Being Saturday meant that my wife's sister had some free time to spend with us, so we began our first serious quest of the trip: the search for the perfect bowl of Pho. Pho, pronounced roughly like "fuh" (or like the French, "feu", Pho with the long "o" would mean "road"), is a rich bouillon broth with rice noodles, scallions and sometimes other green veggies, cilantro and your choice of meat. Pho bo has beef, Pho ga has chicken. We visited a place called Pho Vuong. The soup was served with a wedge of lime and sliced hot peppers (similar to habanero), while on the side we had a choice of sauces -- vinegary orange hot sauce, and the extremely pungent and flavorful fish sauce. VERY yummy Pho.
Fish sauce is a matter of national pride in Vietnam, and Westerners are divided as to whether it is a lovely condiment or far too strong a substance to be allowed near the nose, let alone the stomach. I like it, but it is quite strong (it does not spoil) and there is no analog in any Western cuisine I have eaten. It is made by curing fish over along period of time, and its intense flavor is valued for how long it lasts. The novel I read recently, "Catfish and Mandala", tells of a boy in a Vietnamese village whose mother made a rice casserole with fish sauce for her son, and told him to make rice every day in the same casserole pot, and she would be back by the time the fish flavor had left the pot. She returned in two weeks, and there was still flavor left.
At the moment one US dollar is equivalent to about 16,000 Vietnamese Dong.
I am reminded of the old Italian Lira. Many restaurants, and all taxis ignore the last three digits. Meals are inexpensive, and tipping is not expected. We three each had a bowl of pho and a fresh squeezed juice each for a total of about $4.25. The places more foreigners frequent charge more, of course. We paid about $13 for our lovely meal at Hanoi Garden yesterday. Four pints of beer and spring rolls at a small pub (Sago) overlooking the old quarter from a second-floor balcony ran us $5.
A word about pollution -- yuck. When we disembarked at Hong Kong a couple days ago we caught that omnipresent Asian mix of petrochemicals wafting through the air, but it was only a hint of what was to come in Hanoi. Similar to Beijing, there's not much here in the way of pollution controls. Our guidebook puts the population of Vietnam at about 85 million with 10 million motorcycles, both mostly concentrated in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. That guide's information is about two years old. The population growth of Vietnam was just over 1% in 2007, but apparently automobiles have increased 3x from1990, and motorcycles closer to 10x. Breathing in rush-hour is quite the experience.
Sunday today, and the plan is to relax a bit, head to the gym, and plan the week ahead. There are a few good day trips and some a bit longer about the north. Ha Long Bay is a short trip, and Sapa a longer one. We'll see. Raining today. I think we'll have to find some bun cha (bbq pork and soup).
Web sites on Vietnam:
New Hanoian
Sticky Rice (mainly food!)
