From the bus station, we made our way a few kilometers to Thuy's house through crazy traffic, which you could see in the video. There, Thuy found us a hotel on the internet called New Sun Hotel (the site is down, per Vietnamese custom), located at 9B ngo 67 Van Cao, Ba Dinh district.
By the way, there are "only" 6.5 million residents in Hanoi, and even then, the majority are in the surrounding villages. The city was founded in 1010.
Hotels here are relatively expensive — about 20 bucks a room, or even per person. True, the quality is also a bit better — everything is tidier, fewer broken things, cleaner, an LCD TV, toilet paper in a box that protects it from the shower. But the toothbrushes are exactly the same — impossibly flimsy.
The next day we were heading to Ha Long Bay, so we only needed the room for one thing — just to crash until 4-5 AM.
Hotel decorations
An awesome Buddha sits by the furniture store
After successfully checking into the hotel, Thuy took us out to show us a spot that serves excellent buns. As it turned out, it's a joint with a tricky "Steakhouse" format, but they call just fried meat in cast-iron skillets "steaks". It's called Ngoc Hieu, the link has reviews and the address.
This is what they brought us for the "steak"
Korean flank-style
The price tag
Prices are inhumane — I ate the Korean style, it costs 3.5 lats (7 bucks). Granted, it comes with bread and delicate mayo, plus vegetables in a spicy vinegar sauce or Thousand Islands, depending on the dish). At the bottom of the menu are soups, but they're solid, even though they cost 1.15 Ls (over two bucks) a pop. Everything is tasty, albeit greasy, they bring it out fast, and the bread is genuinely great.
Here's what the restaurant is called. The street is still the same — Van Cao, not far from the hotel
We popped in to buy dessert too
The capital is the capital, everything is serious
The logo, branded boxes, girls in little caps
Some cakes are original — with green tea
They sell all sorts of things on the street, seafood and stuff
Later I walked around some more, and popped into a youth cafe called "Kira", on the same Van Cao street, between the hotel and the steakhouse. There were sociable girls (the staff), delicious ice cream, and cheap, tasty cocktails made with real Western booze. But we drank those another time.
I went into the cafe because they had a sign on the door saying "We have fancy ice-cream". I fell for it, and didn't regret it.
Johi even friended me on Facebook
Ice cream
I didn't go to the second floor, but judging by the photos from Facebook, it's cool up there
Johi explains to me why the cafe is called "Kira" — it means "Sparkling" in Japanese
There were few people in the cafe, but Johi treated me to mangoes. Unripe mangoes are dipped in salt, almost like we do with cucumbers
This is Ha from the hotel, and I don't remember the guy's name
Ha spoke English, and although she didn't know a lot, she wrote everything down in a little notebook. The rest explained themselves with gestures.
A fat people show is on in the room
Green tea cake
The box from the pastry shop. The URL works, by the way, but there's no English there, though there is Japanese
The promised altar
As I've already mentioned, many Vietnamese have altars where they place offerings to ancestors, spirits, Buddha, and so on. Here you can see what they lay out. This is the altar in the hotel. The "Kira" cafe had one too, and there was 100 dollars lying on it, looking completely real. Big money, but taking it from an altar means bringing great misfortune upon yourself.
Clocks in the hotels, as usual
I won't even mention the tea
To get to the hotel, you have to walk through narrow, slum-like alleyways