Rainy and Cold Hanoi

Norm:

After some amazing experiences in Chiang Mai, it was time to move onto the second country in our South East Asia trip - Vietnam. We actually had to fly back to Bangkok to catch the flight to Hanoi. We arrived at the hotel fairly late and after we checked in, the obvious first meal of Vietnam has to be pho! We went to Pho 10, one of the acclaimed pho places in Hanoi. The pho was actually really good - the noodles were fresh and the broth was full of flavor, though from the outside, I doubt it would ever pass a health inspection in Canada. I took a slight risk and even ordered the "half-done beef" while Mandy played it more safe and ordered the well-done beef. We walked a little while around the city, but it was raining heavily and was actually fairly cold even for Canadian standards, so we retired early. 

(Mandy's side note: We stayed at the Hanoi Elegance Ruby Hotel and it was the BEST hotel we've ever stayed in. The room we booked was not large but it was very clean and the shower amazing. They even gave us fruit and a lap top to use in our room. The best part of the hotel was the service! Highly recommend!!)

Plops on the bed immediately

Pho + deep fried dough + beer

Kitchen

Rainy streets of Hanoi

Roundabout

So cold and rainy!

I'm a millionaire!!

The next day we had a tour with Hanoi Kids, a program where local university students who want to practice their English, take you around the city and act as tour guides. Our friendly guides were knowledgeable and gave us the local perspective on Vietnamese culture and cuisine. We first went to the Hao Lo prison, an early 20th century prison for Vietnamese dissidents of French colonialism. The prison was so barbaric, it was also known as "Hell on Earth". The prison was closed in 1993 and made into the museum today.

Hao Lo Prison Memorial Wall

Afterwards, we went to the French quarter, to see a photography exhibit of Hanoi between 1913-1917. The photographs really illustrated the stark difference of the country at that time. The lake near our hotel was surrounded by greenery, but now resembled what a typical developed Asian country looks like. From then, it was enough of local attractions and we went to sample some local cuisine and food. We went to a restaurant and tried many of the traditional Vietnamese dishes (except for pho). Unfortunately, Mandy and I weren't feeling super well for most of that day, so we had to cut our Hanoi kids tour short and went home to the hotel to get some rest. We ended up sleeping from 2pm basically until the next day, haha. The only reason we woke up was to shower and pack because we had our Ha Long Bay tour the next morning. Hopefully we will normalize and enjoy the rest of beautiful Hanoi!

(Mandy's side note: Norm forgot to mention the egg coffee and egg hot chocolate we had in Hanoi. It's apparently their specialty to replace the milk component of the drink with egg. It was actually very delicious, tasted more like a dessert than a drink. Also, Norm underplayed how awful I felt. At the beginning of the day I was feeling okay but by the time we went to the egg cafe and then to the restaurant afterwards, I was dying. My stomach was twisting and turning but I didn't want to miss out on the tasty food so I forced myself to eat it. Honestly at lunch I almost puked 0__0) 

French influences

Designer stores

Egg Coffee Shop

Really low tables and chairs

Egg Coffee (left), Egg Chocolate (right)

Stirring in the egg

Hidden coffee shop down a narrow hallway

Open concept restaurant aka really cold

Authentic Viet Lunch

Our tour guides!

Tiger (or Thai Girl, hehe) Kingdom

Norm:

The last day in Chiang Mai was the only full day where we didn't have any concrete activities planned. We slept in late and when we woke up, we checked out some of the local temples in the downtown area. We were also in search for the traditional Kao Soi, a traditional noodle dish from the area. We walked around and tired from wandering in the heat, we settled for a tourist trap called Peppermint, with pretty bland Kao Soi. At least the waitresses were nice. We chilled there for a while, Mandy wrote on her postcards and I enjoyed the free wifi.

Temple we found on our walk

The moat around the old city square

In the afternoon, we decided to check out the other animal attraction in Chiang Mai and went to Tiger Kingdom, a place where we could get up close and personal with tigers. We opted to see the smallest, small and big tigers which were 3 months, 6 months and 1.5+ years old respectively. We entered their enclosures with trainers present, and were able to pet the tigers, take pictures and see them frolic with each other. People, including myself, wondered whether the tigers were drugged to be "docile", but the park adamantly stated that this was not the case. Considering how active the tigers were (even the biggest cats), I tend to believe that. I also learnt that my allergy to cats extends to the big cats as well. After playing and resting my head on the tigers, the sneezes and the rashes came (should have brought some Reactin with me). After an hour or so, we headed back on the taxi back towards downtown Chiang Mai. On the taxi home, we were sharing a taxi with two other women. The red taxis in Chiang Mai are a little different; you sit perpendicular on benches which is not how you typically sit in a car. On the way back, the taxi slammed on the brakes and Mandy literally went flying into a German lady sitting beside her. We all had a good laugh about it haha. (Mandy's side note: Surprisingly it didn't hurt.)

On our way to Tiger Kingdom

Open concept taxis

Smallest tiger (Mandy was still scared)

He's so sleepy zzzZZz

What are you looking at? (Small tiger)

Mandy's really scared of the biggest tiger

Rawrrrr

Big comfy pillow

Baby tiger! Too bad we couldn't touch

In the evening, we decided to catch the night market along Wuilan road and HOLY, that market was massive. We had some street food for dinner (seriously, the street food has some of the best eats in our trip for super cheap). We also browsed the street vendors' wares, Mandy bought a few t-shirts and souvenirs. It started raining soon afterwards, so we went on a tuk-tuk and returned to the hotel for an early night. (Mandy's side note: The tuk-tuk driver drove extremely fast to a point where I thought I might fly off when he took a sharp turn.) We take a flight to Vietnam for the second country in our trip. Just as well, I was actually getting kind of tired of Thai food.

Speedy speedy tuk tuk

Food galore!

Meat meat meat

Dinner on the street :)

Looks chaotic but it's actually organized 

Noodles for Mandy, rice for Norm

This is probably what got us sick :(

Busy busy Sat night market

Hanoi, here we come!

Patara Elephant Farm

Mandy:

We woke up bright and early at 6am (it was still dark outside) to get ready for a full day with elephants! :)

There are a lot of elephant tours in Chiang Mai but the one we chose is supposed to treat the elephants well and eventually set them free in the wild. We arrived at the farm and were paired up with an elephant and their trainer based on our personalities. Apparently I'm similar to an old pregnant elephant -__-

Norm loves poop

Baby elephant wanted to play....

Scratching itself

Candid "Ew"

The elephants eat so much! They only sleep 4 hours a day and for the rest of the day they just eat. They have really good memory too so they actually recognize their trainers and even the guests. We were introduced to our elephants by feeding them non stop for 5 minutes. JA! (Hi) followed by Bon! (Open mouth) then fed it bananas and sugarcane. The elephants mouths are super strong. We could hear the thick sugar cane breaking in their mouths. After our intro we had to quickly clean the elephants so we could ride them. We also had to check their poop to make sure they were healthy by picking up the poop with our bare hands and squeezing out the liquid 0__0 I couldn't even wash my hands right after...

They eat so much!

Healthy poop check

It didn't smell as bad as I thought

I had to do it too...

Taking my elephant for a walk

Shower time!

There are three ways to mount an elephant. Lucky for me, my elephant was pregnant and I had to grab the rope and jump as high as I could onto its neck. (I didn't realize I could jump so high!) The elephant ride was fun but I didn't realize it would be 1.5 hours. My boney butt was definitely not prepared (it is now bruised). Oh also lucky for me my elephant had a skin problem and it kept spitting at me but by then I was covered in dirt so it was all good.

JUMP!

Normal way to mount an elephant

Elephant ride

Hi!

After the scenic ride we finally got to eat lunch. (Riding an elephant is surprisingly exhausting) The food was a nice spread of savory and sweet Thai food with some fruit. Soon after it was time to bathe the elephants! We got soaked but it was a lot of fun :) We also trekked to the nearby waterfall where norm decided to piggy back me and we slipped and fell. Now I have a big bruise on my knee. At least we got a good picture out of it!

Our spread

Shower round 2

Water fight!

=)

The water was so cold

It appears Norm is leading me to safety but instead I cut and bruised my knee =(

We changed out of our wet clothes and it was time to say goodbye to our elephants. All in all it was a really fun experience and we learned a lot about elephants. They also have a photographer follow us to take pictures and videos. They gave each of us a DVD but we didn't get a chance to see the pictures yet. Hopefully there are some good ones!

By the time we got back to our hotel it was dinner time so we went to the nearby night market to grab some food and got another Thai massage. I can definitely live like this :)

Gyozas

Norm loves night markets

Noodles galore

Soup noodles

Side note: Norm got eaten alive by the mosquitoes at the farm. He got maybe 20 mosquito bites on his legs! It looked really bad at one point but they have healed a bit now. I sprayed myself with so much Off that I didn't get one bite. Phew! The mosquitoes are huge here!