sunday — spent an afternoon in chinatown and found these old school pins, including one from my secondary school…

edit / turns out this blog has gone past the one year mark… exactly one month ago. hooray!

day 7 of 7: we reach hanoi before dawn, took an hour’s nap and explored a little, somehow managing to spend all the money we had left…

after breakfast (tofu and fishcake with vermicelli, dipped in fish sauce) served by this sweet old lady, we headed for the ho chi minh mausoleum…

and then the ho chi minh museum, which had extremely odd exhibits. it was like a surrealist’s take on ho chi minh’s life story.

after running around in circles we sit down to sample some grade 1 weasel poo coffee. we bought some coffee back, but i’ve yet to replicate it perfectly.

couldn’t have asked for better weather or travel companions during these seven days, incessant snoring aside…

day 6 of 7: spent the day with two breakfasts, a motorbike ride through the mountains, buying some rice sacks and sandals at the market, a foot massage, lunch stretched out as long as possible, and tea at the same place where we had breakfast. walked all over the tiny town and chanced upon a creepy dog meat restaurant:

we had lunch somewhere else. good lunch!

we then took the bus back to lao cai, where we had some street food (which, i need to add, was the first time we ate on the street, on day 6) and then the overnight train back to hanoi. of course we ended up in the worst cabin with a child who cried whenever the train stopped…