Our day started unusually early, and we were still somewhat well-rested, albeit a bit disoriented. Dâu, the youngest child, came into our room around 07:00, just as Malte had experienced during his previous stays, and she wouldn’t give in until we got up. She is really super cute!
After brushing our teeth, we found ourselves in the rare situation of having to wait for the others, as we were among the first to wake up or be woken. We spent the time with the kids in front of the TV and then took one of the scooters to ride around the village. We went over the market, then like the evening before, we rode a bit along the country road by the river to the neighboring village and back.
When we returned, there was already much more life in the house, and we slowly started off to Thanh Hoa City – the next larger town – to the Bun-Cha restaurant deemed good by the family. We parked somewhere along the street, walked through a parking garage under a building block onto another street, into a different parking garage, where a few small, typically Vietnamese plastic tables and chairs were set up next to the entrance. The restaurant was quite busy, almost all seats were occupied. While eating, mopeds were coming in and out of the underground parking, and next door, while we waited, they were smoking the typical Vietnamese tobacco pipe (Thuoc lao), which is available for anyone to use at the entrance of almost every traditional restaurant that prides itself.
A rather absurd situation, at least by European standards. But the Bun Cha was really delicious, noticeably better than what we had eaten the day before in the more upscale restaurant in Hanoi. However, it could also be because the typical Bun Cha in Hanoi is served quite differently than the typical Bun Cha in Thanh Hoa, 180 km away.
After eating, we drove back to the village, rested briefly at the family’s residence, distributed a few last gifts in the form of chocolates and Haribo, and then set off quickly back to Hanoi since the children of Chi Nga were scheduled to attend an online school course in the evening.
The car ride back was about as (un)comfortable… ahem snug… as the ride there. Malte stayed awake sitting in the middle while everyone else around him dozed off.
Upon arriving in Hanoi, we were invited for Vietnamese pizza and summer rolls – a little too greasy, but not bad, just not a culinary highlight.
Finally back at the apartment, we relaxed a bit on the computer and then headed to the night market. On the way there, we experienced another moped breakdown, but this time not due to a malfunctioning fuel gauge. Something else must have broken. Maybe it got too hot, or there was a loose connection… we could not really explain it, as it would start again but just as quickly turn off.
Fortunately, we didn’t have to deal with the problem for long, as twenty minutes later, the landlord arrived on Sunday evening with a new moped that he swapped for the old one. Of course, for free.
After we were allowed to park the moped for 50 cents under supervision on the sidewalk, we got bubble tea and ice cream in the area around Tháp Rùa Lake, which was completely closed to cars and mopeds from Friday to Sunday evening for the night market. Equipped with these treats, we strolled through the market, which featured several stages where Vietnamese and, in our opinion, often kitschy performances took place, and endlessly long streets packed with market stalls and – very importantly – small beer stands.
We didn’t even really notice the end of the market and just continued wandering through the streets of Hanoi with the rough goal of finding our moped again. Following some form of intuitive sense of direction, we wandered wherever our noses led us until we had completely lost track of where we might be. A look at our phone revealed that we had walked precisely in the opposite direction and now needed to walk about four kilometers back to the moped.
Luckily, there is a solution to all our problems: Grab. We both called a Moto-Grab again and had ourselves driven to our moped. We didn’t rent the moped just to have to walk in the end!
On the way home, we had to stop for a Banh Mi. At the lake opposite the apartment, we had a little picnic and then got ourselves a fresh guava juice.
Back in the apartment, we then sat down to write our journal entries, planning to be in bed by midnight at the latest. Obviously.
Well, around half-past two, we were finally in bed.
Hello Jetlag, nice to see you again.
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