one thing – it was my birthday! It was a bit weird to wake up on my birthday and be in a completely different country and miles away from my friends and family (apart from James of course, he was in the room with me). We hadn’t much planned for the day so we just munched down the continental breakfast (we had tried to go for the cereal but they were fresh out) and had a nice lazy start to the day.

Happy Birthday to meeee!!

It was gone 11:00am by the time we left the hotel and we were heading for the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Unfortunately his body was not lining in state as it is removed for two months of the year for running repairs. It just so happened that this coincided with our visit so we just wandered round the building and took in the view – a huge open road that has no doubt seen some large processions head down it in the past. We were looking for the One Pillar Pagoda and we managed to find it after some old guy was trying to latch onto us and take us for a little tour…for a fee, of course.

Ho Chi Minh's resting place

The One Pillar Pagoda was a nice little sight, quite serene in the madness of Hanoi, but then again the whole area around the mausoleum was quite relaxed as it seems any peddlers or hawkers are removed immediately from the area if they stray in. Once we were done with that little treat it was time for lunch and we headed north to the large West Lake to see what kind of eateries we could find. It turns out that they were all rubbish. Most didn’t serve food, some only served seafood (and judging by the state of the lake it would have been like the fish out of the Simpsons with 3 eyes), some were massively over-priced and in one the waitress just threw some menus onto a table for us to look through. As we wandered on we came across a load of coffee shops and managed to find a place tha served food. Or so we thought. After ordering two helpings of fried rice with meat the waitress came back and pointed to the rice dishes on the menu and wrote “the end” on her little notepad. So we ordered a small Hawaiian pizza to share. When it arrived James was dumbstruck. There was no ham, and they had included peppers and a rather heavy layer of onions, James’s mortal enemy.

One Pillar Pagoda

After a disappointing lunch we headed back to the hotel and Skyped the folks, which was nice to see on my birthday in a foreign country. Once we were ready to leave the hotel we cracked open the gin/rose wine/beer that James had got me and drank…some of it. A tasty meal in Gecko’s round the corner, two large Tiger beers and we were ready to hit the town! We had ear-marked a few places that had got good reviews on trip advisor, but just couldn’t find the one we wanted – Le Pub. We walked round for ages, and there isn’t really much of a night scene in Hanoi, it is still very much in development. We grabbed a quick beer in an “Irish bar” as we were getting thirsty by then, but swiftly moved on as it wasn’t great and there was a very annoying local nearby shouting his head off all night.

Fancy a Tiger? 

We were searching for the “Khao San Road” of Hanoi and we eventually stumbled upon it – a crossroads with a number of bars at the epicentre. Our first choice was the Fat Cat Bar and we took two stools at the bar. Thankfully I was sitting next to a guy who loved nothing more than to chain smoke his Marlboro Black cigarettes, with the breeze/fans blowing the smoke right into my face. We only stayed for one, as we wanted to sample the rest of the bars in the area, so we crossed over and grabbed a couple of Larue beers. It was particularly a “tourist trap” as there were quite a few locals mixed in with the tourists, and there was generally a good atmosphere all round.

Fat Cat Bar......clearly!

Next up was a bar just down the way, but with a slightly more darker feel to it than the others. It felt safe, but almost had a kind of gothic feel to it. James asked a local if he knew where the Phuc Tan bar was as he had heard about it and fancied a visit, but the guy suggested that we weren’t ready for it and would need another 5 drinks before going there. That didn’t sound good. But we wouldn’t get the chance to enquire as to why as the police/army bundled into the bar and ordered everyone to drink up and leave. It was only midnight, and it seems that that is all you get in Hanoi, unless you hit places like Puku that stay open 24 hours, apparently.

Are we nearly done yet???

So we had been carted out onto the street, still with beers in hand, and eager for maybe one last one before calling it a night. I didn’t fancy risking the wrath of the police/army with drinking beer in the street so I gulped it down and set the bottle in a corner, where someone would probably make good use of it. As the Phuc Tan bar was sort of in the area we took a trip over there to see what all the fuss was about. We had to cross the main road to get there and when had done so it looked like we had taken turn for the worse. Gone were the happy-go-lucky people hanging out by the bars and the street corners, this was an altogether more seedy area where not many non-locals ventured. After walking down a couple of streets I wasn’t liking the feel of the place so we turned on our heels and got the heck out of dodge!

There wasn’t time to get one last beer, and considering we had been chugging back large bottles rather than the usual small ones it was probably a good idea. So with that we made it back to the hotel and crashed out. A cracking birthday, and one that I’ll not forget in a hurry!