What Do Crickets, Fertilized Chicken Eggs, and Ho Chi Minh Have In Common?

PHOTO ALBUM - Hanoi, Hoi An, & Hue

Elise left off our last blog entry as we were headed back on an overnight train to Hanoi from Sapa.  This time we were able to book a soft-sleeper on the train, which was glorious.  Upon arrival in Hanoi, we were eager to book another soft-sleeper train ticket to Danang (Central Vietnam) the following night to ensure another enjoyable night on the train.  Unfortunately there were no soft-sleepers available.  Damn this country with over 80-million people!   We had to settle for a top-bunk hard sleeper…more on that later.

Since we rushed through Hanoi the first time and went quickly to Sapa avoiding full trains and the crowds associated with the Liberation Day holiday, we had a few more must-sees in Hanoi.  One is the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, where everyone goes to pay respects to Uncle Ho himself.  We knew that we would go to some elaborate place built to house his body, but nothing can prepare you for it until you are sent through huge lines, ushered through a monumental building guarded by armed soldiers, and hurried past his tomb.  I hadn’t really thought much about it, but I guess we were expecting a closed casket of some sort.  Rather, Uncle Ho is enclosed in a glass casket, his 120-year-old embalmed body resting peacefully on a red-velvet pillow.  He looks pretty good these days, goatee and all. 

With only one night in Hanoi this time, we wanted to make sure that we experienced a few of the culinary pleasures of northern Vietnam.  We had lunch at a good restaurant called Highway 4 which was recommended for its fried crickets.  We ordered a sampler of some higher-end Vietnamese liquors (Son Tinh – our favorite flavor was Bo Sa Pa with a smoky cinnamon taste) and a plate of fried crickets.  Elise should have known that unlike chicken, for example, where you cannot visualize the chicken itself from the meat you are served, that crickets would indeed look like a pile of dead crickets on your plate.  But she was surprised nonetheless.  The pile of dead crickets was tastefully presented with lime leaves, lemongrass, red peppers and garlic with a salt and lime juice mixture for dipping.  We grabbed our chopsticks and dug in.  It was amazing.  I am not joking-  I can taste the goodness while writing this.  We just had to not look to closely at what we put in our mouths.  Two thumbs up!  From the BABES website (Bay Area Bug Eating Society) we found the nutritional information for crickets as follows.  Plenty of protein.

CRICKETS
Nutrition Facts Serv. Size 100 grams Calories 562 Fat Cal. 49.5 *Percent Daily Values(DV) are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.	Amount/Serving %DV* Amount/Serving %DV* Total Fat 5.5 g 11% Total Carb. 0 g 0% Sat Fat n/a g n/a% Fiber n/a g n/a% Cholest. n/a mg n/a % Sugars 0 g n/a% Sodium n/a mg n/a% Protein 6.7g 13% Potassium n/a mg n/a% Vitamin A n/a% - Vitamin C 0% - Calcium 9% - Iron 63%

Our next stop on the culinary culture experience tour of the afternoon was at a Bia Hoi station (ok-but-not-that-great draft beer served for 5000 dong or $0.25 per glass).  We had heard about a delicacy served in Hanoi that is a hard-boiled fertilized chicken egg.  That means that inside the egg is a chicken embryo in some stage of development.   ‘Lo and behold, a fertilized chicken egg vendor showed up at our Bia Hoi station, so we had to try.  The egg was served with a tasty sauce and basil leaves.  Thankfully, it was not yet a recognizable baby chicken, and even more thankfully, there were no feathers or bones.  It does taste very different from a normal hard-boiled egg and maybe not-so-surprisingly does taste a lot like chicken.   To finish off our culinary adventures of the day, I suggested that we go seek out some dog to try – a normal dish in Hanoi – but Elise drew the line on that one.  I’m also not sure I could eat man’s bestfriend.  Instead we met Caroline for dinner – our friend from the UK we met while trekking in Myanmar, who teaches in Hanoi.  We had normal but well-prepared food and had a good time catching up with her.

The following day, we spent the day at the Museum of Ethnology (highly recommended) learning about Vietnam’s minority tribes and then boarded a train to Danang, which is 30 km north of our intended destination, Hoi An.  At our final dinner in Hanoi at a local street restaurant on the way to the train station, Elise ordered a chicken and mushroom soup.  This time she pulled out the full neck, head, and beak of a young chicken out of her soup, which topped off our Hanoi culinary experience. 

We were disappointed we were not going to get the nice soft-sleeper for this 16-hour train ride, but happy that we were going to get a horizontal spot to lay down.  We learned that hard sleepers in Vietnam are ok, you simply don’t want the top bunk.  The compartment for the hard-sleepers has six bunks – the top one being way up at the ceiling of the car.  It wasn’t bad – we actually got a decent night of sleep.  The problem is that while laying in your bunk awake you feel like you’re in a coffin and cannot sit up or see out the window.  And that is your only “private” spot you get.  So Elise and I spent our waking hours hanging out in the dining car which turned out to be a pleasurable experience in people watching.  The beers cost about $0.75 and the entire employed  crew of the train seemed to be hanging out having drinks.  I am not sure what their jobs were on the train, but they got plenty of time for happy hour. 

Back in its heyday in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, Hoi An was a major international trading port.  Now it is a cute tourist town with original Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese architecture.  It is here that we encountered more western tourists on their honeymoons than anywhere else.  And for good reason, as it is a nice romantic little town situated on a pleasant river.  The big thing to do here is to buy clothes custom tailored to fit.  We had to try, so four fitted shirts, two jackets, a sports jacket, and a formal dress later, our bags are suddenly heavier and void of all of our extra space. 

We also completed a half-day cooking course at the Red Bridge Cooking School.  As every other cooking course we’ve taken did, it started off with a tour of the local market.  However, we were then loaded on a boat for a river cruise to the site of the cooking school, which was a very pleasant and trendy place down the river with gardens and nice river views.  The highlight was our chef who had great comedic talent and had the class rolling in laughter throughout the course.  He liked to keep telling us what Vietnamese herbs should be eaten by men that help “the banana”, and also what should not be eaten that makes your “banana” become orange like a carrot.  We even learned how to make rice paper from scratch and are looking forward to trying it at home.  We enjoyed the Red Bridge Cooking school the most so far out of the cooking classes we have taken. 

The food is incredible in Hoi An with plenty of central Vietnam specialties, and the countryside is beautiful, so we ended up staying longer than we originally planned.  It was in Hoi An that my flip-flops finally blew out and I had a miscommunication at the barber such that my beard had to come completely off.  It is a good thing I have plenty of time to grow it back.  We saw the My Son ruins, Marble Mountain, and toured the museums and old houses around Hoi An. Another good find was An Bang Beach, a short bicycle ride out of town.  It is not listed in the guidebooks but is a very nice not so developed locals’ beach.   We recently found this beach listed on a cnn.com article as one of the most overlooked destinations on the world  - alongside other and much broader places such as “Burma” - so get there before it’s too late. 
Our final stop in Vietnam before crossing the border into Laos was Hue.  It was ok, but not being  Vietnam War history buffs or having a profound interest in 19^th century Vietnamese Imperial history, we probably could have missed it.  It was on our way to the border in Laos so we made the stop. This city is very near the Demilitarized Zone at the former border between north and south Vietnam and saw some of the heaviest fighting.  Along with touring the usual sites (Imperial Palace and a tomb of a 19^th century emperor) we motor biked out to Thuan An Beach, 15km from Hue.  With hundreds of locals and no western tourists this turned out to be a good true current cultural experience.  It is not the most peaceful beach to simply read a book with all the hawkers trying to sell you stuff to eat, but a fun afternoon anyway.

Time is out on our visa so we’re moving on to Laos.  Here is my final farewell message to Vietnam:

Vietnam – Your appetite for my dong in your cowboy-like and cut-throat free market economy – despite the fact that you call yourself communists – definitely added a few unnecessary headaches to our visit.  However, I have full confidence that in your evolution to an industrialized and prosperous nation you will have to clean up your act in that arena.  However, your welcoming people, strikingly breathtaking and very diverse scenery, and the fact that your money is called dong, more than makes up for it.  We look forward to the opportunity to come back.  Thanks for a wonderful and much too comfortable visit.

A quick and random detail of not-very-much interest to some:  For those of you that know about one quirk of mine – a fetish with using Excel spreadsheets for everything – you may be interested to know that I have engineered the most efficient budget management and cost tracking spreadsheet the travelling world has ever known.  It is an extremely efficient cost management tool that can track cash in multiple currencies under ever changing exchange rates.  Also influenced by my cost management experience in the construction industry, it is completely equipped with budget vs. cost forecasting capabilities.  Our current projection for our trip is comfortably under budget.  If anyone out there wants to buy my spreadsheet or hire me for travel budgeting or cost-management consulting services, please contact me at your earliest convenience.