smoked dog

Here's a little post for you foodies and dog lovers out there. Haskell and I began our day bit early and rather poorly yesterday by watching the Celtics lose game 5 of the finals. Of course this was a great opportunity to enjoy some sticky rice with grilled pork and start drinking tiger beer at 8AM, both of which I obviously highly recommend. The rest of the day was spent walking round Ha Noi's Old Quarter, enjoying all the sights and smells. After a quick bowl of pho ga and some more wandering, we went to a water puppet show, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like - puppets frolicking in water for 45 minutes. Wonderful. Afterwards we slowly made our way to Highway 4 for our "fancy meal" ($20 for two, including beers drinks :P), which ended up being a bunch of appetizers and beer - this is not a bad thing. In case the post title didn't tip you off, among other things, we had some smoked dog meat. Basically it tasted like ham - since it was smoked - and wasn't really weird in any way. Woof Woof. We also had some catfish rolls, spicy lime beef jerky and some chayote greens. All quite good, as were the Saigon and LaRue beers :) Our thirst not quite fully quenched yet, we finished our night at a Bia Hoi (draught beer) establishment, drinking 40 cent beers on 6" stools on the sidewalk. Nice.

Today we made our way towards Hoa Lo prison, which had been used as a prison during both the French Colonial period and the (American) Vietnam War. Very interesting and well put together exhibts which among many other things included John McCain's uniform which he had been captured in. Afterwards we went to Army Museum, with a variety of weapons and vehicles which had been used and captured during the many wars Viet Nam has been involved in the last 100 years and beyond. In between all this we ate more pho (of course), took a few rides on the back of xe om's (motorcycles), walked around the history museum and Ho Chi minh Mausoleum and stopped at a french cafe for coffee and cake. Not a bad day - and not quite done yet.

Tomorrow we head to Ha Long Bay for a three-day boat cruise which promises to include plenty of fun adventures on kayaks and lots of sea food. Very much looking forward to that. Anyways, here are the pictures from the last two days - enjoy!