CAFE CULTURE

DAY 47: Hanoi

Today primarily centred around eating, drinking and chatting in different establishments in Hanoi.

After breakfast we used the hotel's friendly in-house travel agent to arrange our travel to Hoi An, our destination after tomorrow's two day trip to Halong Bay (both destinations are UNESCO World Heritage Sites). Our original plan was to get an overnight train to Danang (for Hoi An) costing £24, meaning transport and accommodation was covered. However, all the soft sleeper carriages on the train were sold out and we didn't fancy a hard bunk for the 14 hour trip so we're now going to fly. Flashpackers! It's the same price and only takes an hour and a half. And it's a bargain, but feels a bit like cheating.

We headed towards the Municipal Theatre to get some tickets for the water puppet show that Hanoi is famous for but they were sold out for the next two days. Gutted. So we went for a walk around part of the Hoan Kiem Lake, then headed back to the streets to find a café and a drink to wash out the exhaust fumes.

We settled in to our favourite tea drinking spot, Green Tangerine, for an hour or so before heading to 69 café and restaurant for lunch overlooking the street. Across the street there is a stall selling packets of chon, the traditional Vietnamese coffee that is considered the highest grade. It's made of beans that are first passed through a certain species of weasel before being collected from its excrement. Nice. Can't see that catching on at Starbuck's; 'A Grandé Vanilla Weasel Crap please'. Mind you, in a country that eats dogs, this doesn't come as much of a shock.

Like clockwork, a powernap followed before the evening's festivities of... more eating and drinking. We started with a Tiger beer each over the road at G-Spot (found it at last - wish someone had told me it was a bar!) before hitting our now regular Lucky restaurant. Lucky because that's its name and they don't serve dog. We hope. It's great value food and cheap beer.

After dinner we went back to pack our light bags for our two day excursion as we had an early start.