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| I first read about cà phê trứng on Eating Asia. Then Manisha reminded me about it. I love love love Vietnamese coffee, and I'm fond of eggnog, so something like a mix of the two sure sounded right up my alley. And right up an alley is where you'll find it in Hanoi. The Sergeant was a little concerned when I dragged him down this narrow passageway through a souvenir shop. Cafe Pho Co's faded sign out front is not obvious – I didn't even spot it until we were leaving. But the passage leads to a lovely, if dim, courtyard and an Escheresque series of stairways. |  |
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After four days in Saigon, we flew to Hanoi on JetStar, a budget airline that lives up to the designation. Our two-hour flight cost $60 each (versus $120 with Vietnam Airlines), but you have to be prepared for the flight to be delayed until they can get enough passengers for a full load.
Still, it beats 31 hours on the train. Our pilot might've been ex-air force; he took evasive maneuvers around a thunderstorm that pulled more G's than you'd expect in a passenger plane and made us wonder if we'd end up as a U.S news item: "Two American tourists killed in Vietnam crash."
We booked a room at the Hanoi Spring II Hotel on the recommendation of a friend, who said it was conveniently located close to the cathedral in the Old Quarter. Little did we realize how close until we opened the drapes in our room!
| We were on the third floor, with a balcony that wrapped around around the corner of the building. Below was a one-way street that was not heavily trafficked, with shops, hotels and restaurants on one side, and the wall of the cathedral grounds on the other. Built in 1886 by French colonists, Saint Joseph's Cathedral is the center of Catholic worship in the city. Mass is still held there daily, as evidenced by the loud ringing of the bells at 5 a.m. Still, that's much nicer than the incessant honking and early morning calisthenics programs outside our hotel in Saigon! |  |
Our room was nice, too, albeit somewhat crowded with two extra beds. There was some talk when we arrived about having been upgraded due to a large group booking the upper floors. I never saw the other rooms, but certainly most of them did not have our view – each floor had only one room facing the front, the building was so narrow. This seemed to be typical of many buildings in Vietnam, where property taxes are based on the amount of street frontage. 
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| The big bathroom had a walk-in shower and all the toiletries that seem standard in Vietnam's mid-range hotels: soap, shampoo, conditioner, ear swabs, shower cap, comb, toothbrush. |
It connects directly to the toilet fill hose and has pretty good pressure. In places where toilet paper is expensive, not available, or has a tendency to clog ancient plumbing, the bidet sprayer is a clever and hygienic option. We saw them in most public restrooms and even on the train. 
The cathedral is an oasis of calm in the old quarter, and certainly a helpful landmark. The little plaza in front of it is off-limits to cars and scooters, so kids can play there. We walked around the outside and admired the elaborate Gothic architecture. Really great patina on the stone.
The inside was pretty spectacular, too. 
There was a group of old parishioners – all women – near the front, chanting the rosary in Vietnamese. It sounded super-eerie. | One of the things I really wanted to do in Vietnam was try some cooking classes. The Lonely Planet guidebook listed one cooking school in Saigon, the Vietnam Cookery Centre. We signed up for an afternoon class and were the only students. Chef Bao, at right, was nominally our instructor, while Miss Linh, below, was more active in engaging us with translations of his instructions and monitoring our progress. |  |
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 | The menu included spring rolls with dipping sauce, sour clam soup, caramel pork in a clay pot, steamed coconut rice and steamed bananas in coconut milk. The fried spring rolls were wrapped in a kind of net rice paper I had never seen before, called banh trang re. It made for a much lighter roll. And so far I can't find it for sale in Denver or even online. That's a bummer. |
We each had our own work station, with most ingredients pre-chopped and/or pre-measured, so our cooking was mostly an assembly process. That seems to be a fairly standard cooking-school practice – it's an efficient way to demonstrate how a dish is put together without having to spend a lot of time mincing ingredients. | We got to pause halfway through to enjoy our spring rolls, which are typically eaten rolled up in a lettuce leaf along with some rice noodles and herbs, and dipped in fish sauce enhanced with lemon juice, sugar, garlic and chile. Then we cooked the rest of the dishes. |  |
The caramel pork was very rich and tasty, and was greatly enhanced by the rice that was steamed inside the coconut. The sour clam soup was interesting but probably not something I would make again. The bananas in coconut milk were made for us, as dessert. Delicious! 
In all, our experience was positive, despite some communication glitches. We were charmed by the classroom and by the sincerity of our teachers. They gave us each a certificate of accomplishment, a book of the recipes we made and some very pretty postcards as souvenirs. 
While in Saigon we visited the War Remnants Museum, which chronicles the atrocities of the American War, as it's called in Vietnam. The museum pulls no punches; graphic displays show just how horrible the war was for the Vietnamese, and continues to be, due to unexploded munitions and the lasting effects of Agent Orange. I'm glad we went, though. 
And I really appreciated the exhibition of work by photojournalists who died in the war, including Robert Capa and Sean Flynn. The exhibit, called Requiem, was curated by Tim Page. You can see some of those photos here (click on the "next page" button to view the photos, which also appear in the book Requiem). 
Because the Sergeant loves cars, we started our first full day in Saigon touring the city in a 1954 Citroen Traction-Avant. One of our first stops was the Reunification Palace. It used to be the presidential palace, until North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gate in 1975. It has since been preserved as a museum, and its meeting and banquet rooms are still used for ceremonial occasions.
... while I watched the traffic from the back seat. Never seen so many scooters in my life!
We drove all over Saigon, taking in the sights, and even stopped at a shop that sells old car parts, so the Sergeant could take photos. Our tour guide, a lovely young woman in a traditional ao dai, was a bit put out that we didn't want to stop and do some souvenir shopping, but you don't need an expensive antique vehicle to do that. 
I was glad to slurp down noodles and a couple glasses of Vietnamese iced coffee. Boy, is it good.
| And we really wanted to see Vietnam. Which we finally have. It's quite a long trip, via San Francisco and Taipei. We flew China Airlines and lucked out on the primo two-across seats at the back of the 747 (more room to stash your stuff and stretch your legs). I took Dramamine for its knock-out effect and slept much of the way. |  |
This is a green papaya salad. In the background are spring roll fixings. We love love love Vietnamese food. It's one of the main reasons we wanted to go there.  | K started us off right with Ngon, whose owner recruited some of the best street food vendors in the city and arranged them at stations around a central courtyard and hall. The menu is extensive, and you can wander around watching the food being prepared. Or just sit back and enjoy a beer, watermelon juice or iced coffee. |
We went back there again because the menu was so diverse, and the prices were really affordable. So I'll post some more photos later.
It's Stock Show time again, which means we've survived the holidays and can think about eating again. The Stock Show is mostly about meat, after all. We went to the rodeo on Friday, then wandered around the barns looking at cattle and sheep. That's a Hereford bull above, and a Jacob ram below. They're an heirloom breed (even biblical – hence the name) and can have up to six horns.
The sheep is standing on a grooming table with his head secured on a chin rest. Dog groomers use something similar, and I was tempted to tell the sheep groomers that I'd be back with poodles in tow.
I bathed both dogs and shaved Jackson's face a couple of weeks ago. He's cute with a fuzzy face, but it gets grungy-looking fast. He's much easier to clip than Sophie was and doesn't struggle or stick his tongue out.
When we got home, the Sergeant worked on garage projects and I filled the garden cart twice with detritus from the front garden. In another month the crocuses will be up!
Home Depot only had the industrial-sized kind used by tree services, and the cost was more than $100 a day. After I asked for advice on my gardening listserv, a member offered to sell us her 10hp model. She'd hardly used it, and stopped altogether once Boulder started a city composting program. 
This stuff will make great mulch and break down nicely. The shredder's chutes come off, so it won't be hard to store. 
