Last Day in Hanoi

I'm sick.

I get a sinus infection every time I travel, and at least once during the year. Luckily, I figure it out right away. Even more luckily, I've learned that if you walk into any pharmacy in any country, write down the word "amoxicillin" on a piece of paper, hand it to the pharmacist, they are more than happy to oblige. Vietnam is no different, and at a cost of 5o cents for a week's dosage, it makes me want to get about 10 for the next 5 years' worth of infections.
suddenly happy that I couldn't get last night's train out of Hanoi,

I decide the wise thing to do is rest, so I keep the hostel bed for another day, even though I am leaving tonight. At $7.50 a night decisions like these are easy.

Turns out I am a fast healer, so I don't use the dorm bed at all, but I decide to walk around Hanoi one more day.

I go to the highly recommended Cha Ca La Vong, #14 on the street of the same name, for a local specialty called Cha Ca. The woman at the restaurant brings you a sheet of paper that says "This restaurant only serves one dish: grilled fish. 90,000 Dong not including drink." This is a spurge at about $5. They bring you individual bowls of noodles, peanuts, fish sauce with chili, greens. Then they bring an individual hibachi with a pot of boiling seasoned oil on top, into which someone pours in a huge pile of greens, onions, dill.

He motions towards me what to do, but I missed it. I pour the noodles into the pot, and this young English boy yells out to him mom, "she's doing it wrong!" She's embarassed and he's now hiding his face and crying. I was thrilled, because I had a feeling I was totally doing it wrong, which I told him, but he wanted no more to do with me. So the woman continues to tell me that they put the fish on top and then I spoon it out onto the noodles. So I wait.

And wait.

They must have thought I was a total idiot.

The fish, already grilled and cut up, was already in the boiling oil. 1 point for the kid, 0 points for mom.

Anyway, it was delicious. Herby, oily, lemony, delicious.