day thirteen: 28 dec Hà Nôi to Sydney

What a trip! We managed to fit in so much and make enough time to relax and reflect on our holiday too - the people we met, the places of significance and the bonding of the family that happens when you travel together. 

Our final morning in Hà Nôi was merely enough time to pack our suitcases and hunt down a French patisserie we'd spotted from our cab the night before. Anh Hòa was a couple of blocks walk from the Golden Silk Boutique Hotel where we were staying and inside its doors were baguettes long and short, amazing cakes and mouth-watering pastries. We ordered a couple of pastries for morning tea and a couple of baguettes 'for the road' before heading across the street to a cafe J had noticed. 

 

Out on the street we ordered "Vietnamese coffee" which, I must tell you, is strong, dark and incredibly sweet. We asked for milk and it wasn't until the last mouthful that I understood where the sweetness had come from. When we ordered 'milk' we were asking for sweetened condensed milk. The coffee and pastries were still very pleasant and we were made to feel very welcome by the host,
N.M.Tri and his family.

Sticky-taped to a wall adjacent to Cafe 183A was this 'American dollar bill' which we assumed was another form of 'war propaganda.' N.M. explained that the cafe was popular with cyclists and it was a bike pump - not bomb pump as we'd thought. We remarked how easily, at times, you can make assumptions.

Within a day we were home again, in suburban Sydney. You know what it's like when you've had an amazing experience and you return to your routine life and you feel as though you've changed but nothing around you has?

The kids managed to get about four hours sleep on the overnight plane ride home. I had half an hour and J didn't sleep a wink. Jet lag caught up to us rapidly and we all slid into our own beds for a three hour sleep. Feeling somewhat revived I headed to our local Harris Farm markets to source some fresh ingredients for a Vietnamese chicken soup. Can you imagine my disappointment when there was no Vietnamese mint - and none in any of the supermarkets I tried over the following few days?!

I had to remind myself of our incredible country - a relatively high rate of employment; a good economy; access to world class education and health care; a melting pot of cultural diversity; some of the freshest, cleanest food in the world and of such a variety thanks to all our global influences, including Vietnam.

This was my lasting memory of Vietnam......

Anh Hòa bakery

Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi, 
Vietnam +84 93 650 52 99


Cafe 
183A Phung Hung,
Hoan Kiem Dist, Ha Noi