English version: Hanoi, savior and a birthday..

21 juni 2017 - Chiang Mai, Thailand

Dear Family and Friends,

As requested by some of you, here's the new blog:)

The last few days in Hoi An were as to be expected, very chilled out however there was 1 incident that I'll share with you now. It's the 2nd to last day and after having had a nice breakfast, we move to our new claimed spot at the pool to have a cup of coffee... there's no-one by the pool, what a nice way to start the morning. As we sit there a small 18 month year old Chinese boy comes outside to the pool area, and we can see his complete family standing inside at the checkout counter, completely unaware of their missing child. As the boy edges closer to the water, we start politely scaring him off, like No No, Can't go there... the boy moves even closer... he squats down, and within a second he's face down in the water. Now it takes about a second to register this and to make matters worse..he's face down and not moving.. without hesitation, fully dressed, I dive in the water and with one firm scoop I but the boy back on the edge, where he instantly starts coughing up loads of water! As the hotel staff, worryingly comes to collect the boy, it started to sink in with everyone how close this actually was, I mean what happens if we're not there, in any case the boy is fine, the parents shocked but thankful!! WOOP WOOP Karma points in the pocket. The remaining days in Hoi An were much quieter, as you can imagine.

Next stop: Hanoi, we fly directly from Hoi An in about 70 min to Hanoi, first thing that hits us when we get out of the plane, the ridiculous humidity here, its about 40 degrees and about 95% humidity, wow! This is also the first Airbnb flat that we rented out for the next 2 weeks, and we are so happy that we did, such a a great feeling to be able to cook again, and unpack off course. However first things first, we get a tour of the apartment, and afterwards a small tour round the city, the apartment is right in front of the Catholic Church in Hanoi, in the middle of the Old Quarter, it's a mixture of crazy scooter drivers, and street food vendors.. Yes!! During the tour we do our first grocery shopping in 2,5 months to stock the fridge at "home".

We did some amazing things in the last 2 weeks here in Hanoi, below is a little recap of what we got up to:

- Traditional Vietnamese cooking class, we started off doing some grocery shopping at the local market, amazing to see all these colors. After that it was time to cook the following 5 dishes, Pho Bo, which is basically a Vietnamese beef noodle soup, which the Vietnamese tend to have for breakfast - Nem, Vietnamese spring rolls - Bun Cha , spicy meatballs with noodles and broth - Nom Du Du, which is a green papaya salad - Ca Phe Trung, which is traditional Vietnamese egg coffee, such a cool experience! The best thing is we ate it all after serving it.

- 15th of June, jeeej it's my birthday, and for everyone out there that knows me, this usually is paired with some decent food and probably a bit to much to drink, same this time around:) We started off with some coffee and cakes, went to a rooftop bar afterwards, and then to Duong's place which is supposedly one of Hanoi's best places to go, and ohh boy it did not disappoint. When we made reservations we briefly noted that it was my birthday, which no-one from the staff wrote this down or anything, so we kind of thought that they had forgotten, until all the lights in the restaurant went out.... Singing followed by a speech and 3 rounds of shots, what a cool surprise.  After the dust settled down , we asked our waitress Whiskey, where to go next, where she handed us a card with a name on it, an address and told us, she called ahead that we were coming...:) We arrive in this supertrendy cocktail bar, where the bartender salutes us, poors a round of the most incredible tasting shots, and cheers to my birthday, what a nice welcome:) after about 3 hours of hanging out with some of the best bartenders of Vietnam we later figure out, I get into a small altercation with some 50something Australian, he curses at me and leaves, he then comes back another 2 times whilst he left to apologize, after I politely decline his apology he leaves for good....now why would I blog about this, well because once we asked for the bill, the owner informed us that the Aussie just picked it up... what a nice birthday gift from a stranger. 

- Hanoi is just  all around a mega city as you would expect, you can go anywhere, do anything, and eat every meal, the coolest part is around the Hoan Kiem Lake, which is next to the Old Quarter, from Friday to Sunday all the streets are blocked off for traffic and massive amounts of people gather around the streets doing all sorts of activities, think skipping rope, weird walking challenges, selling chatchkies, and out of nowhere a group of people starting ball room dancing which was just super cool. You can see them on the pictures we took.

Whilst we are typing this up, we're on a plane landing in Bangkok, with a layover to got through to Chiang Mai which is in the north of Thailand. We have rented another apartment in supposedly the more hipster neighborhood of Chiang Mai, which has a pool, gym and sauna,  can't wait to get there. We've got some cool things planned there, so keep on reading the blog to be updated.. Thanks again for reading, hope we see each other soon.

Cheers, Nadine & Bas