Hanoi Mondays are not for tourists

We woke up at 7am this morning to the sounds of ....... a man with what sounded like a loud hailer and music. We think it came from a building that looks like a school nearby.
It wasn't so bad as we had fallen asleep fairly early last night watching a really crappy movie called "Identicals".
It's Dutch sci-fi stinker that rated quite well on a torrent site. You just can't trust torrent sites!

We had some breakfast, which for Tiz and I consisted of really quite good tasting Nescafe and a piece of toast made from "normal Vietnamese" sliced bread. I use the words "normal Vietnamese" to distinguish the local sweet cake like bread, which is similar to the American version, to our Australian bread.
Mind you, for brekky, with a coffee, it's not that bad.

We trawled through the list of places we should visit whilst in Hanoi but many of them were shown as closed on Mondays. They must be run by Greeks that used to own all the fish 'n' chip shops in Australia.
That thought explains a lot. Stay with me on this train of thought.
We all know that the fish 'n' chip shops in Australia used to be the exclusive domain of the Greeks.
Why? I have no idea. It was just the way it was.
Then, around the late '70's, which would coincide with the time that the Vietnamese that had escaped to Australia from the post war turmoil would have settled in and chosen the cash businesses that were worth getting into.
OK, so we know that the Greeks sold their fish 'n' chip shops to the Vietnamese but what did they do after stepping away from the fryers and the grill?
Are you still with me? I reckon they moved to Vietnam and took over the franchises for public attractions, but, given that the lifestyle runs deep, there was no way they were going to be open on a Monday.
If you think this is a far fetched theory on the closed on Monday policy please feel free to share your thoughts on the subject.

Oddly, we noticed that the Hoa Lo Prison was not closed. In fact it opens at 6am. Yes, 6am.
Why? Yet another case of "I've no idea."

If we went to the Hoa Lo Prison around mid morning we could wander over to the Hanoi Social Club for lunch.

The Hanoi Social Club was first brought to my attention by Nic Jacka as THE place to hang out.
I think he hung out there a lot. So much so I think he got to know John, the co-owner, very well.

After Nic settled back home in Oz, with his family, my daughter Georgia , who does things her own way, found the HSC and became "the girl that has taken over Nic's seat". It's a small world.

Georgia too found the HSC a great place to hang out and told us so.

We spent a while wandering around the prison, and found that some of the criticism on places like TripAdvisor. had some basis.
The main criticism, mainly from Americans, is that the Vietnamese government has a lot of Vietnamese biased propaganda in and on their displays.
This becomes evident when you compare the narrative of what the French, who actually built the prison in the mid 1800's, did to the them in this terrible place and how cruel they were.
When you move along to the section that displays the stuff about the American War, as it is known here in Vietnam, there are lots of pictures of Americans smiling, dressing Christmas trees, preparing relatively lavish meals etc. etc. Really?
You need to suspend any disbelief and walk away trusting that the French were cruel and demonic oppressors during their ~80 years of colonisation but the Vietnamese were kind and fair patriotic fighters during the ~10 years the Americans, and shamefully the Australians, blanket bombed and napalmed Vietnam.

Don't they say the first victim in war is the truth?

Cell Block D, including the open platform toilets at one end.

This is where and how the Vietnamese male prisoners were kept and treated by the French.

One of two guillotines used by by the French.

 

The womens cell block. No shackles. Luxury.

I enjoyed revisiting the prison and hope that Tiz and Emma got something from it too.

We walked for 10 minutes along wide footpaths, much to Tiz and Emma's pleasure to, get to the Hanoi Social Club.

I couldn't resist taking this shot on the way to the HSC.

This cafe has my initials AND it uses the racing number of St. Valentino!

It must be good ;-)

This is a Social Burger, with avocado and a poached egg, cooked medium.

Emma did not have this to eat. 

Emma chose pasta with lentil sauce. 

It looked really nice and Emma said it was just as great to eat.

This is "Cafe Trung", which I mispronounced so badly 

I thought they would call the police and have me arrested.

It is also referred to as "egg coffee".

An egg coffee (cà phê trứng) is a Vietnamese drink which is traditionally prepared with egg yolks, sugar, condensed milk and Robusta coffee. The drink is made by beating egg yolks with sugar and coffee, then extracting the coffee into the half of the cup, followed by a similar amount of egg cream, which is prepared by heating and beating the yolks. Egg coffee was described by BuzzFeedas a "liquid tiramisu".

In my world it's zabaglione with very strong espresso.

***

The experience was very "Brunswick" and the prices were comparatively similar too. 

........ by the by, $645,000 is actually VDN which converts to ~AU$40, which is quite expensive for Hanoi. To give them credit though, the meals and drinks are large and tasty.

The artwork was so Fitzroy grunge.

360 degree panorama shot from the 1st floor balcony of the Hanoi Social Club

Now that lunch had been thoroughly enjoyed we headed off to the Ho Chi Minh Museum, none the wiser as to what was as going to await us.

 

Here's Emma at the mausoleum.

I thought it was odd that there were no queues with hundreds of people long.

I wasn't yet aware of the Greeks running the place.

Obligatory flower shot.

Tiz loved them ..... no I can't remember what se said they were.

I thought they were nice too.

We're back at our apartment now and the hustle and bustle has increased in db quite a bit from yesterday. Thankfully we are so tired by the time we need to go to sleep we don't hear it. 

Tonight Georgia gets in from Ho Chi Minh City!!! Yay and woohoo! It's been too long.

More tomorrow folks .......