Hanoi - Old Quarters

Hanoi not only plays host to 7 million - zilian motorbikes , it also has many beautiful & colorful building which are full of Culture and History. Each street back in the old days had merchants and households that specialised in a particular trade, such as silk traders, silver etc. The street names nowadays still reflect these specialisations.

Once you managed to figure out how cross the road safely and avoid the motorbikes, you would be able to take in this pictureous town. Most buildings in the Old Quarters of Hanoi has a french style and mainly painted in Yellow and has green shutters. This is because a large number of French settlers moved to Vietnam from the south of France, especially Marseilles, and made it a point to recreate the architecture of the old country while abroad.

After exploring parts of the town, our guide brought us to this small restaurant called " Minh Anh". As soon as we sat down BAM! One by one food kept coming, from springrolls, to soups to deep fried stuff to fishes. The thing was we haven't actually ordered anything. I started getting worried, something fishy is going on here, is this one of those "lets cheat the foreigner in Vietnam" moment?

So I called our guide, and asked him "Who order this food?" he said "ME", and I was thinking "mmm.. he must be in it too; *@*&#! ". Then I said, "how much is this gonna cost me?" and he said "Nothing, You pay already! you want beer you buy , food you pay already .All included in your package". A smile stretched on my face, and I said "You are a champion" I ordered a beer and gave it to our guide and started digging in.

What a meal, everything was so fresh, cooked and served warm. I thank our guide for the great choice.

Hanoi - full of surprises. Whats have you been surprised with recently?