Ok so Kyle and I were total bums today. We got up around 9am, and went down to breakfast. Two eggs, a baguette and fresh fruit and cucumbers and tomatoes. It was very good. Then we went back up to our room, and lay around reading and catching up on our blog until around, um 2pm! Our excuse is that Kyle is still feeling sick, and he wanted to rest before our journey to Sapa. We finally made it out of the hotel around 3pm, and made our way to find food. I read about a place called Wild Rice in the LP, and it sounded good. They have a good selection of spring rolls, and I am addicted to spring rolls right now. We found our way there after a long walk. The walk was nice; it took us past a lake with a little temple/pagoda in the center. And we got to see how the Vietnamese people really live on the streets. People are sitting in doorways, women are selling food from little stalls, men are welding, all right in the middle of the sidewalk! I was starving by the time we got to the restaurant, but of course they didn’t open until 6pm!! We decided to find a café to have a small treat and a coffee to tide us over.
The café we went into served food, but the woman seemed very annoyed that we even came in for drinks so we were too afraid to order any food. I decided that the iced tea I had might hold me over until 6pm. We went across the street to buy a small backpack so we won’t have to lug our big bags on the train, in the small sleeper car. Then I needed to find some shampoo and conditioner. We are also in need of some razors and bar soap. All the guide books said not to worry about packing everything because you can buy everything here. Well if you have all the time in the world to search for it, and if you know the language, sure no problem, just go buy some flippin’ deodorant. Not so easy for us. We bought what we thought was shampoo, but later after googling it it turns out to be conditioner. We did find some bar soap, but no razors. So now I still need shampoo! We walked around a bit more waiting for the restaurant to open. Found a neat shop with some amazing wood carvings but way out of our price range. We read our book on the side of the street for a little bit, and watched a woman throw a cd out of her car window, and then moments later another woman with a cone hat on, on a bicycle came by and picked it up! Interesting.
Finally it was time for dinner. The restaurant was beautiful. Wonderful service and the food was great. We ordered a bottle of the house red which was over-priced but good. We also got the sweet and savory fried spring rolls. I ordered sautéed prawns with chilies and peppers. Kyle got the chicken curry, and we shared both as well as sautéed morning glories with garlic. The morning glories were like just the green part, they were actually quite good. I really enjoyed my food and the meal. We finished it off with coffee and crème carmel! Yum, yum, yum!! Then we took our first cyclo back to the hotel. A cyclo is three wheeled bicycle, two wheels in front and one in back and the driver sits in the back peddling the little bench-type cart part that sits in front of him. It was fun to ride through Saturday night traffic, although there is always bad traffic in Vietnam. Kyle took video of all the people in the streets. We got back to the hotel and read for a little while but then decided to go to sleep. We are going on a city tour tomorrow so we should get some rest.
